Administrative Boundaries and Manifestations of Conflict between Pastoralists and Peasants in Kiteto District, Northern Tanzania, 1970 to 2016

After her independence in 1961, the new government of Tanganyika (now called Mainland Tanzania) embarked on the establishment of new administrative units, namely regions, districts, wards, villages, and hamlets as well as establishing political and administrative boundaries. The government expected that local communities would peacefully utilize the existing resources within the respective administrative units. Contrary to that, the newly established administrative units and their respective boundaries caused conflicts in different parts of Mainland Tanzania. The reviewed literature suggests that conflicts emerged over pieces of land that separated the borders and ethnically created boundaries. Using archival sources, interviews, newspapers and documentary reviews, this paper argues that boundary conflicts between peasants and pastoralists in Kiteto District were caused by political and administrative decisions of the post-colonial government which ignored the traditional land administrative units and boundaries. The new boundaries were set up for political interests; they ignored traditional boundary settings and violated land laws and procedures during the installation of the boundary marks. The paper is thought to be significant as it contributes to the existing scholarship on border disputes.