Grupos dinamizadores e autoridades tradicionais: o caso de Moatize, 1975-1992

Abstract

The liberalization of the economy in Mozambique made it necessary to reform land legislation, a process that was undertaken to secure land rights for both peasants and investors. It is in this context that in the post-apartheid period the governments of Mozambique and South Africa conceived the Mosagrius Development Program, which began in Niassa, with the establishment of South African and Mozambican farmers in a region where matrilineal and matrilineal organization predominates. where women enjoy considerable autonomy and power. The implementation of Mosagrius resulted in the non-involvement of women in this process as valid interlocutors, and in the delimitation of the communities' land "with a significant loss of natural resources in conditions that put the food security of the peasants at risk". In this study, it is argued that the legal reform was carried out using patrilineality, virilocality and the husband-headed household model as a reference model, ignoring the socio-cultural diversity existing in Mozambique. It also calls into question the possibility of reconciling some of the ideological premises underlying the Constitution with the adoption of neo-liberal economic policies; and attention is drawn to the mismatch between the objectives advocated in the development projects and their practical results.