Doctoral Dissertation Research: Recognizing Urban Space in Developing Places: Everyday Practices and Urban Farms in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, research on urban agriculture throughout Africa has confirmed its importance for the economies of individual families and the broader communities. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, approximately 40 percent of the population (about 1.4 million people) engage in some form of urban agriculture and produce about 50 percent of the food consumed within the city. Previous research has tended to focus on urban farming as a purely economic activity, but it has become increasingly important to examine the ways that people use their farms to create networks and promote social stability through interactions with other people and the land. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how urban farms in Dar es Salaam are constructed as distinct urban spaces, and it will explore the range of effects that they have on the lives and livelihoods of the people who depend on them. The doctoral student conducting this project will use a conceptual framework based in critical urban geography that challenges the developmentalist lens through which African cities often are assessed. This perspective will be combined with Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad to examine how urban farming spaces are negotiated and produced through farmers' everyday activities. Semi-structured interviews and mental mapping exercises with urban farmers, gardeners, and city planners will provide data on the ways urban farming is practiced and perceived by the state and farmers, how farmers negotiate within the urban framework, and how planners view urban agriculture as a hindrance to urban economic development. A photo voice project with selected farmers will use focus groups to examine images and purposes of activities that people engage in through their daily activities. The project will demonstrate the importance of examining both the social and economic uses of urban farming space in developing countries and its roles in providing livelihood security not found through in other urban venues. It should reveal the extent to which urban farming spaces provide many essential yet less obviously quantifiable benefits, such as the ways that people eat, drink, clean, socialize, play and celebrate in these spaces in ways that are made possible by the farming endeavor. Understanding the range of social and economic effects of urban agriculture on farmers will provide critical information for effective decision-making in cities struggling to incorporate urban agriculture into their planning policies. Because this project examines the role of urban farms as a response to situations in which the state and the traditional economy cannot effectively provide for its citizens, its results will have implications for zoning frameworks and public policy regarding urban farming that both need to incorporate the variety of ways people use urban farms to fulfill their economic and social livelihood needs. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.