ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 explores the creation of four other Mozambican settlements in southern Tanzania in the 1960s: Lundo, Matekwe, Mputa, and Muhukuru. While many scholars have been critical of “development” as a tool for African states and international aid agencies to impose top-down policies and projects on passive recipients or unsolicited bystanders, this chapter challenges that narrative by examining how state and non-state actors collaborated during decolonization to the benefit of citizens and refugees alike. Using archival materials from the Tanganyikan Christian Refugee Service (TCRS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as well as oral interviews, it argues that the Tanzanian state intentionally integrated Mozambican refugees into the state’s broader strategy of rural development. State and aid officials planned Mozambican refugee settlements by taking refugee perspectives and ideas into account. This chapter charts the opportunities afforded Mozambican refugees via adult education and professional development and examines how refugee labor transformed local environments—building roads, bridges, water wells, health clinics, schools—to the extent that many Tanzanian citizens moved into Mozambican refugee settlements to access these essential services.
