Development Personnel from FRG and GDR in Tansania and their Tansanian “Counterparts,” 1970-1990. Interactions and Transfers in the Context of System Competition (Working Title)

Eric Burton

The history of development work is part of a shared and intertwined global history that cannot easily be divided into donors and recipients, givers and takers, subjects and objects. The present project focusses on transfers and circulations in all directions, aiming to contribute to a critical understanding of agency of the professional actors involved in the development encounter between the three “worlds,” East, West and South. Two points of entry have been identified in the relevant literature. Firstly, the historiography of concrete practices of Western and Eastern development experts “in the field“ is still in its infancy. Secondly, agency and perspectives of counterparts and other qualified personnel of the global South and their interactions with “international” development experts have so far been understood only in very vague terms.

Tanzania, FRG, GDR – Complementary models of development?

Through Ujamaa, the Tanzanian model of development, the country’s first president Julius Nyerere envisaged a distinct African Socialism that found an extremely positive reception in a number of Western countries. The aim of self-reliance, which was in fact pursued through a strategy of attracting various donors throughout the world, also encompassed the objective to become independent of expatriate experts in state and economy. Young Tanzanians were trained in the country, but also overseas – e.g. in the two German states – to speed up the process of “Africanization.” At the same time, Germans from both sides of the border went to Tanzania to serve as advisors, experts and volunteers, equipped with their own backgrounds, ideas and agendas.

Experiences, Interactions and Conflicts on the Ground – in Tanzania and the two German States

The study is based on the analysis of experiences and narratives of members belonging to three heterogeneous groups: (1) Tanzanian students in the two German states, (2) German development personnel in Tanzania and (3) their Tanzanian counterparts and other qualified staff they interacted with. Research is guided by the following questions to shed more light on agency and interactions in these transnational practices: Which resources – forms of capital in the sense of Bourdieu – did the actors appropriate, which remained inaccessible or unattractive? Which tensions and conflicts arose and which strategies were used to resolve problems? How did the overarching concepts of development inform the practice, taking into account that the capitalist and socialist modes of development were to be realized in a country that could boast its own strategy?

Reconstruction of fields of agency

The analysis will not lead to an evaluation of development practices, but to a critical historical re-appraisal of fields of agency. Case studies comprise enquiries into the experiences of Tanzanian students in Germany as well as fields of action of German development practitioners, e.g. at the University of Dar es Salaam and in development projects in Tanga region. Besides archive materials from private and official archives in both Germany and Tanzania, qualitative interviews conducted with members of the focus groups constitute the major sources to allow for a reconstruction of fields of agency.

Research in Tanzania is being conducted with the kind assistance of the Department of History at the University of Dar es Salaam.