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Thesis

French

ID: <

10670/1.lwjvgu

>

Where these data come from
The issues at stake in the land investigation committees of 1929 and 1946-1947: the government of Nyasset between sovereignty and self-blind colonialist

Abstract

This work shows the power relations underlying the Nyass-Nyasa Inquiry Commissions in 1929 in North Nyasa District and in 1946-7 in the Shire High Shelf. The reports of these two surveys use the same vocabulary and type of public action: the government has to convert some privately owned land into native trust land or native reserve. In these documents, the objective of economic, social and territorial development, seen as necessarily framed by Europeans, and the confusion between land and land are colonialist loans. These investigations have a more or less limited impact depending on the number of actors involved in implementing the investigators’ recommendations and the interests of both. Thus, in 1936, the government did succeed in converting most of the land claimed by local populations into native trust lands in the North Nyasa district, which is peripheral: the British South Africa Company retains only its rights in the basement. On the contrary, in 1947-8 the government buys back only a small part of the land claimed by local populations in the Shire High Shelf, where there is a climate of anti-colonial rebellion. The Government cannot accept Sidney Abrahams’ requests but cannot refuse the requirements of the Colony Department either as a result of the obligation to deal with the various British companies that take over the Legislative Council. In both cases, it can be seen that the local populations to whom the government must appear to be legitimate are organised, and that strong economic actors are under pressure on the government of Nyasset, which has been caught.

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