Abstract
This thesis analyzes the circulation and the materialization of the discourse promoting the intensification of agricultural production and private investments in Africa to achieve food security and Development. It is based on the study of the agropolitical constellation, i.e. the set of actors interacting around the issue of agricultural production, in northern Mozambique. This thesis explores the transformation of spaces targeted by investments and of grey spaces, neglected by the agricultural policy, Development, as well as investment projects. Theoretical concepts from Geography, Political Agronomy, and Science and Technology Studies, are arrayed to analyze the knowledge and power relations, the ignorance, the manipulations, and the mechanisms of violence interacting over multiple scales and across different spaces. This work relies on the assumption that the productive logic of food security and Development is accompanied with various strategies aiming at the government of populations, the conquest of territories or the capture of resources. This thesis explores the manner in which the representations of agriculture are articulated to serve multiple stakes, the manner they contribute to power and knowledge asymmetries, as well as the processes by which they reshape rural spaces. This thesis investigates the circulation of agricultural representations in the agricultural policy and in several Development and investment projects targeting the Nacala corridor. It documents the gap separating these representations from those of the Makhuwa societies inhabiting the corridor. It sheds light on the mechanisms enabling their coexistence and their materialization. The grounded analysis of grey spaces and spaces targeted by investments reveals the manner the interactions between the discourse on agriculture, its materialization, and the economic and political context of northern Mozambique generate mechanisms of structural violence and a politicization of inhabitants. This inductive research is based on qualitative research methods: observations, semi-structured interviews, immersions in Makhuwa societies, and analysis of grey literature. It is based on field work totaling one year in northern Mozambique.