Journal of Humanities & Social Science (JHSS)

Operation Villagization and Its Implications for Wildlife Conservation in South-western Serengeti, Tanzania: The Case of Maswa Game Reserve, ca. 1970s–1980s

James Benedict Kuboja, Hezron Kangalawe — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Operation Villagization in Tanzania attracted the attention of many scholars, including
historians, inside and outside the country. This is because it is one of the major
policies in the history of Tanzania that affected many sectors. Despite the extensive
scope of these studies, minimal attention has been devoted to exploring the
connections between this operation and wildlife conservation. The current article
uses the case of the Maswa Game Reserve (MGR) to examine the extent to which the
operation affected wildlife resources conservation. In essence, it argues that poor
implementation of the operation led to enormous encroachments in the MGR, which
in turn reduced its size by more than 15 percent following several realignments of its
western boundary. This led to loss of wildlife habitats and dispersal areas for both
residents and migratory ungulates. Moreover, the operation led to a significant loss
of wild animals in both the MGR and the Serengeti National Park owing to increased
organised poaching activities, and the commercialisation of game meat.

(Received: 19 January 2024; Accepted: 6 April 2024; Revised: 25 April 2024)

Distinguishing Criteria for Compound Nouns and Noun Phrases in Kiswahili

Faraja Mwendamseke — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

Compound nouns and noun phrases tend to confuse because some of the principles
governing the formation of the two nominal forms are interrelated. For example,
both are made up of two or more words with the main word governing the
compound or phrase. Linguists use various criteria to distinguish a compound noun
from a noun phrase, including prosody, meaning, lexical cohesion, and
orthography. However, these criteria still present difficulty distinguishing a
compound noun from a noun phrase. For instance, it is difficult to tell whether the
words soko dogo ‘small market’ constitute a compound noun or a noun phrase. This
is because it is not clear as to which criteria really distinguish a compound noun
from a noun phrase. This article explores the criteria that can distinguish a
compound noun from a noun phrase without any ambiguity in Kiswahili language.
It is revealed that most words do not fit in the meaning criterion, stress criterion
or orthography. The lexical cohesion criterion looks better because many words fit
in it. However, some words do not fit all the criteria due to historical changes in
the language that have caused changes in structure and meaning.
Key words: criteria, prosody

The Socio-economic Dynamics Limiting Actions to Combat Child Labour in Tanzania: The Case of Small-Scale Gold Mining Communities in Tabora Region

Elliott P. Niboye — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

This article is based on a study that sought to establish the dynamics that limit actions
to combat child labour in small-scale gold mining communities in Tanzania. A
qualitative research approach was used to gain a nuanced understanding of the
contextual dynamics that limit actions to combat child labour. Other relevant data
were sourced from grey literature. Thematic analysis of the collected qualitative data
established that the factors limiting actions to combat child labour in small-scale gold
mining communities emanate from both household settings and the community at
large. The study results revealed several factors that constrain efforts to combat child
labour in small-scale gold mining communities. The factors include: wrong perception
of communities towards child labour; inadequate parental care; child-headed
households valuing small-scale gold mining activities as the major source of income;
valuing children’s contribution to the economic well-being of households; the
tendency of children adopting their parents’ mining occupation; undervaluing of
children’s formal education; and high expectations of becoming rich through mining
activities. To curtail child labour in small-scale gold mining communities, there needs
to be efforts to address this problem right from the top tier of the government
governance to the community level. Policy and legal frameworks against child labour
should be enforced, small-scale gold miners should be given specialised training on
modern gold mining techniques that are not labour-intensive, and the competent
authorities should raise awareness at the community level on the importance and
benefits of schooling and children’s education. Also, further research should be carried
to establish new strategies for monitoring and controlling child labour in small-scale
gold mining communities by taking cognizance of the prevailing socio-economic
factors that undermine the current efforts to curtail child labour in the sector.

The Indigenization of Tobacco Farming and Its Challenges in Iringa District: 1960s–1980s

Emmanuel John Kihongo — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

This paper is about the politics of indigenizing tobacco farming and the challenges
associated with it during the post-colonial era. It examines the initiatives of
government in facilitating the process, and how the bodies entrusted to ensure its
implementation failed to achieve the intended goal. Tobacco farming in Africa and
Tanzania has a complex history. Since this crop is essentially labour- and capital-
intensive, its beginning in colonial Tanganyika, and Iringa in particular, was dominated
by settler farmers. The paper progressively narrates this history, especially on how it
became a popular crop among indigenous smallholders in Iringa from 1961. It traces
the practice during the colonial time when policies allowed only Greek settlers in
Iringa to be involved in tobacco farming, while the indigenous were prohibited from
growing it on some grounds, including the fear of competition. The article describes
the transformation: how Africans indigenized the crop, while also battling the
turbulence of prices, labour issues and changing times in colonial and post-colonial
Tanganyika. Based on archival, oral accounts, and documentary sources the paper
unravels the institutions that supported the production and marketing of tobacco in
Iringa. By engaging the question of the indigenization of tobacco in Iringa, it
interrogates the nexus between the processes of Africanizing tobacco growing within
the complex capitalist economy of pricing and national economic priorities. The paper
concludes by asserting that although the government supported and financed
indigenous smallholders in Iringa in tobacco farming, the bodies entrusted to foresee
its operation failed to fulfil the goal as anticipated by farmers.

Men and Women in Uniform: Insiders’ Perspectives on Women’s Leadership Status in Tanzania People’s Defence Forces

Martin Mujuni, Edwin Babeiya — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

This paper examines the leadership status of women in the Tanzania People’s Defence
Forces (TPDF). It was guided by three specific objectives: to understand the position
of women’s leadership role; identify the challenges constraining women from holding
leadership positions; and to examine the measures being taken to enable women hold
leadership positions in the TPDF. It collected opinions from the research participants
serving—or who served—in the military regarding the position of women as leaders.
The study leading to the paper employed a qualitative research approach to collect
data from 22 purposively selected respondents. The study found that women hold low
leadership status within the TPDF as the majority of senior leadership positions are
predominantly held by men. The findings further showed that while some measures
have been taken to uplift women’s careers in the military, there are contextual and
cultural barriers that still constrain them from holding senior leadership positions.
Contextually, there is a laxity in underscoring gender mainstreaming despite the
institutional initiatives to address gender diversity gaps in the TPDF. Culturally, there
are still uncertainties over the position that women should occupy in the military. A
long history of presenting the military as a male career still discourages a significant
gender transformation in the military, thereby engendering the adoption of an
incremental approach to women’s acquisition of leadership roles in the TPDF. Thus,
to effectively coordinate women’s empowerment initiatives in the military, the study
recommends the formulation of a gender policy for the armed forces.

Thinking like Nyerere’: Authority Argumentation by Quotation in Tanzanian Parliamentary Discourse

Brighton Msagalla — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

This article examines the manner in which members of parliament (MPs) from one
political group in Tanzania appeal to the figure of Mwalimu Nyerere through
quotations to back up what they are themselves saying, or attack the political actions
of other groups during parliamentary debates. The analysed instances of parliamentary
quotations are presented in extracts, which are sourced from two parliamentary
debates on the annual ministerial budget speeches by the then Minister for Labour
and Employment, and the Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children
in the 2015/16 fiscal year. The research data were collected from the website of the
Tanzanian parliament as online Hansard transcripts. The MPs’ authority arguments by
quotation are analysed from the perspective of pragma-dialectics to establish their
effectiveness and reasonableness. The findings indicate that the MPs from one political
group cite specific voices of Mwalimu Nyerere to suggest that they think like him, or
follow his footsteps; while those from the other political groups do not. The findings
further suggest that, while some of such arguments could be considered reasonable,
others do not satisfy the dialectical goal of reasonableness, although they seem to be
effective. The analysis of authority argumentation by quotation in the Tanzanian
parliament is significant for developing research interests in African parliamentary
discourse, and it contributes to the pragma-dialectical research on parliamentary
argumentation in Africa. Thus, it benefits researchers in African parliamentary
discourse, argumentation theory, discourse studies, and other related fields. Further
research can investigate other salient features of African parliamentary or political
discourse, including the role of metaphor and other figurative expressions in
influencing political decisions that influence the electorate.

Operation Kihamo: Sleeping Sickness Control and the Agrarian Question of the Kilombero Valley, 1940s–1961

Geofrey Emmanuel Ntobi, Maxmillian Julius Chuhila — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0300

In the aftermath of the WWII, some historians have typified the post-war period as
akin to a second colonial occupation, characterised by ambitious development
initiatives. These initiatives, influenced in part by the aftermath of the war, were
also driven by government efforts to stimulate rural economic activity. Using the
example of sleeping sickness control in the Kilombero Valley as a case study of a
rural intervention, this paper examines how such campaigns were emblematic of
an underlying development agenda in the region. Drawing on empirical evidence
from archival research and fieldwork in the valley, we argue that government
interventions in sleeping sickness control went beyond mere eradication efforts.
Instead, the colonial administration used the epidemic as a pretext to enforce
stringent control measures and implement transformative rural development
programmes aimed at modernising the agricultural sector. These initiatives
included the establishment of concentrated settlements, the improvement of
farming practices among rural peasants, and the introduction of new crops and
mandatory cultivation of some selected subsistence and commercial crops.
Generally, sleeping sickness control campaigns were used as a caveat to implement
both overt and covert development objectives.