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Entrepreneurs, investors and the state: the public and the private in sub-Saharan African irrigation development

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 13:25 authored by Elizabeth HarrisonElizabeth Harrison, Anna Mdee
This article draws on ethnographic research in Tanzania to interrogate the discourse of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in sub-Saharan irrigation development. It contrasts the complexity of social and political relations with narratives suggesting that ‘private’ is necessarily opposed and superior to ‘public’. We argue that support for models of private-sector development obscures access to and control over resources and can result in the dispossession of those least able to resist this. Different interests of ‘entrepreneurial’ individuals and corporate investors and the ways in which these relate to the state are also glossed over. Conversely, the failure of the ‘public’ cannot simply be read from the chequered histories of irrigation schemes within which public and private interests intersect in complex ways.

Funding

Innovations to Promote Growth among Small-scale Irrigators in Africa: An Ethnographic and Knowledge-Exchange Approach; G0983; ESRC-ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL; ES/J009415/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Third World Quarterly

ISSN

0143-6597

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

11

Volume

39

Page range

2126-2141

Department affiliated with

  • International Development Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Centre for Migration Research Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-05-22

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-05-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-05-21

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