IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i9p3123-d167113.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Urbanization on Occupied Land? The Politics of Infrastructure Development and Resettlement in Beira City, Mozambique

Author

Listed:
  • Murtah Shannon

    (Department of Human Geography and Planning, University of Utrecht, 3584CB Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Kei Otsuki

    (Department of Human Geography and Planning, University of Utrecht, 3584CB Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Annelies Zoomers

    (Department of Human Geography and Planning, University of Utrecht, 3584CB Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Mayke Kaag

    (African Studies Centre, 2300RB Leiden, The Netherlands)

Abstract

With this article we contribute to debates on urban land governance and sustainable urban development in Africa by providing an empirical analysis of forced displacement and resettlement associated with infrastructure development in Beira city, Mozambique. In recent years Beira has become the recipient of numerous investment flows targeting the built environment by a range of international investors. By analyzing the micropolitical engagements associated with three different infrastructure projects, based on extensive qualitative interviews, observations, and document analysis, we demonstrate how each intervention has been associated with highly informal and divergent processes of forced displacement and resettlement. We argue that these land related impacts have been annexed from debates on sustainable infrastructure development, and that they exhibit some fundamental differences from established resettlement research. We conclude by arguing that forced displacement and resettlement should be understood as a deliberate and systematic feature of urban infrastructure development, through which new social-spatial arrangements are created. This ultimately points to the emergence of a novel mode of fragmented urbanism within the context of urban development in Africa which poses new challenges to urban sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Murtah Shannon & Kei Otsuki & Annelies Zoomers & Mayke Kaag, 2018. "Sustainable Urbanization on Occupied Land? The Politics of Infrastructure Development and Resettlement in Beira City, Mozambique," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:9:p:3123-:d:167113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/3123/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/9/3123/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wendy Wolford & Saturnino M. Borras Jr. & Ruth Hall & Ian Scoones & Ben White & Madeleine Fairbairn, 2013. "Indirect Dispossession: Domestic Power Imbalances and Foreign Access to Land in Mozambique," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 44(2), pages 335-356, March.
    2. Susan Parnell & Edgar Pieterse, 2016. "Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 236-246, January.
    3. Alex Shankland & Raul Chambote, 2011. "Prioritising PPCR Investments in Mozambique: The Politics of ‘Country Ownership’ and ‘Stakeholder Participation’," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 62-69, May.
    4. Kathryn Davidson & Brendan Gleeson, 2014. "The Sustainability of an Entrepreneurial City?," International Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 173-191, May.
    5. Siti Nuryanah & Sardar M. N. Islam, 2015. "The Context of the Case Study," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Corporate Governance and Financial Management, chapter 5, pages 145-156, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Joseph Hanlon, 2017. "Following the donor-designed path to Mozambique’s US$2.2 billion secret debt deal," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 753-770, March.
    7. Lucy Earle, 2014. "Stepping out of the Twilight? Assessing the Governance Implications of Land Titling and Regularization Programmes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 628-645, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Annelies (E.B.) Zoomers, 2018. "Development at the Crossroads of Capital Flows and Migration: Leaving No One Behind?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Murtah Shannon, 2019. "Who Controls the City in the Global Urban Era? Mapping the Dimensions of Urban Geopolitics in Beira City, Mozambique," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, February.
    3. Liangzhen Zang & Yiqing Su, 2019. "Internal Coordinated Development of China’s Urbanization and Its Spatiotemporal Evolution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, January.
    4. Almeida, Bernardo & Jacobs, Carolien, 2022. "Land expropriation – The hidden danger of climate change response in Mozambique," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    5. Yulong Luo & Can Wang & Chen Chen & Kangle Ding & Weiliang Zeng, 2021. "Total Investment in Fixed Assets and the Later Stage of Urbanization: A Case Study of Shanghai," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-29, March.
    6. Adewunmi, Yewande & Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene & Mwando, Sam & Kahireke, Uaurika, 2023. "Entrepreneurship role in the co-production of public services in informal settlements − A scoping review," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Murtah Shannon, 2019. "Who Controls the City in the Global Urban Era? Mapping the Dimensions of Urban Geopolitics in Beira City, Mozambique," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Sawssen Khlifi & Ghazi Zouari, 2021. "The Impact of CEO Overconfidence on Real Earnings Management: Evidence from M&A Transactions," Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 402-424, September.
    3. Gabriella Y. Carolini, 2021. "Aid’s urban footprint and its implications for local inequality and governance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 389-409, March.
    4. Valentin-Marian Antohi & Monica Laura Zlati & Romeo Victor Ionescu & Mihaela Neculita & Raluca Rusu & Aurelian Constantin, 2020. "Attracting European Funds in the Romanian Economy and Leverage Points for Securing their Sustainable Management: A Critical Auditing Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-27, July.
    5. Carmenta, Rachel & Cammelli, Federico & Dressler, Wolfram & Verbicaro, Camila & Zaehringer, Julie G., 2021. "Between a rock and a hard place: The burdens of uncontrolled fire for smallholders across the tropics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    6. Dai, Jiangyu & Wu, Shiqiang & Han, Guoyi & Weinberg, Josh & Xie, Xinghua & Wu, Xiufeng & Song, Xingqiang & Jia, Benyou & Xue, Wanyun & Yang, Qianqian, 2018. "Water-energy nexus: A review of methods and tools for macro-assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 393-408.
    7. Anne Ventura & Van‐Loc Ta & Tristan Senga Kiessé & Stéphanie Bonnet, 2021. "Design of concrete : Setting a new basis for improving both durability and environmental performance," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(1), pages 233-247, February.
    8. Boris Rumanko & Zuzana Lušňáková & Monika Moravanská & Mária Šajbidorová, 2021. "Succession as a Risk Process in the Survival of a Family Business—Case of Slovakia," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-20, September.
    9. Kong, Ling & Wang, Dongbo, 2020. "Comparison of citations and attention of cover and non-cover papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    10. Laura DIACONU (MAXIM), 2021. "The behaviour of airlines’ passengers in the context of COVID-19 pandemic," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 13(2), pages 230-242, July.
    11. Monica Laura ZLATI & Cristian MIRICA, 2021. "Biological Assets Accounting In The Agricultural Sector," European Journal of Accounting, Finance & Business, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania - Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, West University of Timisoara, Romania - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 15(25), pages 1-7, February.
    12. Andrej Kastrin & Janez Povh & Lidija Zadnik Stirn & Janez Žerovnik, 2021. "Methodologies and applications for resilient global development from the aspect of SDI-SOR special issues of CJOR," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 29(3), pages 773-790, September.
    13. Ionel Bostan & Ionela-Corina Chersan & Magdalena Danileț & Mihaela Ifrim & Viorica Chirilă, 2020. "Investigations Regarding the Linguistic Register Used by Managers to Convey to Stakeholders a Positive View of Their Company, in the Context of the Business Sustainability Desideratum," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Raymond B. Frempong & David Stadelmann, 2017. "Does Female Education have a Bargaining Effect on Household Welfare? Evidence from Ghana and Uganda," CREMA Working Paper Series 2017-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    15. Eve Bratman & Ted Auch & Bryan Stinchfield, 2022. "The Fracking Frontier in the United States: A Case Study of Foreign Investment, Civil Liberties and Land Ethics in the Shale Industry," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(3), pages 469-494, May.
    16. Woods, Kevin M., 2020. "Smaller-scale land grabs and accumulation from below: Violence, coercion and consent in spatially uneven agrarian change in Shan State, Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Michela Floris & Angela Dettori & Cinzia Dessi, 2021. "Handling Innovation in Small Family Firms: The Role of Context," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(5), pages 1-60, July.
    18. Lechenet, Martin & Makowski, David & Py, Guillaume & Munier-Jolain, Nicolas, 2016. "Profiling farming management strategies with contrasting pesticide use in France," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 40-53.
    19. Lawrence Collins Kihamaiso Mwebesa & Catherine Kansiime & Benon B. Asiimwe & Paddy Mugambe & Innocent B. Rwego, 2018. "The Effect of Financial Record Keeping on Financial Performance of Development Groups in Rural Areas of Western Uganda," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(4), pages 136-145, April.
    20. Clara Bermudez-Tamayo & Stéphane Besançon & Mira Johri & Sidibe Assa & Jonathan Betz Brown & Kaushik Ramaiya, 2017. "Direct and indirect costs of diabetes mellitus in Mali: A case-control study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-14, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:9:p:3123-:d:167113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.