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Land Reform or Continued Social Exclusion? Land Occupations, State Responses and Neoliberal Policies in Southern Malawi

In: Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Justin Alinafe Mangulama

    (China Agricultural University
    The Catholic University of Malawi)

  • Jin Wu

    (China Agricultural University)

Abstract

The last five decades have witnessed an increasing number of peasants encroaching onto idle tea estate land in Thyolo district, in southern Malawi. In drawing upon a study of this district, this chapter argues that state responses to land occupations remain contradictory. Malawi’s 2002 land policy advocates for redistributive land reform. At the same time, however, the state has actively promoted the Malawi Investment Policy, which encourages land expropriation for foreign capital. Repressive measures that include policing, punitive fines and arrests of peasants, stirred the land occupations further, rather than inhibiting them. The state remains in a dilemma, whether to optimise local votes from the peasants or side with white agrarian bourgeois interests for capital accumulation via a rent scheme. The chapter points to the tension-riddled character of neoliberealism, as shown through accumulation at one pole and impoverishment of the majority at the other pole.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin Alinafe Mangulama & Jin Wu, 2022. "Land Reform or Continued Social Exclusion? Land Occupations, State Responses and Neoliberal Policies in Southern Malawi," Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, in: Freedom Mazwi & George Tonderai Mudimu & Kirk Helliker (ed.), Capital Penetration and the Peasantry in Southern and Eastern Africa, pages 101-116, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-030-89824-3_5
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-89824-3_5
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