Land is an important asset by both rural and urban residents. It provides opportunities for various development options in almost all spheres of life. In this case, land tenure foregrounds how particular pieces of land are utilised and developed different from others. This paper traces and discusses the social, cultural and economic constructions of two major land tenure systems; kihamba and shamba, that exist on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The paper shows that the tenure system on the slopes of the mountain influences the socio-cultural and economic affiliations of the Chagga and determines agricultural land uses. Agricultural and other economic activities on the kihamba and shamba reflect both tenure types and the socio-cultural constructions of the environment. The highlands and lowlands are historically perceived to serve different yet related functions to the people. More discussion will be on the kihamba tenure system because it roots deeper into earlier settlements on the slopes than the recent shamba system that started in the 1950s. This paper is based on a research work that included review of archival sources, fieldwork interviews conducted on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and various secondary sources. The available evidence helps to argue that the nature of settlement and agro-practices on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro is not only determined by the provisions of the physical landscapes rather it results from a combination of factors. The paper examines how economic imperatives, coupled with the social construction of the physical space, influence patterns and nature of agrarian land use.

This issue inaugurates the First Book Symposium as a feature in the pages of Social Analysis. Instead of including ourselves among the journals that devote a section to book reviews in their regular issues, as we have done for many years, we feel that a more focused approach is better suited to our goal of exploring the potentials of anthropological analysis. Adopting from other journals the format of the book symposium, in which a single book is subjected to sustained critical engagement by relevant scholars, we devote it in particular to discussion of books by first-time authors. Our aim is, on the one hand, to give a platform to scholars who are not already widely known and established and, on the other, to acquaint our readers with ideas and analytical approaches that are fresh.Knut Christian Myhre, Returning Life: Language, Life Force and History in Kilimanjaro (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018), 336 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. eBook. eISBN 9781785336669.

Leander Schneider. Government of Development: Peasants and Politicians in Postcolonial Tanzania. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014.

In central southern Tanzania, the Kilombero Valley is a potential economic zone. Villagers in this area have witnessed the changing landscape of development efforts from colonial to postcolonial times. Kilombero's development story is one of government initiatives as well as local people's processes shaped by environmental and policy factors. This study explains how development was conceived, implemented, and impacted the valley's production and land use systems. We indicate that distinct circumstances resulted in different outcomes when Ujamaa was implemented. The paper uses the cases of Msolwa and Signali to show how the two communities stood out as success stories amid a larger concern about Ujamaa's ineffectiveness not only in the valley, but also in Tanzania as a whole. This research examines the dynamics of development initiatives in Msolwa and Signali villages using archival and oral sources.

This paper provides an analysis of recent past and current trends in the production and use of African historiography, viewing the changing dynamics and progress of this discipline as products of the politics of knowledge production in the wider domain of African studies throughout the late post-colonial era. On the one hand, we should not encourage radical separatist manifestos preventing non-African historians from writing about the continent. However, there is an urgent need to review the stark imbalances that have resulted in a steadily decreasing participation of African based scholars in the current production and use of historical knowledge. Despite the growing number of institutions of higher learning, and the increasing percentages of African-born and bred scholars that are employed on the continent, the dependency still remains upon foreign powerhouses to deliver definitive African historical narratives and paradigms from outside Africa: in America, the Caribbean, Europe, and more recently in Asia. Because of this, we continue to consume more knowledge from outside than we can export; thereby we fail to be influencing the world with knowledge about Africa produced from within the continent. It remains difficult for participants from within the African continent to control any of the politicised processes of knowledge production; and unfortunately, there appears little that can be done to reverse this situation at the present time.