Seeing the state through plans and maps

For several years now, Village Land Use Plans have been promoted in Tanzania as a “best practice” for so-called responsible approaches to investment in farmland. This paper studies VLUPs as a policy instrument representing the ideas and interests of various stakeholders. It offers a socio-historical analysis of land use planning instruments in Tanzania and thereby demonstrates that these tools reveal different moments and facets of state formation in Tanzania. On the one hand, the reframing and redefinition of land use planning tools adopted since the country’s independence reflect the transition from a socialist and centralist political regime toward the liberal era marked by an adherence to free-market principles. On the other hand, the making of VLUPs in the context of land-based investment projects since the 2010s offers insights into new forms of state making at the infra-national level in a context of extraversion.