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NATIONAL AND GLOBAL: A HISTORY OF SCHOLARS’
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NATIONAL AND GLOBAL: A HISTORY OF SCHOLARS’ EXPERIENCES WITH
RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA
(1 961 -present)
By

Amy J. Jamison

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Educational Policy

2010

ABSTRACT
NATIONAL AND GLOBAL: A HISTORY OF SCHOLARS’ EXPERIENCES WITH
RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA
(1 961 -present)
By
Amy J. Jamison

In this dissertation, I draw on research carried out at the University of Dar es
Salaam (UDSM), Tanzania in 2008 to examine Tanzanian academics’ experience with
research throughout the history of this institution. This dissertation is designed as an
historical case study and investigates how economic and political changes in Tanzania’s
post-independence history have affected Tanzanian intellectuals and their ability to
produce both nationally and globally relevant knowledge. African intellectuals, while a
part of a larger academic community, have also expressed a specific and keen
responsibility to the development of their post-independence societies. The objective of
this research is to understand how Tanzanian scholars at UDSM have situated themselves
in terms of broader ideas about the role of African intellectuals in their own societies as
well as in the global community of academe.

Due to the unique course that the country followed after achieving independence,
as well as the role its charismatic first president, Julius K. Nyerere, took in implementing
a highly ideological framework for national development, Tanzanian academics and the
University of Dar es Salaam make a particularly interesting case to examine. This study
addresses the question: What happens when a distinctly national university formed within

a clearly articulated post-colonial socialist vision intersects with liberal market reforms?

It traces the tension that academics at the University of Dar es Salaam have felt between a

commitment to national development and a commitment to participation in a global
community of scholars. During the early years of the university, I contend, global
ideologies and a commitment to national development converged, meaning that UDSM
scholars were able to simultaneously contribute significantly to the global debates on
socialism and to national development in Tanzania. However, with structural adjustment
and drastic changes to the country’s political and economic situation, as well as other
shifts on a global level, the ideologies that Tanzanian scholars had supported were
marginalized in some cases and the University’s ability to determine research priorities
was significantly impacted. In the end, this is the story of one research institution’s

continued battle for social, political, and economic relevance.

C0pyright by
AMY J. JAMISON
2010

To Dad and Sally, Mom and Brian, for believing in me and encouraging me to follow my
own path. And to Aunt Jan, for being my inspiration and my biggest cheerleader.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to a great many people and organizations without whom this
dissertation would not have been possible. My committee provided a tremendous amount
of support and guidance throughout the process. Dr. Reitumetse Mabokela, my advisor
and chair, has been a mentor and role model. She kept me focused and motivated, at
times when I was not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am deeply
appreciative of her insight, her feedback, and her patience. Dr. James Fairweather’s
advice and critique were essential in shaping my writing and helping me to look at my
research in new and interesting ways. Dr. John Metzler has been a friend and an advisor
since before my time at Michigan State. My conversations with him have been
inspirational, and his support of my work has meant much to me. Dr. Kristin Phillips’
knowledge of Tanzania and incredible insight provided key intellectual and personal
guidance throughout the course of writing this dissertation.

My time at Michigan State was funded by a Dean’s Scholar fellowship, and the
final write-up of the dissertation was supported by an MSU Dissertation Completion
award. My field research was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation
Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship. I am grateful to several offices in the College of
Education and International Studies and Programs that hired me while in graduate school:
the Education Policy Center, the Center for Higher and Adult Education, the Institute for
Research on Teaching and Learning, the Afiican Studies Center, and the Center for

Advanced Study of International Development. I especially would like to thank Dr.

vi

Michael Sedlak, Dr. Sharif Shakrani, Dr. Jack Schwille, and Dr. Marcy Wallace. Their
advice and support has been invaluable.

This research would not have been possible without the extraordinary hospitality
that I was shown in Tanzania and at the University of Dar es Salaam. The Department of
History served as my host and my home away from home. Particular thanks goes to Dr.
Bertram Mapunda who served as my advisor, Dr. Frederick Kaijage who gave me
guidance and showed me incredible generosity, and Dr. Yusuf Lawi who took time to
help me navigate the university. I also want to thank Samuel Mhajida, Beatrice Lubuva,
and Musa Sadock. I am grateful to the academic staff of the Institute of Development
Studies, Department of Fine and Performing Arts, and the Zoology Department for
sharing their research and stories with me. The Research and Publications Directorate, the
Links Office and the Records Office were all extremely welcoming and helpful. A special
thank you goes to Dennis Tessier for helping me maintain a sense of humor, Alisa Alano
for all of her help and support, and Meghan Halley for always being there.

Finally, my fi‘iend and family served as a source of unwavering support and love.
Thank you to Marita, Andrea, Gretchen, and Jim who were in the trenches with me and
got me through this process. Thank you to my friends who called to check in and kept me
motivated with words of love and encouragement. I would like to acknowledge my
parents Marilyn, Duane, Sally, and Brian, and my siblings, Christopher, Allison, J arod,
Brian, and Nick. A special thank you goes to my aunt and uncle, Dr. Janet Alleman and
George Trumbull. It was George who took me to Tanzania for the first time, and Jan who
inspired me to pursue a life in academia. They encouraged me to travel and to always

stay curious, which have been two of the most important lessons of my life.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1
Research Questions ............................................................................................... 6
Research and Knowledge Production ................................................................... 8
Conceptions of Global and Local ........................................................................ 11
EStirrirriztrjy ............................................................................................................. ‘155

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 17
African University Systems: External Models and National Relevance ........... 17
The University of Dar es Salaam in National and International Context ........... 30
Scholarship in the Developing World and African Intellectuals ........................ 37
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 45

CHAPTER 3

METHODS ..................................................................................................................... 47
Research Design .................................................................................................. 47
Oral Histories ...................................................................................................... 51
Selection of Participants ..................................................................................... 53
Interview Structure .............................................................................................. 55
Participant-Observation ...................................................................................... 59
Written Sources ................................................................................................... 61
Analysis ............................................................................................................... 63
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 67

CHAPTER 4

THE EARLY YEARS AT UDSM (1961-1979) ............................................................ 69
Establishing the University College, Dar es Salaam: 1961-1967 ...................... 71
The Arusha Declaration and the Socialist Period: 1967-1979 ........................... 85
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ l 08

CHAPTER 5

TRANSITION AT UDSM (1979-1994) ....................................................................... 111
The Beginnings of Financial Decline: 1979-1985 ........................................... 112
Economic Transition: 1985-1992 .................................................................... 122
Democratization and Institutional Transformation: 1992-1994 ...................... 135
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ l 43

viii

CHAPTER 6

NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND GLOBAL SCHOLARSHIP .............................. 147
Influences on Academics’ Research Agendas .................................................. 148
Generational Shifts at UDSM ........................................................................... 175
Valued Knowledge ............................................................................................ 185
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 1 90

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 191
Overview of Major Findings ............................................................................. 191
Implications and Future Research ..................................................................... 194

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 1 98

ix

Chapter One:
Introduction

In our situation, given the nature of the problems facing the mass of the people in

our society, an intellectual must have a social and historical context. He or she

cannot be just a free floating individual when the call is for an African

Renaissance. (Chachage, 2002, p. 109)

Professor Chachage Seithy Loth Chachage was one of the pre-eminent scholars at
the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Tanzania. He was there to witness the birth of
the university as well as many of its subsequent phases. Before his death in 2006, he
wrote several articles examining the university’s development over time and the ideal
role of Tanzanian intellectuals not only in shaping the university, but the wider Tanzanian
society as well. He argues that Tanzanian academics and the work that they produce
must be rooted in their history and in their obligations to society. This point of view is
echoed throughout writings concerning intellectuals at UDSM as well as publications that
discuss Afiican intellectuals across the continent. There seems to be a consensus that
African intellectuals, while a part of a larger global academic community, also have a
specific and keen responsibility to the development of their post-independence societies.

This dissertation will investigate this duality in the work lives of African
academics in the context of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It will address
the question of how Tanzanian academics have experienced and negotiated shifting
global and local influences in their research lives over the course of the history of UDSM.
It will also examine how economic and political changes in Tanzania’s post-
independence history have affected Tanzanian intellectuals and their ability to produce

both nationally and internationally relevant knowledge. Finally, it will investigate how

Tanzanian scholars at UDSM situate themselves in terms of broader ideas about the role
of African intellectuals in their own societies as well as in the global community of
academe.

Due to the unique course that the country took after achieving independence, as
well as the role its charismatic first president took in implementing a highly ideological
framework for national development, Tanzanian academics and the University of Dar es
Salaam make a particularly interesting case to examine. Like many institutions of its kind
in the “developing world,” the University of Dar es Salaam (U DSM) in Tanzania has
historically been both national and international in character. UDSM was built on a
European model of education, incorporating foreign cunicula and organizational
structures; scholars from all over the world came to teach and conduct research, giving
the university an international atmosphere. These scholars came to UDSM because of the
university’s connection with Tanzania’s post-colonial, socialist agenda, which focused on
Pan-Africanism, “self-reliance” and Tanzanian nationalism. Julius K. Nyerere, the first
president and so-called father of the Tanzanian nation, articulated a clear vision of
Tanzania’s educational system as a nation-building instrument. As Tanzania’s main
national university and its only public research university, UDSM—and by extension its
scholars—played a key role in advancing this agenda. The tide turned, however, with the
financial crisis of the late 1970s and Tanzania’s subsequent adoption of neo-liberal
market reforms in the 19803. The state and the university suffered severe financial
decline, and while the university had to turn increasingly outward for financial support,
scholars — especially those supporting socialist and Marxist scholarship — became more

and more intellectually marginalized and isolated within the international academic

community. Indeed, the university’s relationship to the nation and to the wider
international academic community appeared to have changed (Ajayi et al., 1996;
Kimambo, 1993; Luhanga et al., 2003; Shivji, 1993).

At the time of its inception, UDSM was part of an international network of
universities. It had to balance the national political agenda of TANU'uTanganyika’s
ruling party after independence — with its relationship to the European system on which it
was based as well as its relationships with its partner nations (Kenya and Uganda until
1970). In 1961 , UDSM opened its doors as a constituent college of the University of
London. Originally, the British colonial government had planned to establish a university
in Tanganyika in 1964; however, members of TANU saw an immediate need for a
national institution of higher education and established the university three years earlier
than planned. In 1963, UDSM became part of the University of East Africa along with
Makerere University in Uganda and the University of Nairobi in Kenya. The University
of East Africa system was dissolved in 1970 largely because of nationalistic pressures
within the member nations, and UDSM became an autonomous institution.

President Nyerere played a very active role in shaping the educational sector as a
whole in post-colonial Tanzania. In his Education for Self-Reliance (1967b), published
in conjunction with the seminal Arusha Declaration that outlined his political philosophy
of African socialism, Nyerere laid out his views on education, which included a focus on
the relevance of education to Tanzanian society and the promotion of Afiican socialist
values. Nyerere especially emphasized the role of the university in training all of the
future government leaders and employees. The country was in the process of

Africanizing its civil workforce, and the University of Dar es Salaam was to play a key

 

' Tanganyikan African National Union

role in producing the necessary manpower to replace colonial officials in both
government and industry. For those in the university—faculty, staff, and students—
Nyerere stressed the concept of service to Tanzanian society and the nation. He stated
that furthering the education of a select few was justified only if they served the masses
(N yerere, 1999). He went so far as to require the completion of two years of community
service for all those entering the university (Omari, 1991) in order to solidify the
commitment of students to the national development project and to ensure that students
would not lose touch with the realities faced by the rest of Tanzanian society.

With the establishment of Tanzania’s own autonomous university, Nyerere’s
unique social philosophy and his commitment to Pan-Africanism attracted the attention
of scholars from around the world, many of whom traveled to UDSM to teach, conduct
research and collaborate with Tanzanian and other scholars. For example, the
Department of History, which was one of the major centers of worldwide intellectual
debates on socialism and development in Africa, hosted many notable scholars, including
Walter Rodney, Terence Ranger, John Saul, among others (Kimambo, 1969, 1993).
These intellectuals worked with Tanzanian scholars to produce a new kind of African
nationalist history fi'om an Afiican perspective that was distinct from colonial histories.

In the 19808, Afiican socialism declined, and Tanzania, reeling from financial
crisis, adopted the neo-liberal reforms of the IMF and the World Bank. The presence of
leftist academics faded, and while the priority of the university was still the education of
Tanzanian citizens, “self—reliance” was replaced with an emphasis on integrating
Tanzania into the world economy. With the transition from a socialist to a neo-liberal

economic system, Tanzania began to develop a new set of global relationships. New

capital markets emerged, coupled with the integration and exchange of new technologies
and information. In keeping with structural adjustment conditions, the government cut
university funding and UDSM increasingly had to look for external fimding sources to
fulfill their budgetary requirements. At the same time, the administration instituted a
hiring slowdown, and scholars had to curtail travel to foreign conferences because of
logistical and financial constraints. Recently, the financial situation at the university has
become a little less strained, and through partnerships with donors like the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), research activity has expanded.
Scholars have increasingly been able to take advantage of new communication
technologies to connect to the global academic community. Economic grth in
Tanzania, however, has been slow. Also, in keeping with the tradition of Nyerere’s
vision, there continues to be a call for social responsibility among Tanzania intellectuals.
Critical to understanding how larger national and global political and economic
forces affected UDSM’s intellectual development is the examination of how they have
influenced the Tanzanian research community—which has been highly concentrated at
UDSM. This community has been central to the evolving identity of the Tanzanian
nation state as well as a critical engine for social and economic development. However,
Tanzanian intellectuals are navigating in the space between their commitment to the
Tanzanian society at large and their sense of belonging to a wider international scholarly
community. It has been their responsibility to bridge these two worlds in their research
and work lives, but this negotiation between these two spaces often involves reconciling

competing demands.

Research Questions

From interviews conducted during my pre-dissertation research at the University
of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, it became evident that faculty members, staff and students
increasingly felt a tension between global and local forces. Two key questions emerged:
1) What happens when a distinctly national university formed within a clearly articulated
post-colonial socialist vision intersects with liberal market reforms and other global
forces? and 2) How have the economic and political changes that Tanzania has faced
throughout the course of its post-independence history affected how intellectuals in
Tanzania contribute to both national and international knowledge production? These
questions led me to the central question of this dissertation: How have Tanzanian
academics experienced and negotiated shifting local and global demands in their research
lives over the course of the history of UDSM? Using an analysis of the practice of
research’s historical development at UDSM as a way to examine these questions, this
dissertation investigates how Tanzanian academics’ research agendas have reflected
shifting global/local tensions over the course of UDSM’s history (1961-present). This
dissertation looks at what has influenced the research agenda at UDSM and that of
individual scholars. It also examines how researchers have balanced local demands and
global influences when conducting research in this context. The goal of the dissertation
is to write a history of UDSM as both a local and global institution and Tanzanian
academics as members of both local and global communities.

In order to address the broader central question raised above, the study focuses on
three main research questions. First, what have been the key factors influencing

faculty research agendas (both globally and locally) at UDSM? To answer this

question, I conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of faculty members who
have worked within the university. I relied on participants’ definition of the factors to
determine if they were local, global, or somewhere in between. Identifying clearly the
factors that have influenced faculty at UDSM provided me with a better picture of
whether and how UDSM (and, by extension, its academic staff) has interpreted the dual
forces of local needs (or demands for “self-reliance”) and membership in the global
academic (and economic) community at various points in UDSM’s history.

Second, how has the balance between local and global influences shifted over
time as reflected in the research work lives of UDSM faculty members? As with the
previous question, answers to this question stem from analysis of the data collected in the
interviews with UDSM faculty members. In the interviews I collected a kind of oral
history of the research experiences that faculty members have had throughout their
tenures at UDSM. I then mapped how the influences and their significance have shifted
over time.

Third, what types of knowledge have been valued at UDSM, both within local
research agendas and within the agendas of external agencies and collaborators?
This question focused on how Tanzanian intellectuals have perceived the ways that
various entities outside of the University have valued knowledge as well as how
academics themselves have determined what types of research to prioritize in their own
work. I drew on primarily on data collected in interviews, but also analyzed the products
(publications or research reports) of faculty members’ research projects. In the
interviews, I asked participants what they considered to be the purpose of research for

themselves as academics based at UDSM as well as how they perceived their interactions

with external agencies. Moreover, the categories of valued research that I applied in my
final analysis stem from definitions given in faculty interviews as well as literature on
research production. Categories of knowledge included applied, basic or theoretical,
locally-focused, and internationally-oriented. I also traced thematic ideas within the
research to see if the prevalence of particular themes has shifted over time as well as
analyzed the ways in which epistemological and methodological questions were
addressed. I paid close attention to the intended outcomes of this research. The
information that I gleaned from interviews and text analysis allowed me to better
understand who the main actors in setting research priorities have been and what types of
knowledge or approaches to research have been valued over the course of UDSM’s
history.
Research and Knowledge Production

It is universally held that faculty work lives are divided into three main categories
of responsibilities: teaching, service, and research. While these three branches are
equally important to academic life and are inextricably tied together, for this dissertation I
have chosen to focus on the research aspect of scholarly work. I made this decision for
two reasons. First, research is the activity that sets the "research university" apart from
other post-secondary institutions. Historian Nestor Luanda (2008) argues, "Universities
without research activities run the risk of becoming glorified secondary schools" (p. 133)
Indeed, the research university, as is made obvious by the name, sets research activities at
the core of its definition. It is an institution whose central purpose is the creation and

dissemination of knowledge (Altbach & Balan, 2007). Teaching and service may be

found at other tertiary institutions, but research is at the very core of the definition of a
university.

Second, it became apparent through reviewing literature and from earlier
interview data that research is the site where the local and the global most starkly collide.
Although teaching is affected by influences which filter in from the larger global
academic community, it is largely a local endeavor. Service, too, is situated within the
local environment, being most often defined as service to the institution, local community
or nation. Research is tied to the local agenda of an institution or, in the case of
Tanzania, a nation, and is necessarily a part of a wider intellectual community. As
anthropologist Arujun Appadurai (1997) argued, “Research is virtually synonymous with
our sense of what it means to be scholars and members of the academy” (p. 55).
Moreover, the act of academic research is not an individual endeavor. Indeed, Appadurai
asserted, “Research in the modern, Western sense, is through and through a collective
activity” (p. 57). Shils (1971) aptly contended that,

Intellectual performances. . .lay claim to a measure of universal validity. They

automatically translate into an arena broader than his locality. . .The intellectual’s

realm, by his very engagement in intellectual activities, is oceanic. (p. 363)

As the modern research ethic is currently defined, “new knowledge emerges from a
professionally defined field of prior knowledge and is directed towards evaluation by a
specialized, usually technical, body of readers and judges” (Appadurai, 1997, p. 57).
These readers and judges, these producers and consumers of research make up the
“academy” which by definition extends beyond national/local borders.

Scholarly research can also be clearly tied to local or national interests. Gramsci

defined intellectuals by the role they play in interpreting the world from the position they

occupy, thereby rooting them in a local context (Suttner, 2005). In their discussion of
“situated knowledges”, Maynes et al. (2008) argued that “knowledge is always produced
from a specific social location and always aimed toward a specific audience or
audiences” (p. 98).

Ayindoho (2006) took this argument further by pointing out that these locations
are “mobile because each person inhabits multiple locations within and across time” (p.
163). It is important to understand that while there are local and global forces interacting
in scholars’ research work lives, these categories are not static. They can shift, they are
often fluid, and they certainly impact one another and become intertwined. The social
context of African intellectuals is complex and will be discussed in more detail in chapter
two of this dissertation. However, it remains that the local or national context plays a
strong role in shaping African academics’ experiences with research, and, as mentioned
above, the audience for research outputs can be the academy in general and/or
stakeholders located in the national/local contexts in which intellectuals are situated

African intellectuals in particular have defined themselves in ways that connect to
local interests, values, and needs. Many African scholars have articulated a responsibility
to be relevant to the needs of their nations and communities (Ajayi, 1973; Anyidoho,
2006; Falola, 2001; Mkandawire, 1997, 2005; Shivji, 1993). Research, as conducted by
scholars at African universities, has been a main engine for generating knowledge that
has the potential of contributing to national development. Research does not happen in
isolation, however, and the very act of conducting research connects academics to a
wider community of scholarship. Research is an activity, therefore, that has the potential

of spanning across local and global arenas.

10

Conceptions of Global and Local

In considering conceptions of local and global in the construction of this study, it
is essential to examine how these ideas have played out in the history of university
systems in Africa and in definitions of African intellectuals, then to consider how these
definitions were described in UDSM scholars’ narratives. Much literature exists
regarding how university systems have developed in Afiica. Scholars have debated the
ideal purpose of African universities as well as the ideal role of Afiican academics.
Universities in any context face multiple demands, but given their particular histories and
the social, political, and economic contexts in which they are situated, African
universities walk a tightrope between the need to be relevant to the societies that support
them and the desire to maintain international standards of scholarship and to connect with
international systems of higher education. African intellectuals walk the same line
between serving their societies and participating in global knowledge production. By
understanding how these tensions emerged from the adaptation of external models of
higher education to local Afiican contexts and how the literature has defined them
subsequently, we can look at how they have affected the individual work lives of
intellectuals at the University of Dar es Salaam.

The history of current African systems of higher education began with
colonialism. Alter African countries achieved independence, the subsequent quest for
national identity reshaped these systems. There were models of African higher education
that predated Western colonization, but most scholars agree that these did not form the
foundation for the present university model used in most African countries (Ajayi et al.,

1996; Ashby, 1964, 1966; Lulat, 2005; Yesufu, 1973). Current higher education

11

institutions throughout Afiica can be traced back to models developed in Europe.
Certainly this model has been significantly modified at different times and in different
contexts, however, its basic elements have endured. A major theme that emerges from
the literature on this topic is the dilemma between external or so-called global models and
relevance to the local societies which support (financially and otherwise) Africa’s
national universities.

This tension between the external (which is closely linked to broader, “global”
conceptions of university systems and the “academy”) and local relevance, which
emerges directly fiom the history of the African experience with higher education, is at
the core of this study and manifests itself in several ways. First, Sawyerr (2004) argued
that there has been a conflict in Afiican universities between global standards of quality
and ideas of local relevance. Philip Altbach (1998) and Edward Shils (1971) addressed
the issues facing intellectuals in the “developing” world. Both scholars defined this
global/local dynamic as a tension between scholars at the center and those at the
periphery of the academy. This contention is supported by others who point to “the
glaring and debilitating Western domination of intellectual production about Africa”
(Beckrnan & Adeoti, 2006, p. 8). Shivji (1993) argued that this is part of the
“international division of labour” (p. 119) in academia in which Western scholars
produce knowledge and Afiican scholars are meant to consume or apply that knowledge.
Furthermore, Ashby (1964) described African intellectuals as having a “dual loyalty” to
the academy and to the societies in which they are situated. Others have defined African
universities and their scholars as the bridge between global knowledge systems and their

local contexts (Mkandawire, 1997; Suttner, 2005). All of these authors are describing the

12

same struggle to negotiate a global/local tension in African intellectuals’ work lives. In
chapter two, I will address in more detail how this tension emerged from the history of
university systems in Afiica as well as how these scholars have traced its progression
subsequently.

I use the terms “local” and “global” in this study, but I acknowledge that each has
embedded within it multiple layers and that these are not discreet categories. Global
processes can and do have a significant impact on shaping local conditions, and local
conditions are a piece of what constitutes the global. Furthermore, the meaning of these
terms has many levels. The literature described above provided a foundation to
understanding the meanings of “global” and “local” in Tanzanian scholars work lives, but
the definitions that drove the final analysis emerged from the narratives that I collected.
For instance, local can mean the individual, local sites of research, the institution, and the
nation. In terms of research and scholars at the University of Dar es Salaam, the most
basic level is the individual. For the most part, the individuals choose the general field
and themes that interest them in their own research. Of course these personal interests
are not formed in isolation from larger influences, such as interaction with colleagues
both locally and globally, experiences in graduate education largely completed in
Western universities, and observations and awareness of needs for improving conditions
in their societies.

The national context is certainly a layer within the idea of what is “local” for
academics at UDSM. In fact, in this study the national often took center stage in
scholars’ discussions about their local environment. For this reason, the national

context’s connection to what participants defined as local is a key piece of this

13

dissertation. This conflation of local and national is understandable given scholars’
position at a national university and their proximity to national structures of power,
specifically the national government. Moreover, the idea of national unity was much
stronger and has persisted longer in post-independence Tanzania than in many other
African states. This is largely due to Nyerere and TANU’s (mostly successful) efforts to
build a sense of Tanzanian-ness among citizens and to downplay ethnic divisions in the
country. Contributing to a sense of national identify, solving national problems, and
building the nation were all major themes in Tanzanian academics’ approach to scholarly
work.

Global ideas of scholarship, theory, and methodology however, are without a
doubt intertwined in scholars’ research, and because of their position at the crossroads of
international academia and local settings, these academics often serve as a bridge
between local communities and wider global processes. Socialist theory and its
application to the local Tanzanian setting is a prime example. Tanzanian and expatriate
scholars used socialist and progressive ideologies to understand local problems as well as
to design potential solutions for these issues. Moreover, the data gathered from
Tanzania’s local context as well as the new approaches to theory that came out of the Dar
es Salaam School of Thought fed back into global dialogues. In this way the local played
its part in shaping global ideas about development and socialism. Of course, the ability
of Tanzanian academics to be heard on the international scene has fluctuated with
changing national and global circumstances, as will be discussed in later chapters.

The influences on research outputs at the University of Dar es Salaam, and in

higher education institutions in general, are in all likelihood more complex than a simple

14

global/local dichotomy. The current processes of globalization have complicated this
tension and the relationship between the national and the global is likely growing
significantly more complex. While this study does not deal specifically with issues of
globalization, it can lend some insight to how these processes have evolved from shifting
national and global relationships and, more particularly, how intellectuals in developing
countries have experienced them. The analysis that this work provides will hopefirlly lay
the foundation on which further research to make sense of these dynamics and their
complications can build.
Summary

This study traces the tension that academics at the University of Dar es Salaam
have felt between a commitment to national development and a commitment to
participation in a global community of scholars. Tanzanian scholars have negotiated the
dual identity of being Tanzanian and being an intellectual. Of course, the two realms are
not mutually exclusive, and the balance between these components has shifted over time.
Chapter two engages with literature on the history of the development of Afiican higher
education systems, Tanzania’s specific approach to university development, and the
experiences of Afiican intellectuals in order to show how previous scholars have
addressed these central concepts. In chapter three I present the data collection and
analysis methods employed in this study. Chapter four provides a narrative of the early
years at the University of Dar es Salaam. Chapter five chronicles the transition years at
UDSM and the post-socialist period. Finally, chapter six analyzes the current situation
and places the historical narrative of chapters four and five in the context of the core

research questions of this study.

15

As Professor Chachage stated, in order to achieve an African Renaissance,
African scholars, and, in this particular case, Tanzanian scholars must understand the
historical and social contexts from which they emerge. This study seeks to understand the
history of a particular academic community and how it has interacted with the broader
global scholarly community in terms of research and knowledge production. In the end,
it is the story of one research institution’s continued battle for social, political, and
economic relevance. A better understanding of the challenges Tanzanian scholars have
faced may lead to ways of both recognizing the contributions they have made to
Tanzania’s national project and increasing the chances of genuine intellectual exchange
between African intellectuals at African universities like UDSM and the wider global

academic community.

16

Chapter Two:

Literature Review

The University of Dar es Salaam, like many other universities across Africa,
emerged from a tension between external models of higher education and a call for local
relevance to national development. This tension, as it has evolved through changing
national and international landscapes, is at the center of the history of faculty members’
experiences at UDSM. Chapter two will situate the history of the University of Dar es
Salaam within the context of African higher education development across the continent
as well as the post-colonial history of Tanzania. It will also address the literature
concerning the academic profession in developing countries in general, but will give
special treatment to the literature on African intellectuals in order to place the
experiences of UDSM scholars within this broader framework. These literatures place
African universities and academics within relationships between center and periphery,
internal and external, local and global, a tension which is also evident in the experiences
of intellectuals at the University of Dar es Salaam.

African University Systems: External Models and National Relevance

The subject of African higher education is broad, and its history is complex.
When taking on a t0pic of this scale, there is always the danger of overgeneralization.
Treating African higher education as a whole masks the complexities that exist and the
very real differences in the various national contexts that have shaped university
development. Due to the limitations in space and scope of this dissertation, however, it is

impossible to examine in detail the nuances of higher education across the continent, so

17

some generalization is necessary. In this chapter I examine the themes and debates that
have emerged from the literature on higher education development in Africa, and try to
give specific examples where possible. Moreover, I limit my discussion of African
higher education to the university in Africa. I do not address the many different forms of
post-secondary technical education that exist. Finally, I am bound by the structure of the
literature itself, which tends to treat African higher education as a common experience for
many countries. It is certainly true that in the immediate pre- and post-colonial years (the
late 19508 to the early 19703), there were extensive discussions and debates among
Afiican intellectuals about developing the ideal mission and structure of an “African
university” that could then be adapted to local national contexts. The general consensus
was that most post-colonial African nations had similar needs and goals for development
and capacity building and, therefore, developing a general Afiican university model
would be useful. Throughout this section, I will refer to specific examples when
available, but will speak about African universities generally when necessary and
appropriate. The following section will then integrate this general history of African
university development with Tanzania’s post-colonial history and the particular
experience of university development at the University of Dar es Salaam.

The history of current systems of higher education in Africa began with European
colonialism. After African countries achieved independence the subsequent quest for
national identity, development, and relevance then reshaped these systems. Models of
African higher education that pre-date Western colonization such as ancient Timbuktu’s
Sankore—an institution of Islamic higher learning — existed , but most scholars agree that

these did not form the foundation for the present university model used in most Afiican

l8

countries (Ajayi et al., 1996; Ashby, 1964, 1966; Lulat, 2005; Yesufu, 1973). Current
higher education institutions throughout Afiica (and almost all higher education
institutions throughout the world) can be traced back to the basic European university
model first established in France in the thirteenth century (Altbach, 1998). Certainly this
model has been significantly modified at different times and in different contexts,
however, its basic elements as an organization of masters and students concerned with “a
post-general education” (Lawi, 2008, p. 3) have endured.

This section will address the persistence of a Western model of higher education
in Africa and examine issues surrounding its adaptation to serve local needs. A major
theme that emerges from the literature on this topic is the dilemma between external
models and demands for relevance to local societies that support (financially and
otherwise) Afiica’s national universities. Understanding the shifting relationship
between external influences and the demand for local relevance in the history of African
universities will help to better define the evolving context in which academics at UDSM
have been conducting research.

Several scholars have described the relationship between universities in Africa
and their local settings in organic terms. Eric Ashby (1974) referred to universities as
biological organisms which came about as a result of heredity and environment. He saw
modern African universities as transplants from Europe, and asserted that the problems of
Afiican universities were due to the fact that the strains transplanted to African soil were
not the most suitable. T.M. Yesufu also used this analogy to discuss African universities.

He states,

19

The truly African university must be one that draws its inspiration from its

environment, not a transplanted tree, but growing from a seed that is planted and

nurtured in African soil. (Yesufir, 1973)
These two descriptions of universities using biological terms illustrate well the tension
between external models of higher education and local needs that runs throughout the
literature on Afiican higher education. These scholars argue that universities in Africa
did not grow organically from the African soil. They were transplanted institutions that
were originally planted to meet goals defined by the external agents that controlled them
rather than by the local communities in which they were located.

Other authors have used similar devices to talk about the ways that Afiican
universities have been caught in an extemal/intemal tension throughout their histories.
Many pointed to the sometimes conflicting needs to both engage with an international
academic community and to build local capacity. Eicher (1973) conceded that there are
obvious advantages to participating in the world academic community, but worried that,
at thattime in the early 19705, African scholars had not yet sufficiently built a foundation
in local research skills or data. African academics would therefore enter the international
scholarly arena at a severe disadvantage that would lead to an imbalanced power
dynamic. Wandira (1977) talked about this dichotomy in terms of the conflict between
national and international obligations. He described the Afiican university’s obligation to
look beyond its national constituency and seek international acceptance, but conceded
that limited resources may force a university to choose intemationalism over concern for
national issues. “Thus a university seeking new roles dictated by national circumstances

may sometimes be forced to abandon these roles in favour of its more prestigious

international programmes” (p. 8). All of these descriptions show how the transplantation

20

of external models continued to play out in African universities beyond the initial phase
of establishing the institutions.

In his article, “Challenges Facing African Universities,” Akilagpa Sawyerr (2004)
contended that the underlying assumption of the intemal/extemal dilemma is a tension
between quality and social relevance. According to his argument, quality has been most
often associated with external or international standards and models. Social relevance, on
the other hand, is the concern with addressing local needs and development. These two
concepts are essentially subjective and thus pose problems of definition. Of course they
are not mutually exclusive, and Sawyerr was quick to point out instances where African
universities have achieved both quality (on an international standard) and social
relevance.

In his contribution to debates on Afiican university development in the early
19705, J. Ki-Zerbo (1973) asserted that if the quality of teaching is comparable to
universities in the West, African universities could adopt socially relevant curriculum
without sacrificing quality. However, while these two concepts can co-exist, several
scholars at various times in the history of the literature have brought to light the potential
conflicts between the two. A few of these scholars have addressed the power relations
involved when Western universities determine the definition of quality research and
teaching (Altbach, 1998, 2007; Eicher, 1973). Others have contended that the lack of
resources in African universities inhibits them from pursuing both quality and social
relevance equally (Altbach, 2007; Sawyerr, 2004; Wandira, 1977), and still others have

shown how the pursuit of international standards of quality have encouraged Afiican

21

universities to remain separate and alien from their societies (Ajayi, 1973; Crossman,
2004; Yesufu, 1973).

Scholars’ descriptions of the external/local tension have gone a long way in
contributing to the understanding of this dynamic in African higher education. Yet, the
situation is far more complex. In the following paragraphs I describe how the
development of the wider social and economic context has affected the balance between
external influences and local demands on African universities.

During the late colonial period, as some Africans were able to achieve higher
levels of education through overseas training or education in missionary colleges, they
began to demand higher education. The British were not willing to give in to these
demands until after World War I when their colonial policies began to change and they
realized that the African colonies would one day become independent. Then, after
independence, new African governments sought to assert their national identities though
their universities and to redefine the university as a tool of nation building. Finally, the
economic situation of the 19803 and structural adjustment policies led to another stage in
the adaptation of external models to local needs.

Beginning in the mid-18003 and continuing throughout the remainder of the
colonial period, several Africans voiced their desire for higher education, although they
offered differing views of how higher education should be structured and what its
mission should be. For example, James Afiicanus Beale Horton’s vision was to
introduce “undiluted Western education” into Africa (Ashby, 1964, p. 12). His
contention was that Western education could help Afiica socially advance, and if

Africans could prove that they could perform as well as their European counterparts, they

22

would be seen as equals (Nwauwa, 1997). Edward Blyden, on the other hand, envisioned
an African university system which could restore to Afiicans their cultural self-respect
and rid them of the “despotic Europeanising influences which had warped and crushed
the negro mind.” (as quoted in Ashby, 1964, p. 13) Blyden’s university would have
included study of the classics and of African languages and cultures, but would largely
have left out study of modern Western civilization. For him, the classics were
“uncontaminated” and could offer Africans “nourishment” while still allowing them to
explore fully an African intellectual heritage (Ashby, 1964, p. 13). Casely Hayford
offered still another alternative. He advocated a wholly indigenous model of Afiican
higher education, but one which worked closely in correspondence with the best
institutions throughout the world. In this way, he sought a compromise between a
quality institution and a socially relevant one.

While the British government considered each of these options, none were
adopted (Ashby, 1964). The ideas were deemed by a few British officials to be positive
in principle, but, due to lack of resources, little happened to establish higher education in
the colonies until the 19203 (Hargreaves, 1973). After World War I, the British began to
change their “indirect rule” colonial policy, in which education was largely the
responsibility of local communities, to a policy of “trusteeship.” Under this policy,
education was provided for the purposes of bringing educated Africans into the
mainstream of governance (Nwauwa, 1997). This would allow Britain to simultaneously
have greater control over their colonies by taking a more proactive approach to policy
and to socialize Afiicans for the eventual end of colonialism (and, as colonial officials

designed it, the beginning of dependency). As outlined in the previous section the British

23

established universities in Afiica that were copies of the British system and were
dependent on British universities.

After many countries gained their independence in the late 19503 and early 19603,
the tension between these inherited external models and the needs of new Afiican nations
gained greater voice among Afiican leaders and some African academics. In a speech
introducing the 1963 University of East Africa Act, the Secretary-General of the East
Afiican Common Services Organization emphasized the need for UEA to be an “African
university”.

Above all the University should be relevant to our situation, should be African in

a true sense. It should not be a pale reflection of alien universities but a living

concrete symbol of all that is African and make a peculiar African contribution to

the world of scholarship, achievement and research and the advancement of

knowledge. (as quoted in Court, 1975, p. 196)

Government and university leaders across the continent took up the call for
authentically African institutions which would focus on the provision of knowledge
relevant to the Afiican context and could give voice to African issues in wider global
dialogues. They sought ways of breaking free from their affiliations with metropolitan
universities and of increasing the number of African staff in academic and decision-
making administrative positions (Ajayi et al., 1996). Several conferences were called to
bring representatives of the newly formed nations together to define for themselves the
goals of education in Afiica and to debate how universities should balance external
influences with support for national development. UNESCO’s 1962 conference in
Tananarive, Madagascar was the first of these conferences to be devoted entirely to

higher education in Africa. It described universities as the main instruments of national

progress. Participants called for solutions to the problems of adapting curricula and

24

administrative structures to the specific conditions of African life and the needs of
national policy (Yesufu, 1973). This was among the first international forums after
independence to call for adaptation of European models to African realities and to
advocate for a clear shift in the balance between inherited ideas of higher education and
local relevance to emphasize the latter.

Alter Tananarive, African higher education entered the phase of national
universities. For the newly formed nations, a university became a symbol of sovereignty.
In each of these nations, governments and intellectuals continued to push for universities
to support national development. With African takeover of universities and increasing
interest in higher education by governments, national universities had to decide whether a
high level of autonomy was part of the colonial legacy to be done away with or a core
element of universal academic traditions. In most cases inherited levels of academic
freedom and autonomy became secondary to the agendas of national governments. The
rationale for government involvement was to make universities more responsive to local
development needs (Ajayi et al., 1996) and further shift the balance away from
international obligations and Western influences. In a speech concerning Ghana’s
national university, the nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, asserted this same
argument for state involvement in the university and a shift away from “traditional” ideas
of academic freedom in favor of accountability.

We want the university college to cease being an alien institution and to take on

the character of a Ghanaian University, loyally serving the interest of the nation

and the well-being of our people. If reforms do not come from within, we intend
to impose them from outside, and no resort to academic freedom (for academic
freedom does not mean irresponsibility) is going to restrain us from seeing that

our university is a healthy university devoted to Ghanaian interest. (as quoted in
Mkandawire, 2005, p. 22)

25

As Mkandawire stated in contextualizing this quote, Nkrumah raised an issue here
that is relevant to the state-university relationship—the issue of “reconciling utilitarian
views about universities and the maintenance of standards and the autonomy of
universities” (p. 22). Indeed, this tension has persisted throughout the history of
universities in Africa. In the view of many intellectuals — but not all, as will be discussed
below — as well as government leaders at the time, it was necessary to foster a close
relationship between African universities and the state so that the state could assure that
the university remained relevant to national development needs. In this way, the
government would provide oversight for the universities and hold them accountable to
the public who financed the institutions. Adopting a close govemment-university
relationship is one clear way that African policymakers and academics were responding
to the demand to adapt old models to an independent Afiican context.

At this time, intellectuals were engaged in rigorous debates over the level of
autonomy a university should have. Some expatriate and African scholars expressed a
fair amount of resistance to this new close relationship with the government. They argued
that diminishing autonomy would have a serious effect on the standards and quality of
research and teaching. The universities would no longer be able to serve one of their
essential functions—critiquing the state. They feared that research agendas and curricula
would be dictated to scholars by non-academic politicians and would therefore be
attached to a particular political agenda. In the worst cases this type of relationship
between government and higher education could turn the university into an instrument for
perpetuating repressive and technocratic regimes. Ajayi et al. (1996) argued that this

tension between what European and European-trained scholars had previously seen to be

26

“universal” standards of academic freedom and increased government involvement was
illustrative of a “destructive conflict” between academics. The authors asserted that
while the expatriate staff and those Afiicans who were deeply indoctrinated into
European ways of thinking defended autonomy, other Afiican staff felt alienated by this
approach and discriminated against by the larger international academic community. It
was these scholars who sought political intervention to give the university a national
character (Ajayi et al., 1996). Here again the tension between external models of
universities’ roles in society and adaptation to an independent Africa played out, this time
in a conflict of academic and political agendas.

The experiences of the 19603 and early 19703 reinforced the idea that universities
were too removed from the realities in their local settings. The economic and social
situation in many African countries was growing worse, and universities had not yet been
able to provide quality responses to “accumulating national problems of unemployment,
malnutrition, income inequality, and so forth” (Court, 1975, p. 193). Policymakers and
leaders sought to develop a new model of a university that would be more appropriate to
national development than the university models they had inherited from the colonizers.
In 1972, the Association of African Universities held a workshop entitled Creating the
African University in Accra, Ghana to discuss how to infuse national universities with an
“African identity.” Participants focused on issues such as building an Afiican academic
community, Afiicanizing university staff, adapting new curricula and defining the role of
the university in continuing or adult education.

Participants also proposed a new type of “truly African” university which would

have a firndamentally different mission than inherited institutions (Yesufu, 1973). It

27

would be focused unambiguously on local issues and public concerns. The mission of
this new institution would stress the importance of applied research, in—service training,
and the increased role of the professoriate in public policy and contract research. The
“developmental university,” as it was called, combined influences from America’s land-
grant tradition, Japan’s model of connecting the modern university to the state’s needs,
and the Soviet model, which emphasized the fit between university products and
manpower, righting social inequalities, and socialization of students into the ideology of
the regime (Coleman, 1984). Thus, the ideas behind the developmental university came
from external models, but were adopted with the clear intention of immediately adapting
them to fit the societal needs in developing African countries. President Nyerere was
one of the biggest proponents of the developmental model, and this model was used to
reshape the University of Dar es Salaam to fit his larger agenda of promoting the ideals of
African socialism.

The 19803 and 19903 brought economic and political crises to many African
countries, including Tanzania. Governments’ incomes declined due to a fall in prices for
export commodities, coupled with a sharp increase in the cost of imported goods. Several
countries faced political strife as well, many from violent regime changes. Political
issues spilled onto university campuses. For example, in 1992 in Zaire, the military
invaded and raped and killed several students (Ajayi et al., 1996) which obviously had a
severe impact on the development of higher education within Zaire.

In all countries, governments at this time were faced with tough decisions about

how to distribute ever-decreasing resources to meet increasing public demands. In the

case of higher education, the number of students attending universities expanded

28

significantly as more people completed secondary education and demanded access to
universities. In some cases, this expansion was also due also to the changing purposes of
the university from being an elite institution, catering to only a few students with a
particular and narrow focus, to one that was integrated with society and open to a broader
range of students.

Moreover, appraisal of the economic, social, and political situation of the 19803
and 19903 in many countries led some critics to conclude that the university’s potential
role in national development had been exaggerated. The govemments who declared their
intention was to make universities more responsive to public needs were themselves far
from responsive to these needs (Ajayi et al., 1996). Mkandawire (1995) contended that
this was an era of “identity crisis” for African universities. “Having achieved their
mission—‘meeting the high level of manpower needs in the nation’—Afiican universities
lost their original raison d ’etre in the eyes of the state and sometimes the public” (p. 79).

At this time, the World Bank was an outspoken critic of African higher education.
As one of the most influential agencies in setting foreign aid policy, the World Bank’s
view of African education had a large impact on financial support for African
universities. Structural adjustment policies adopted by many countries pushed
governments to divest from their higher education sectors and focus their attention on
expanding basic education. Many foreign aid policymakers now saw higher education as
an investment which satisfied the needs of the individual rather than the common good
and, therefore, strongly advised governments to shift the burden of financing these
institutions from the public to the individual. Governments were caught in a difficult

position between accountability to external constituents like the World Bank and internal

29

constituents in their societies and within their universities. The involvement of foreign
aid agencies and economic decline in most African countries caused the balance between
external and local to shift yet again, largely toward external influences.

The University of Dar es Salaam followed some of the wider trends in the
development of higher education in Africa outlined in the above section, though in many
ways Tanzania took a different approach to implementing ideas of local relevancy than
many of its neighboring countries. The next section will address how UDSM negotiated
between national needs and a wider international context, thereby setting the stage for a
deeper understanding of the evolving factors affecting academic research at the
University. The brief history of the University of Dar es Salaam outlined below will set
the stage for fiuther exploration of the University’s history in chapters four and five of
this dissertation. These chapters will give a more detailed account of the abbreviated
narrative and themes presented in the following section from the personal narratives and
the perspectives of scholars from UDSM.

The University of Dar es Salaam in National and International Contexts

As mentioned previously, the University College, Dar es Salaam was established
in 1961, the same year that Tanzania (then Tanganyika)2 gained its independence. The
college was directly linked to the University of London for its beginning years. In 1963,
it joined together with Makerere College (Uganda) and University College, Nairobi
(Kenya) to form the University of East Afiica (UEA). This university was meant to bring
together resources from the constituent countries of the East African region to provide

wider curricular options for East African students. Each of the colleges focused on a

 

2 In 1964, the mainland territory which had achieved independence under the name Tanganyika joined with
the islands of Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania.

30

particular field: law in Dar es Salaam, engineering in Nairobi, and medicine and
agriculture in Makerere. According to historian Isaria Kimambo (1984), the outlook of
UEA “remained very much in line with similar institutions in Western Europe.” The
majority of the academic staff were expatriates, and research activities were largely
conducted in line with both expatriate research agendas and those of their permanent
institutions abroad. The curriculum was also similar to Western European universities.

Between 1967 and 1970 Tanzania and the University College, Dar es Salaam
began to change its approach to higher education. In 1967, the first President of
Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, issued The Arusha Declaration which outlined his philosophy
of African socialism — or Ujamaa — and his plan for implementing this political vision in
Tanzania. He further detailed his approach to educational policy in a pamphlet called
“Education for Self-Reliance” (Nyerere, 1967b). Being a former teacher himself, it
stands to reason that Nyerere was one of the most outspoken African leaders on the
subject of education. With these policy documents, Tanzania’s approach to higher
education began to diverge from the other colleges within UEA. Moreover, each of the
constituents of UEA felt the pressing need to make their universities national
institutions—symbols of their newly independent nations with expanded curricula that
were able to serve the needs of their particular countries.

In 1970, the University College, Dar es Salaam became the University of Dar es
Salaam. It remained nominally attached to Makerere and Nairobi through the Inter-
University Committee of East Africa (Nhonoli, 1973), but policymakers in Tanzania

would now have autonomy to determine UDSM’s structures, curricula, and mission.

31

Tanzania and Nyerere’s government, therefore, used the university as one of the main
tools for defining a distinctive Tanzanian national identity.

In many ways Tanzania took a different approach to higher education than its
neighbors. Primarily, in its new vision of the university, Tanzania stressed self-reliance
and the search for locally applicable standards. Nyerere emphasized first and foremost
the university’s service to the nation and the need for all activities conducted by the
university to be socially relevant. Kenya, on the other hand, remained focused on the
preservation of internationally defined curricula and standards. David Court argued that
the University of Dar es Salaam “has been one of the most self-conscious of the three
East African universities in trying to reorder itself for a new developmental role” (Court,
1975, p. 194).

Through the University of Dar es Salaam, Nyerere and other members of his
TANU political party sought to shake off the colonial model of higher education and
create a particularly Tanzanian model to take its place. Nyerere was one of the first
proponents of the “developmental university” model described earlier in this chapter. In
a keynote speech at UDSM, he stated:

The University in a developing society must put the emphasis of its work on

subjects of immediate moment to the nation in which it exists, and it must be

committed to the people of that nation and their humanistic goals. . .We in poor
societies can only justify expenditure on a University—of any type—if it

promotes real development of our people. . .The role of the University in a

developing nation is to contribute; to give ideas, manpower, and service for the

firrtherance of human equality, human dignity and human development. (as

quoted in Coleman, 1984, p. 86)

From this quote it is clear that Nyerere’s vision was not in line with UDSM’s inherited

colonial model and that he sought to shift the emphasis of the university toward a very

locally focused mission. He contended that the university could maintain both the

32

standards of Western education in the objective “search for truth” and also a commitment
to society in equal proportions (Court, 1975). In 1974, Tanzania’s government adopted
the Musoma Resolution to officially tie the university to this developmental path and the
ideology of the Tanzanian state or more specifically African socialism (Mkude et al.,
2003).

Coleman (1984) argues that UDSM offered the closest example to a true
developmental university. The principle mission of the university was the economic and
social development of Tanzanian society, and the Tanzanian state adopted university
structures to reflect this mission. An emphasis was placed on applied research. Students
were expected to complete a year of national service before admission to the university.
Development Studies was a required course for all students. Policymakers proposed
changing examinations to not only reflect theoretical knowledge but also the practical
aspect of a student’s education—(although this only came to partial fruition) (Kimambo,
1984). The transition from the British model to a developmental model, infused with
local influence, however, was not an easy one, nor was the transformation complete.

One of the key structural adaptations that Tanzania made in adopting the
developmental model was nurturing a close relationship between the state and the
university. In fact, President Nyerere served as the chancellor of the university and
several non-academic politicians sat on its governing council. In his description of
UDSM’s model to the AAU’s 1972 Accra Workshop, A.M. Nhonoli (1973) extolled this
as a positive development toward a more locally responsive Afiican university:

In whatever situation the Afiican university finds itself, intimate relations with the

government should be fostered. . ..The traditional concept of university autonomy

developed in Western Europe, in the middle ages, when universities were being
founded for a select privileged class, which was conservative and a powerful

33

force against social change. But universities in Afiica must be an agent of socio-

economic change and the traditional concept should be modified in a number of

ways. Q). 177)

He also advocated limiting academic freedom:
The traditional concept of academic freedom postulates that there shall be no
censorship of teaching and research on whatever subject and in whatever manner
that the university might wish. . .In present day Afiica, such wide freedom can
neither be afforded nor granted. (ibid.)
In Tanzania’s case the government was to serve as the voice of the people, representing
society’s needs and holding the university accountable for using societies’ resources to
fill these needs. According to Nyerere and TANU, UDSM was to be formed around and
limited by the needs and capacity of the local economy as dictated by the state.

While the close government-university relationship was supported by scholars
like Nhonoli, problems did arise on UDSM’s campus around this issue. Specifically in
November 1970 a student group was banned from campus. They had published a
provocative theoretical journal called Cheche that promoted the ideals of scientific
international socialism and criticized Afiican socialism. Reactions on campus were
divided with some scholars believing that this was a political suppression of the type of
atmosphere that should exist in a vibrant university community. For them the balance
had shifted too far away from Western ideas of academic freedom to outright intolerance.
Moreover, this move by the government took away the traditional role of a university (in
a Western sense) as a critic of the state (Luhanga et al., 2003).

Another manifestation of the interplay between national and international contexts

unfolded among academics, although not in predictable ways. One might expect that

expatriate faculty members, of which there were many at UDSM, would bring with them

34

strong influences supporting external models and that the Afiican faculty members would
support pushing the niversity toward increased social relevance. This was not necessarily
the case in many African universities, and it was not the case at UDSM. Several
expatriate scholars at UDSM supported Nyerere’s philosophy and promoted its
integration into the university. For instance, in 1967 nine expatriate Marxist staff
members aided in organizing a conference at UDSM which recommended the university
be the responsible party in socializing students to Tanzanian socialism (Coleman, 1984).
In fact, Nyerere supported this dynamic on campus by seeking to recruit expatriate staff
whose philosophies aligned with his own. The presence of expatriate staff with clear
Marxist ideas, who also supported an African socialist agenda, likely had a significant
influence on research and international collaborations both within UDSM and with other
institutions outside of Tanzania.

There were African staff members, on the other hand, who resisted the transition
away from Western models of higher education. Due to the fact that there were no
advanced training programs for scholars in most African countries, those seeking
advanced degrees had to go overseas, most often to Europe or the United States, for their
training. In this way, they were indoctrinated into Western assumptions and expectations
about research and teaching. Oftentimes, these scholars were not trained in a way that
prepared them to work in a “developmental university” (this of course was also true of
the European staff at UDSM). For example, to earn an economic Ph.D. in Europe or the
US, scholars were often expected to make abstruse theories the core of their program.
These theories were fi'equently irrelevant to a developing world context or simply not

useful for the more applied methods promoted at developmentally focused universities.

35

The result was that many African scholars who were educated in the West were some of
the most fervent defenders of inherited practices. This was certainly true among the first
generation of East African academics (Court, 1975). Again, the influence of overseas
training combined with the realities of working in a “developmental” university likely
impacted strongly the decisions that Tanzanians made (or were able to make) about their
research agendas and their roles in collaborative projects.

As in many other Afiican countries, the 19803 and 19903 brought economic strife
to Tanzania. A war with Idi Amin in Uganda, a sharp rise in the price of oil, a steep
decrease in the prices of export commodities, and economic support of resistance
movements in Rhodesia and South Afiica had all drained Tanzania financially. The
nation was forced to accept the World Bank and IMF’s prescriptions for structural
adjustment in order to begin economic recovery. This signaled the end of Nyerere’s
policy of African socialism and in 1985 Nyerere stepped down from the presidency.

These economic factors had a strong impact at UDSM as well. By the late 19703
both students and staff had become resentful about the tight control that the state had over
decision-making at the university. This resentment was further compounded by the
decrease in state financial support to the university. Morale was low on campus. The
academic focus of the university also changed as the focus of debates shifted from
development issues to power politics (Mkude et al., 2003). No longer was the university
solely focused on local development. Additionally, due to the decline in government
resources to the university, UDSM increasingly had to look outward for financial support.
In this way the World Bank and other external agencies gained more influence over

developments at UDSM, thereby contributing to the tension Tanzanian academics felt

36

between externally generated agendas for research and a continued commitment to
national development.

Chapters four and five will pick up this discussion concerning Tanzanian
intellectuals’ experiences with research at UDSM and the shifting tensions between
global and national influences in more detail. The next section will review the literature
on intellectuals in developing countries with an emphasis on the idea of the African
intellectual. Understanding how authors have discussed the particular challenges faced
by scholars in the developing world, as well as how the definition of the African
intellectual as a particular social category has evolved will better illuminate how
Tanzanian scholars at UDSM have situated themselves in terms of broader ideas about
the role of African intellectuals in their own societies as well as in the global community
of academe.

Scholarship in the Developing World and African Intellectuals

Currently, there exists a somewhat robust literature on faculty issues in general,
including literatures on both faculty incentives/motivations and academic collaborations.
These literatures are key to understanding faculty experiences in the United States and to
some extent in Europe, but they become largely irrelevant when one seeks to apply them
to the experiences of faculty in many African universities. The variables that impact
faculty members’ work lives in universities like the University of Dar es Salaam are quite
distinct from those found in the “typical” American university. Although some scholars
identify a few commonalities across the academic profession such as a general
commitment to teaching, service and research, in many ways these similarities are

becoming less and less evident with the changing nature of the university around the

37

world and the continuing marginalization of academics in developing countries. This
section will identify how scholars have addressed the subject of intellectuals in the
developing world, with a particular focus on African intellectuals, both in terms of these
academics’ relationship to a wider intellectual community and of the realities they have
faced within their home institutions.

In the previous section, I have discussed a few of the issues faced at various
points in time specifically by academics in many African nations. These include
negotiating demands made by national governments through the close government-
university relationships that were formed after independence, interpreting the shifting
missions of African universities (whether they should be “developmental” or continue on
a European model), responding to the pressures of public opinion as well as the agendas
of foreign development agencies, and adapting overseas training to their home university
context. Edward Shils and Philip Altbach are two scholars who have written extensively
on intellectuals in the developing world, and they have outlined other factors which may
influence faculty work lives in African universities. Altbach, for example, has outlined in
detail the increasing resource problems faced by faculty in the developing world (1998,
2003) and has linked the significant decline in resources to a steep decline in research
output from developing countries’ research universities (2007). Altbach has also written
widely on the influence of the wider academic publishing industry on determining what
scholarly research is published and distributed (1975, 1987, 1998, 2007). He contended
that lack of access to publishers and distributors has been a major factor in an increasing
marginalization of scholars from developing nations. Finally, Altbach (2007) also

described general organization structures which have had an influence on scholars in

38

developing world research universities such as the reward/incentive structure of the
university.

Writing more generally about the intellectual and his role in society, Edward Shils
(1971), describes the tradition of individual or personal inquiry among academic
scholars. Shils was writing from a time soon after independence of many countries in the
developing world, so it is important to contextualize him in this era; however, I would
argue that his observations hold true not only for the first generation of scholars in
developing countries, but also for subsequent generations. While the tradition of personal
inquiry may be an inherited characteristic from the European intellectual tradition, and
the individual, self-disciplined nature of academics may not be as strong as it once was in
African universities, one could reasonably assume that individual interests still play a role
in determining the trajectory of scholars’ work. To what extent this has changed over
time, however, has yet to be determined.

When discussing academics in what he calls “the new states,” Shils also
acknowledged the large role that externally defined norms of research have played in
faculty work lives in the developing world. He saw these standards emanating from the
“center” or “metropolis” to the “province.” He went so far as to state that,

The rest of the intellectual world lives in their [the metropolis’] reflected light,

drawing what inspiration and self-esteem they can from their efforts to conform

with the model and to come thereby closer to the center. (1971, p. 361)

Indeed, this type of center/periphery framework, which both Shils and Altbach used to
structure their arguments about faculty in the “province” or “periphery,” pervades much

of the literature on faculty in developing countries. For Altbach, even though universities

in the “Third World” often play key roles in their own societies, they find themselves at a

39

disadvantage in the “international knowledge networ ” (Altbach, 1998). Both of these
scholars described the same kind of hierarchical system of academics which would seem
to indicate that the “international academic order” (Altbach, 1998) had not changed much
from the early 19703 to the late 19903 when each of these scholars was writing. While it
may be reasonable to accept a center/periphery argument in the make up of the global
academy, the static picture implied by a consistency with Shils and later Altbach does not
capture the full story of academics in some developing nations. Given the experiences of
academics at UDSM, I would argue that during the early stages of the university’s
development when this institution was considered “one of the most well-known
universities in Africa and the world” (Shivji, 1993, p. 66), Tanzanian scholars were in a
much better position to contribute to global intellectual dialogues than has been possible
in more recent years (post-1985). This shift in the ability for Tanzanian intellectuals to
participate on a fuller level in the global academic community was largely due to changes
in economic and political circumstances both internal to Tanzania and worldwide.
Chapter four and five will take up this argument in more detail.

There are a few sources in the literature concerning academics in developing
countries that have addressed collaborative academic relationships in these contexts.
These relationships are another significant influencing factor on the work lives of faculty
members in developing countries and have certainly played a role in the career
trajectories of scholars at the University of Dar es Salaam. The related topic of
intellectual communities appears in both Shils (1971) and Ajayi’s (1973) work, however
resources on this topic after the early 19703 are scarce. In their writing, Shils and Ajayi

both advocate for bringing together scholars into local or regional academic communities

40

into order to promote creativity and break dependence on the West (i.e., the “center”).
Whether this has happened and to what extent requires further inquiry. American
Afiicanist scholars (i.e., Coleman, 1977; Zeleza, 2002) also addressed an issue related to
Afiican faculty members’ experiences with collaboration, namely ethical standards of
Western scholars working in Africa. However, this only presented one side of the picture
by focusing solely on how Western academics should ethically conduct research in Africa
and not addressing the role that Afiican academics play in these partnerships. Sarnoff &
Carrol (2004), on the other hand, looked at higher education partnerships from the
Afiican perspective, but they did so only at the institutional level. They did not analyze
partnerships fiom the perspective of individual faculty members who so often form the
foundation for and have served as the engines of these relationships. As Samoff & Carrol
indicated, more work needs to be done to understand at a deeper level these partnerships.
Part of that deeper understanding involves exploring these collaborative relationships
from the perspective of faculty members in developing countries’ research universities
and uncovering what role they play in setting research agendas as well as in the personal
careers of these academics.

Currently, there is a small but growing literature that has dealt specifically with
the experiences of African intellectuals. Several authors have examined the unique
challenges faced by African scholars and have analyzed the particular tensions which
have emerged as these scholars struggled to define themselves in the African post-
independence era. One of the major themes within this literature is the tension between
retaining an African identity while also engaging with and contributing to a wider body

of knowledge. This tension is closely tied with the insistence by states as well as by the

41

African intellectual community themselves that the work of African intellectuals be
relevant to the societies in which they are situated while simultaneously determining how
to apply what have largely been Western ideologies to improving local conditions.

Nationalism has played a significant role in the scholarship of African
intellectuals and, at least for the first generation of scholars, it was central to their
definition of themselves as a cohesive intellectual community. Mkandawire (1997)
asserted that most Afiican academics have shared a devotion “to the basic ideological
tents of nationalism, developmentalism, and egalitarianism” (p. 21). Toyin Falola (2001)
argued that “nationalism created the academic institutions for much of Africa and
suggested themes for the first generation of scholars to pursue” (p. xix). Falola also
pointed out however, that with the economic and political strife of the 19803 and 19903,
the optimism and scholarship associated with the nationalist era ended and there was a
shift to “decadence and despair” (p. xx) among African intellectuals.

This shift between eras of Afiican scholarship is also reflected in Mkandawire’s
(1995) categorization of indigenous African researchers into three generations of
academics. The first generation, he contended, were those who went abroad to do their
studies close to the time of independence and then returned home to be the first
indigenous scholars at Afiican universities. Having established connections with
universities, colleagues, scholarly journals, and publishers while completing their studies
in the West, their academic standing was quite high in the wider academic community.
“Members of this generation enjoyed international recognition and even to this day those
still academically active continue to have access to the international academic

community” (Mkandawire, 1995, p. 76). Most also shared the state’s developmental

42

ideology, were staunchly anti-neocolonial, and “were profoundly pre-occupied with
problems of nation-building” (ibid.). According to Mkandawire, the second generation
were also trained abroad in the mid to late 19703, but tended to stay abroad and those that
returned often did not stay. This is likely due to the deteriorating economic and political
situations in many African countries in the late 19703 and the 19803, Falola’s era of
“decadence and despair.” This generation “constituted the first wave of the ‘brain drain’”
(p. 77). The third generation of scholars was largely produced wholly or partly within
African universities. Mkandawire argued that third generation is now assuming the reins
of Afiican universities from the first generation scholars who are retiring and from the
few second generation scholars who returned home but are still looking to leave African
universities to go abroad or accept consultancies. This generation of scholars, he
contended, were trained under severely difficult conditions materially, and politically.
Moreover, these younger scholars “lack international exposure, having not acquired a
sure footing in the international research world and are less ‘marketable’ internationally
than their predecessors” (p. 79). For this reason they have less familiarity with wider
theoretical debates and their work tends to focus more on description rather than
interpretation.

Nana Akua Anyidoho (2006) built on Mkandawire’s categorization of African
intellectual generations by arguing that now a fourth generation is emerging. She
claimed that the fourth generation will (or should) focus on what she calls “insider
scholarship” or a re-focusing of African scholarship to reflect a concern with “what
contributions [African academics] can make not just to ‘knowledge’ but to the

development of the continent and its people” (Beckman & Adeoti, 2006, p. 8). More

43

specifically, Anyidoho advocated that the focus of African academics should focus their
scholarship on the local as “its audience, its primary beneficiaries, and its agenda”
(Anyidoho, 2006, p. 163) as opposed to dominant orientation of most African scholars to
their relationship to Western academic communities. Indeed, this relationship between
the local relevance of Afiican scholarship and its engagement with the wider scholarly
debates which often emanate from the West has been a recurring theme in the literature
concerning African intellectuals.

In Toyin Falola’s (2001) study examining the relationship between nationalism
and African intellectuals indicated that one of the central and persisting issues for Afiican
scholars is “how to retain an African identity and an Afiica for Africans while re-
appropriating the West for the goal of progress” (p. xviii). The debate for these
academics was where to draw intellectual models and concepts to use for their research.
Should they come from the external world, from indigenous practices or both? A
preoccupation with the West has “created grave concerns, some bordering on alienation
and others on excessive imitation. . ..All have been forced to address the impact of the
West on Africa” (p. 16). Mazrui (2005) argued for an ideal balance for African
intellectuals between being culturally close to society and also intellectually linked to the
“wider scholarly and scientific values in the world of learning” (p. 62) which would
allow African intellectuals to be better able to help develop their societies. In this way,
the Afiican scholar would serve as a bridge between academe and local communities (see
also Mkandawire, 2005; Suttner, 2005). Mazrui noted, however, a contradiction between
being culturally close to society and also connected to the wider world of scholarship

because of what he called “the nature of Westemization in Africa” which has focused on

44

Western influences on Afiican culture rather than emphasizing “Western productive
technologies” (p. 62-63). Still, what Mazui missed in this analysis is that Africa and
Afiican intellectuals are not necessarily separate from the wider academic community.
They are a part of it, albeit an often marginalized part. There has been intellectual
exchange between these scholars and scholars in the West. African scholars are often
portrayed as consumers of knowledge rather than producers. While there is significant
evidence of this and, as will be argued in the following chapters the structure of the
global academic and donor communities, have been skewed in this direction, this is not
exclusively the case. African scholars have added their voices to global academic
dialogues. To what extent this has happened has shifted in different national and
international economic and political climates. In the end, however, all scholars who
have addressed the challenges faced by African intellectuals and many of the scholars at
UDSM have identified this tension between local relevance and their relationship to the
global academy.
Conclusion

Much of the literature examined to this point has depicted the Afiican university
as caught in dichotomous relationships between center and periphery, internal and
external, local and global. Afiican universities were formed fiom external models,
however African leaders and academics have worked to adapt them to local conditions
and to make them relevant to local development. These institutions walk a line between
ideas of global standards associated with international prestige and an emphasis on
national service. African intellectuals are also caught in this tension. They want to

contribute to a wider body of scholarship, but they also have a commitment to the

45

societies in which they are situated. Other factors have impacted this tension at various
points in the history of the University of Dar es Salaam. The following chapters will
build on this literature by fleshing out how this tension has evolved over the institution’s
history. They will show how the relationships between center/periphery,
external/internal, local/global have shifted and changed in the course of one research
university’s history and how this has impacted the work lives of intellectuals who are

located there.

46

Chapter Three:

Methods

This dissertation is designed as an historical case study and therefore applies
qualitative methodological approaches to examine a single phenomenon in detail (Borg &
Gall, 1989). A case study, especially one that employs a historical frame, allows an
investigator to analyze and interpret events or themes over time (Yin, 1994). This
research seeks to describe and explain UDSM faculty members’ experiences with
research within the contexts of the University, Tanzanian national development, the
wider global academic community, and the larger global political economy. All of these
contexts, both local and global, have influenced to varying degrees the Tanzanian
academy and what knowledge its members have produced and valued. This case study
also aims to examine how academics’ experiences, situated as they are in the above
contexts, have changed over time. It addresses the central question of how Tanzanian
academics have experienced and negotiated shifting local and global influences in their
research lives over the course of UDSM’s history. This chapter will provide a detailed
review of the data sources as well as the methods of data collection and analysis used for
this study.

Research Design

Over the course of the eleven months that I spent conducting field research in
Tanzania at the University of Dar es Salaam, I collected data on knowledge formation
and Tanzanian academics’ research experiences from multiple sources. Conducting this

research over this extended period allowed me adequate time to gain some level of

47

cultural understanding of the Tanzanian and UDSM contexts and to collect a significant
amount of data for analysis.

In this study, I focused on faculty within four academic units at UDSM.
Comparing multiple units, each within different fields of scholarship allowed me partially
to account for the effects of departmental and disciplinary environments on determining
both local and international research trends. First, I selected UDSM’s Department of
History, which was situated within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. This
department played a key part in the promotion of Nyerere’s socialist, nationalist agenda
through its role as one of the main “meaning-making” institutions for the post-colonial
nation (Kimambo, 1993). Additionally, the department has a long history of international
relationships and scholarship. From the time of the university’s founding, the
Department of History has had an international reputation for scholarship in African
history, even leading to the establishment of the “Dar es Salaam School” of
historiography which focused specifically on African socialism, nationalism, and
imperialism. Several leftist academics came to the department to conduct research which
contributed to the creation of a specifically Tanzanian historiography. By including this
department as one of the main sites of this study, I investigated how academics’ research
production, so vibrant during the socialist period, changed with the advent of neo-liberal
market reforms, the subsequent decrease in the University’s resources, and the shift away
from the previous focus on nationalistic “meaning-making” and socialism.

Second, as a comparison, I examined scholarship within UDSM’s Institute of
Development Studies (IDS). This unit played a significant role in shaping the general

mission of the university. During the 1970’s Nyerere saw contributing to the economic

48

and social development of the country as one of a university’s main goals. The Institute
of Development Studies was founded to support this effort and attracted scholars from
multiple disciplines to conduct applied research which would have a direct impact on
Tanzania’s economic conditions. Academics were also charged with defining what
exactly development meant within Tanzania’s post-colonial socialist enviromnent. IDS
was originally founded to play a prominent role in local development and increase
Tanzanian “self-reliance,” but with the fall of socialism in Tanzania and with the
country’s adoption of World Bank and IMF approaches to development, the Institute has
gone through a process of self-examination and re-evaluation. Examining IDS faculty
members’ research in this environment over time offers another clear example of
changing local/global dynamics. Additionally, because IDS is not tied to a distinct
disciplinary approach and is not organized in the same way as the Department of History,
it provides an alternative story of interacting with the wider international academy.
Third, the Department of Fine and Performing Arts served as another academic
unit for comparison. I chose this unit for several reasons. First, this department does not
have the same level of international prestige and interaction as the previous two units.
Second, many of the collaborations within this department have been within Afiica and,
therefore, looking at Fine Arts added a regional component to this study that might not be
evident otherwise. Third, while this department does not have the international prestige
of the other two, it has recently taken on significant engagement with Tanzanian
communities through the promotion of educational theatrical performances that discuss
HIV/AIDS and through the creation of a program to support gender sensitivity in public

schools. Finally, the literature on higher education in Africa has shown a trend,

49

emanating from donor agencies, that increasingly supports vocational or applied
education and research. By including Fine Arts (and the Department of History) in my
study, I was able to see how this and other influences have affected academic
departments which are not traditionally categorized within an “applied” discipline and
compare them to the more “applied” focus of the Institute for Development Studies.

Finally, the Department of Zoology represented the natural sciences. The
department is one of the oldest at the University of Dar es Salaam and has a strong
history of regional cooperation and collaboration. Given the natural environment in
Tanzania and its diversity of flora and fauna, Tanzania has long been a fertile site for
zoological research, much of it spearheaded either by Tanzanian academics at UDSM or
visiting scholars housed in UDSM’s Department of Zoology. By including a department
within the natural sciences, which has a strong history of both locally situated research
and international collaboration, I was able to compare the experiences of scholars within
this department and field/discipline with those in the other fields under study to gain a
fuller picture of the history of research at UDSM.

I used the data that I compiled throughout the course of the study to construct the
history of scholarly work and to chart the impact of changing influences on faculty
members’ research agendas. This history is both a kind of intellectual history,
interrogating and interpreting the shifting themes and ideas in the research produced at
the university, as well as an oral history of the scholars themselves as they describe the
evolving influences on their scholarly work. It is not, however, meant to be an
authoritative institutional history. The recently released In Search of Relevance book

(Kimambo et al., 2008), written and edited by members of UDSM’s history department,

50

takes on this task. This dissertation builds on that work by emphasizing the experience of
faculty members themselves rather than the history of the university as an institution. It
uses UDSM and Tanzania a3 a context in which to situate the personal experiences and
recollections of Tanzanian academics to reconstruct a narrative of their research work
lives . As an intellectual history, this dissertation seeks to identify and critically
investigate dynamic influences from within the institution, and externally from the
nascent nation—state of Tanzania with its shifting agenda and from forces in the broader
global arena which determine, among other things, funding and ultimately academic
legitimacy. It traces the changing effects of these influences on the epistemological and
ideological frameworks used by researchers at UDSM at various points in the institutions
history.

For this study, I used multiple sources of evidence. Primary sources of data
included in-depth interviews with faculty members, administrators, and a representative
of the Ministry of Education (formerly the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and
Technology), historical records, policy documents, and selected samples of scholarship
produced within the units under study. I also gleaned data from my participation in
events and classes at the University, my reflections on informal interactions with UDSM
students and staff, and my observations from spending a significant amount of time
immersed in the University environment. I based the data collection and analysis for this
study on the qualitative and historical methods described below.

Oral Histories
The collection of faculty members’ personal narratives or, more specifically, oral

histories formed a significant part of this study’s foundation. Oral history, as defined by

51

Ronald Grele (1996) is “the interviewing of eye-witness participants in the events of the
past for the purposes of historical reconstruction” (p. 62) While Grele used this
definition of oral history within the context of US history, it is applicable within the
Afiican context as well, as long as the researcher is cognizant of the larger cultural
framework in which the research is situated. Moreover, oral history has played a
significant role in shaping the field of African history in general. As Maynes et al. point
out, “No field has been more creative in its use of personal narratives than African
history” (p. 7). In many cases it has been used to construct knowledge about non-literate
societies," but it can also be a tool for understanding the lived experiences of literate
populations, even of university scholars who base their profession around written
productions of knowledge. Oral data can “provide opportunities to explore aspects of the
historical experience that are rarely recorded, such as personal relationships. . ..[It] offers
rich evidence about the subjective or personal meanings of past events” (Thomson, 1998,
p. 584). Maynes et al. (2008) argue, “The value of personal narratives is related precisely
to their tendency to go beyond the simple facts: They tap into the realm of meaning,
subjectivity, imagination, and emotion” (p. 148). In the case of this study, the emphasis
is placed on the history of the faculty members themselves and their interpretations of
larger historical trends. The oral histories that were produced within this study will
provide data that scholars have not included in their written academic publications and
give a fuller picture of how faculty members themselves have experienced and
interpreted shifting influences on their research.

Although the term oral history is often used interchangeably with the term life

history, David Henige (1982) recommends making a distinction between these two

52

methodologies. According to Henige, a life history is essentially a spoken
autobiography, and in conducting life history research, the researcher learns more about
the informant than the larger world in which he or she lived. In the case of oral history
research, however, the historian is still interested in the informant’s personal experiences,
but seeks to place them within the larger problem on which she is working. The benefit
of using personal narratives like oral histories as evidence is that “they provide unique
insights into the connections between individual life trajectories and collective forces and
institutions beyond the individua ” (Maynes et al., 2008, p. 3).

Oral history as it is applied within this research project is also not to be confused
with the concept of “oral tradition,” a term often used in the field of African history
(Miller, 1980; Vansina, 1985). Although, scholars have also used these two terms
interchangeably, they are quite distinct. Oral history refers to the study of the recent past
by means of personal recollections (Henige, 1982), whereas an oral tradition refers
largely to a historical source, handed down over at least a few generations, that is
composed of the collected and commonly known recollections of a particular society
(Vansina, 1985). Because this study deals with the recent past (1961-present), relies on
personal recollections as sources rather than collective memory, and is concerned with
situating these personal experiences into the wider context of both the Tanzania’s
national history and a global academic community to reconstruct the history of research
at UDSM, it uses an oral history methodology.

Selection of Participants
I included within my interview sample faculty members who have had

experiences as researchers at UDSM—i.e., those who have been active as academic staff

53

members of the University within the departments under study. Upon arrival at the
University of Dar es Salaam, I obtained departmental rosters from the Directorate of
Planning, which helped me better determine the number of participants to be included in
the study. During my eleven months at UDSM, I interviewed fifty participants. One
participant was a representative of the Ministry of the Education. Three were members
of the University’s central administration, and one was a former Professor and Vice-
Chancellor of the University. I interviewed ten staff members in History, seventeen in
the Institute for Development Studies, ten in Zoology, and eight in Fine and Performing
Arts. These numbers were roughly based on the size of the academic units included in the
study.

Because my study was oriented toward uncovering historical trends in faculty
research at UDSM, I made an effort to include in my interviewee sample participants
with a longevity of experience, however I also included researchers who had been at the
University for shorter periods of time in order to get an idea of where historical trends
may be headed in the future. I started by using snowball sampling techniques in which I
contacted faculty members within the academic units under study with whom I had
worked in the past (during my pre-dissertation research at UDSM). Through
recommendations from these faculty members I then recruited additional informants.
Finally, I used information gathered from policy documents and the Directorate of
Planning’s departmental rosters, to contact additional interviewees within these academic

units. 1 made no attempt to obtain a random sample of participants.

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Interview Structure

Over the course of this study, I collected faculty members’ oral histories through
one to two in-depth qualitative interviews with each participant. I asked the participant
about their past experiences with research at the university and although the interviews
were semi-structured in nature, in keeping with an oral history methodology, I organized
the interview protocol in such a way as to allow the participant to reconstruct a loose
chronology of their experiences at UDSM. Although, we discussed current issues and
events at the University of Dar es Salaam, the interviews focused on the participant’s
recollections of past events both in their personal career trajectories and more generally at
UDSM, in Tanzania, and internationally. These interviews were conducted mainly in
English, the official language of UDSM, however, small portions were in Kiswahili, the
official language of Tanzania. They tended to average about an hour and a half in length,
although some extended up to two hours or more. Additionally, the anonymity of
participants was maintained to the fullest extent possible following the ethical standards
of internal review of both Michigan State University and Tanzania. I obtained research
clearance from MSU, the University of Dar es Salaam Directorate of Research and
Publications, and the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). I
had preliminary meetings with the majority of the participants in order to explain to them
the general topic and goals of the research study. Once they agreed to participate, we
organized a time for the longer interview to take place. At the time of the interview, I
explained the consent process and participants signed a consent form prior to answering
any questions. Participants were encouraged to keep a copy of this signed form. The

majority of interviews were audio-recorded, and I then transcribed them. I reconstructed

55

the narrative of those that were not recorded from notes taken during the interview
session.

I designed my interview protocol to ask open-ended questions which invited
participants to freely construct their own narrative around the topics of their training,
experiences at the University, the trajectories of their research agendas, and influences on
their academic work lives (Morrissey, 2006). The construction of an oral history is not,
however, a one-sided narrative process. Historians and social scientists not only collect
oral data, they help create it and shape it through all phases of the research study (Henige,
2005). Personal narratives such as oral history “come into being specifically through a
research process that involve two or more interested parties;. . .the narrator or subject and
the interviewer and/or analyst” (Maynes et al., 2008, p. 99). First, the researcher must
take into account their role in constructing the narratives produced. Most obviously the
questions I asked during the interview process guided participants to recount events and
experiences related to the topics listed above, but my influence on the products of the
interviews was not limited to this small piece of my interactions with participants. At all
points in the process, the researcher must be aware of the role that she plays in shaping
the data. Evaluation of my part in shaping the research and subsequent narratives played
a key role in my research as it developed as well as in the final product. What’s more, in
analyzing oral data, it is important to not only understand the historical, institutional,
cultural, etc. contexts in which the narrator and the interviewer are situated, but also to
understand the relationship between the two.

My positionality in terms of my identity played a significant part in shaping both

how I structured, interpreted and analyzed the oral data that I collected and how

56

participants perceived and subsequently interacted with me. Some parts of my identity
such as my race, gender, and to a large extent my nationality and age were obvious to
participants when they met me. Others such as my background, my experiences in other
cultures, my opinions (religious, political, etc.), my awareness (or even ignorance) of
Tanzanian cultural norms, and so on remained hidden or in some cases were revealed
over time. One of the most salient aspects of my identity shaping interactions with
Tanzanian academics was my being an American student. This affected not only how I
viewed my research, but also how my participants and others at the university viewed and
responded to me. In some cases, the scholars that I spoke with were very excited and
proud that an American graduate student had taken an interest in them as a subject of
research. Several participants told me that they were grateful that someone was taking on
the study because they not only viewed it as important research, but also as something
that many of them did not have time to pursue due to the enormous demands of their jobs.
In the context of the interviews, my positionality (and perceptions of my positionality)
certainly played a role in how participants responded to me, what they chose to reveal to
me, etc. Some scholars emphasized the hegemony of the West in setting research
standards, determining research agendas, and controlling dissemination of research
results. One academic went so far as to call this “academic colonialism”. While he may
have made this argument in any environment, it is likely that his awareness of the fact
that I came from a university clearly situated in the West may have influenced him to
emphasize even more strongly this viewpoint. Another scholar teased that I might be a
CIA agent and claimed that as an American I could not help being steeped in a

hegemonic neo-liberal worldview. While I would certainly not qualify myself as having

57

a neo-liberal perspective or approach, I must acknowledge that I brought with me a
worldview that has been influenced by my own culture as well as my exposure to other
cultures.

My age and status as a doctoral student also contributed to the dynamics of the
interpersonal relationships that I had with academic staff members. In several cases, I
noticed a marked difference in the tone and level of formality when interacting with
senior versus junior staff members. Additionally, knowing that I was a doctoral student,
when discussing the subject and goals of my research, many senior scholars freely
offered advice on the design of the study and on reworking the research questions. In our
initial meeting, one professor gave me a reading assignment that he felt would help me
frame my study, and instructed me to complete it before my in-depth interview with him.
Initially, I became fi'ustrated with these types of interactions, but then realized after a few
similar incidents that, given what I knew about the general nature of graduate student-
professor relationships from my own experiences in graduate school, the academic staff
members were reacting to me as they would any other doctoral student who had come to
them to discuss a research study. In this way (but not in all ways), this academic setting
was very similar to the one that I had come from in the US. Moreover, the advice they
gave often steered me toward understanding norms of research in their own disciplines.
This advice then became another source that I analyzed to gain insight into scholars’
various approaches to research and their ideas of research standards and norms.

A3 oral historian Alistair Thomson (1998) argues “The interview is a relationship
embedded within particular cultural practices and informed by culturally specific systems

and relations of communication” (p. 582) A core piece of the study was to situate the

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oral data that I collected within larger cultural, social, political and economic contexts.
This context includes, but is not limited to, the Tanzanian national culture, the
institutional culture of UDSM, the departmental dynamics within each academic unit, and
a wider (global) intellectual culture. Although there are obvious limitations to my
understanding of these various cultural contexts due to my own cultural identity, my
immersion into the culture during data collection, my previous experiences in Tanzania,
and input from my Tanzanian informants and colleagues as well as my previous
experiences in various academic environments gave me insight into the culture in which
my research was embedded. I will expand on my exposure to these relevant cultural
contexts firrther in the following section concerning the participant observation piece of
data collection.
Participant-Observation

While not all historical studies have the advantage of incorporating data using
participant-observation, because this study concerns contemporary history (within the last
forty-five years) and traces that history into the present, 1 determined that it was
appropriate to incorporate this method into the design of the study. In this way I would
be able to gain a better understanding of the culture in which the study and my
participants were embedded. Dewalt & Dewalt (2002) define participant-observation as
“a way to collect data in naturalistic settings by [researchers] who observe and/or take
part in the common and uncommon activities of the people being studied” (p. 2). During
my fieldwork, I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time immersed in
UDSM’s environment. I applied for and received affiliation with the university as a

foreign researcher; therefore, I had access to most resources on campus. I was able to

59

attend classes and meetings as well as access materials located in the various offices of
the central administration. The Department of History served as my host at UDSM, and I
spent much of my time in the department’s resource room interacting with academic staff
and graduate students. I also spent time in the main library where I was able to engage
with a broad range of students and staff. After being on campus for approximately a
month, I figured out that if I sat in the café in front of the administration building at tea
time, 10 o’clock am, I would run into several members of the academic and
administrative staff, many of whom recognized me from seeing me around campus or
from my pre-dissertation research at UDSM. Consequently, I was able to strike up
conversations over a cup of tea which turned out to be some of the most interesting and
enlightening interactions I had while at the University. Because I was on campus almost
daily, I had a number of opportunities to interact with faculty members, administrators,
and students informally. My goal was immersion into the campus environment.

While at the University of Dar es Salaam, I also attended several events that were
relevant to this study. First, the University created a new post entitled the Mwalimu
Julius K. Nyerere Chair in African Studies to which Professor Issa Shivji was appointed.
Professor Shivji is a distinguished professor at UDSM and was integral in the
development of the university. The events surrounding the inauguration of the Chair
brought in several scholars who had participated in the early development years of the
University, and many gave special speeches addressing and recounting the history of
UDSM. I was able to attend these speeches and discussions and even audio-recorded a
few of them. Second, the Chair established a lecture series, which focused on topics

relevant to the history of UDSM and intellectual developments on campus including the

60

Dar es Salaam School of Thought. I attended these events and through them I was able to
interact with scholars who had played a significant role in shaping the trajectory of the
University. Third, the University administration and select academic staff had several
meetings with potential research donors while I was at UDSM. I sat in on a few of these
and was able to audio-record some of the discussions. Finally, I attended meetings of
UDASA, UDSM’s professional organization for academic staff. These meetings
discussed issues pertinent to the experiences of faculty members at the University. I was
able to incorporate many of the observations I made while attending these events into my
findings of the study.
Written Sources

Because this study is centered on how academic staff have negotiated local and
global influences on their research which requires understanding their perceptions of the
these influences and the decisions they have made in their academic work lives, the main
focus of this study’s analysis was on the data collected in oral history interviews.
However, as Maynes et al. (2008) contend, “[E]ffective analysis means not taking
personal narrative evidence at face value, but rather providing context and even
alternative evidence as needed for interpreting its meaning and significance” (p. 14). In
order to complement the historical data collected in interviews and for earlier periods in
UDSM’s history that may have been underrepresented in my sample, I examined samples
of the scholarship produced within the four units under study (i.e., scholarly publications
and research proposals). This included both published and unpublished manuscripts from
each academic unit. Much of this scholarship was located in UDSM’s central library as

well as libraries maintained by each academic unit. I acquired access to any unpublished

61

scholarship through my contact with faculty members fiom each unit. I then analyzed
this scholarship for its thematic content in order to investigate how the prevalence of
particular methodological or conceptual themes changed over time. I also attempted to
categorize this scholarship according to the definitions of research given in faculty
member interviews as well as literature on research production. Categories of knowledge
included applied, basic or theoretical, locally-focused, and intemationally-oriented. To
supplement my analysis of this scholarship, I also examined the few literature reviews
produced by UDSM scholars about the development of research within various
disciplines at the University. Isaria Kimambo (1969, 1993) produced two
historiographies of the Dar es Salaam School of History, and Issa Shivji (1993) published
a collection of essays reflecting on the history UDSM’s intellectual community.

Finally, I utilized within this study policy documents and university and
departmental records that were pertinent to research production and to the development
of the departments under study. I conducted archival research at UDSM’s main library as
well as in the UDSM central administrative units that housed policy and other documents
pertaining to research and the history of the University. I collected Research Reports
from several years as well as Annual Reports from 1964 through 1995 (I was limited by
what was available in the UDSM library’s East Africana collection). I was also able to
access UDSM Senate meeting minutes from 1970 through 1987 which included minutes
of the University’s Research and Publications committee, the Institute for Development
Studies committee, and the faculty boards of Arts and Social Science and Science.
Additionally, I found secondary sources for Senate minutes and minutes of University

College Dar es Salaam’s Research and Publications committee prior to 1970.

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Analysis

In analyzing the data generated during my fieldwork at UDSM, I sought to
identify key patterns and themes within my data sources and then trace them over time.
The goals of historical analysis are “concerned with temporality, with the ways in which
separate and individual pathways and intersections occur over time, in which events lead
to other events in a sequence” (Maynes et al., 2008, p. 130) In order to connect the
various sources and to understand how they intersected over time, it was necessary to
construct a historical narrative from the collected data and to identify key events around
which to organize findings. Coffey & Atkinson (1996) give an example of constructing
such a narrative, in this case of anthropologists’ career paths, in their Making Sense of
Qualitative Data. They examine anthropologists personal narratives in order to “pick out
key characters and events and ways in which the story is constructed, told, and framed”
(p. 71). This process of periodization was essential to understanding how events that
have impacted personal lives connect to each other over time and therefore both to social
processes in a specific context and also more broadly to global trends. I analyzed the oral
and written sources to identify events that were common across the data and seemed to
significantly impact the lives of academics at UDSM. The time period of the study
begins in 1961 when the University College, Dar es Salaam was established and
continues to the present. For the purposes of this analysis and for organizing the
presentation of my findings, I have identified three key periods in the history of the
University of Dar es Salaam—the early era (1961-1979), the transition period (1979-
1994), and the contemporary era (1994—present). This periodization is based on events in

the development of UDSM and of the Tanzanian nation as a whole.

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Once I identified these periods, I was able to look for patterns in the data, both
continuities and differences, for the themes that emerged from my research questions and
trace these over time. One theme focused on the key factors that have influenced faculty
members’ research agendas. After identifying these factors throughout the interview,
observation-participation and written source data, I observed how they had shifted within
a given time period and then from one time period to the next. A coherent historical
narrative began to emerge. I also examined the data for points of difference from the
dominant narrative story, and instances of differentiation as well as explanations for these
counterpoints were an integral part of the final analysis.

To continue with this example of analyzing the factors influencing Tanzanian
scholars’ research, after identifying and following this theme in the data I attempted to
classify the factors as to whether they were local or global in nature. It is true however,
that local/ global distinctions were not always clear-cut. Indeed, as Maynes et al. (2008)
contend, in real life “categories are fluid and negotiable” (p. 144). The authors argue
that, “Personal narrative analyses are certainly appropriately informed by theories and
conceptualization derived from the analyst’s interests and categories. But the analytic
categories must also be responsive to the terms in which narrators make sense of their
world” (p. 11). In keeping with this principle, while I did apply a conceptual frame in
data collection and analysis, much of the classification I conducted was based on how the
participants themselves talked about the influencing factors in their own research work
lives. In this way, an analysis of how scholars interpreted and understood the sources of
influence on their research lives was essential in shaping this studies findings and

conclusions.

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As discussed in chapter two of this dissertation, universities in Afiica—and
UDSM was no exception—were overwhelmingly influenced by Western models of
higher education development, and the global academic community continues to exert
much influence over Tanzanian scholars. Moreover, the agendas of the wider
development community including multi- and bilateral donors have had a significant
impact on establishing what research is considered important in African universities by
exerting their own funding priorities. Additionally, Tanzanian scholars have, at different
points in history, had clear demands placed on them by the Tanzanian state. They have
also expressed a commitment to being relevant to Tanzanian society. In these cases the
divide between global and local appears evident. In many ways, however, the global and
the local are also inextricably intertwined in scholars’ lives, and it becomes complicated
to see where one ends and the other begins. For example, many Tanzanian intellectuals
were trained in Western universities, and it is reasonable to expect that the socialization
they received in these graduate programs has had a strong influence on their views of
research and what they choose to study. Therefore, while what they choose to study and
how they choose to study it can be of their own choosing situated in a local setting, to
meet local goals, there are without doubt subtle external influences emanating from their
socialization into the academy. As will be discussed in chapter six of this dissertation,
due to their position in society and exposure to international experiences, academics are
themselves in a position to be a bridge between global influences and local communities.
Another example of the blurred line between the global and the local is that often the
state, which would be considered a local influence has at different points in time

trumpeted the agendas of external agencies like the World Bank. In this case, demands

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on academics from the state are the same demands that might be placed on them by these
donors. Therefore, the international and the state are often inextricably connected.
Frequently, the differentiation between local and global was most evident when scholars
made a distinction as to whether a factor was relevant to Tanzanian national development
(local), whether it fit into the framework of contributing to scholarship in general or was
related to external donor agendas (global). I was largely interested in how participants
discussed the concepts of global and local and how their characterizations changed
depending on what was occurring in the particular historical time period that they were
describing. I use this conceptual framework, outlined more extensively in chapter one, as
a central piece of my data analysis.

The second piece of this thematic analysis involved examining the data in terms
of how the balance between global and national factors has shifted over time and then
organizing the findings within the time periods outlined above. These shifts were then
situated in the context of larger shifts within the university community, within the
political and economic development of Tanzania, within a wider global academic
community, and finally within broader global political and economic trends. The “public
narratives”, as Maynes et al. refer to them, associated with these shifts in wider historical
contexts are intimately connected with individual’s personal narratives or oral histories.
“Narrators may incorporate broader public or historical narratives into their life
stories. . .In any case alertness to the presence or absence of such narrative frameworks
can produce provocative analytic results” (p. 60). I analyzed the oral data for the
presence of this type of contextualization (or in some cases, the absence of

contextualization) and then used other sources “external to the narrative” in order to

66

situate scholars’ perceptions of themselves into the wider public narratives (Maynes et
al., 2008, p. 60). In this way, it is possible to interrogate how Tanzanian intellectuals
have impacted and been impacted by both local and global forces.

Finally, I analyzed the data to uncover what types of knowledge have been valued
both within local research agendas and within the global academic and international
donor communities. Like the analytical categories relating to global and local influences
on research, categories of knowledge as defined in this dissertation stem from definitions
of research that emerged from interviews with participants as well as from the literature
on research production. They include applied, basic, or theoretical, locally-focused and
internationally-oriented. Additionally, I followed thematic ideas within faculty research
agendas and research productions to see how the occurrence of particular themes has
shifted in different time periods and examined ways in which scholars addressed
epistemological and methodological questions at different points in time. Again, findings
from this analysis were then contextualized within a wider historical framework.
Conclusion

These combined data sources—oral histories, participant observation, and written
documents—have allowed me to create a narrative of how faculty experiences with
research have been described over time and how the economic and political context of
Tanzania and interaction with the wider academic community as well as global economic
and political trends have influenced the work lives of Tanzanian academics. By
identifying patterns (as well as discontinuities) within and between historical eras, this
dissertation addresses the question of how Tanzanian academics have experienced and

negotiated shifting local and global dynamics in their research lives over the course of

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UDSM’s history. These collected sources are the basis for reconstructing a narrative
around this central question. The subsequent two findings chapters will provide a

chronological presentation of this narrative.

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Chapter Four:

The Early Years at UDSM (1961-1979)

According to personal recollections of Tanzanian scholars who were either
academic staff or students during the first phase of the university’s history, the early
years at the University College, Dar es Salaam and later the University of Dar es Salaam
were characterized by fervent intellectual debate, a commitment to building the
Tanzanian nation, and substantive interactions with international colleagues. It was a
time of institution-building at UDSM as the newly established university sought to define
itself in terms of its relationships with the Tanzanian society and state, with other higher
education institutions throughout Afiica, and with the wider international academic
community. This chapter will present an historical narrative of the early years (1961-
1979) at the University of Dar es Salaam which include its affiliation with the University
of East Africa, the introduction of the Arusha Declaration in 1967 and the beginnings of
political and economic crisis in the late 19703. The chapter will examine this time period
in terms of the academic environment of the university and the major influences on
intellectual production and research. The following sections will show how UDSM
developed alongside or, more specifically, in conjunction with the political development
of Tanzania as a nation as it sought to define itself, eventually adopting a clearly
articulated post-colonial socialist vision. Many academics saw these early years as the
“golden era” of the university, when scholars were able to both engage in significant
ways with global intellectual dialogues and profoundly shape the development of their

nascent country.

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It is important at this juncture to make a note regarding the participants 1 spoke
with at UDSM and hiring practices at the university. While many of the current
academic staff members at UDSM were not on the academic staff during the early years
of the university, a significant number were students —either undergraduate‘or graduate —
at UDSM during this time period. The vast majority of current senior faculty members
were recruited from the student body during these years. The hiring and recruitment
practices and policies of UDSM, which continue today, involved senior academic staff
members identifying promising undergraduate students, then recruiting them as teaching
assistants. The university then provided the resources for these teaching assistants to
pursue graduate education, either by funding them to go abroad for masters and Ph.D.
degrees or facilitating their enrollment in graduate programs at UDSM. If the new staff
member pursued education abroad, he or she was then on contract to return to UDSM and
take up their academic post once they had completed their advanced degree. If they
conducted their graduate studies at UDSM, they continued to teach while working on
their own studies. Originally, this practice was part of UDSM’s effort to East Afiicanize,
or “Tanzanianize,” the academic staff of the institution. The result is that although many
of the current academics were not on staff during the early development of the university,
a large number of them experienced these early years of fervent intellectual debate and
institution-building as students. According to their own accounts, their exposure to
UDSM’s atmosphere at this time had a significant impact on their academic careers at the
university and contributed to shaping their approaches to research and intellectual work.

The following sections will investigate the perspectives and experiences of these

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Tanzanian intellectuals concerning the development of UDSM during these early eras in
the University’s history.
Establishing the University College, Dar es Salaam: 1961-196 7

The University of Dar es Salaam, or as it was previously known, the University
College, Dar es Salaam, was established in 1961 as part of the University of London
system. Before independence, the British colonial government had already planned to
establish a University College in Tanganyika by 1964, but as Tanzania’s independence
drew near and the newly elected ruling party, TANU, recognized the urgent need to train
local personnel for an independent government and economy, the plans for the university
were put into motion much sooner than previously proposed. The University College,
located in a newly constructed TANU building in downtown Dar es Salaam, opened its
doors in October 1961, three years earlier than initially planned. It consisted of only one
faculty, the Faculty of Law, and began with an enrollment of 14 students (Mapunda,
2008a). The university campus then moved from downtown to an area that was known as
Observation Hill, approximately 12 kilometers from the city center, in 1964. The
university expanded to include a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 1964, and then a
Faculty of Science in 1965.

In January 1963, with the enactment of the University of East Africa Act,
University College, Dar es Salaam joined with Makerere University in Uganda and
University College, Nairobi in Kenya to form the University of East Africa (UEA). The
constituent colleges of UEA operated along much the same lines in terms of goals and
objectives as the University of London system from which it was derived. In the case of

Dar es Salaam, however, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere added another conceptual

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component to the college’s mission—the necessity of being relevant to Afiican and
specifically Tanzanian needs (Kimambo, 20080). Then Prime Minster Nyerere’s speech
at UCD’s inauguration asserted this mission. He stated, “Our young men and women
must have an African-oriented education. That is, not only given in Afiica but also
directed at meeting the needs of Africa... our present plans must be directed at reaching
the village” (as quoted in Omari, 1991, p. 182). In the early stages of the college’s
history, this focus was evident in the emergence of nationalistic scholarship, including a
shift toward research into history from an African/Tanzanian perspective, emerging
problem-oriented research programs, and research which could contribute to a new
African-oriented curriculum.

Even though the movement toward a more nationally-oriented or
“developmental” university had already begun, Isaria Kimambo, a prominent Tanzanian
historian and one of the most senior members of UDSM who joined the academic staff in
1965, described the focus and structure of the University of East Africa as being “very
much in line with similar institutions in Western Europe” (1984). Issa Shivji, who was a
student at UCD during the 603, confirmed this observation. “The pre-1966 University
was not very different from any Western University. The ideological level at the Campus
was extremely low” (Shivji, 1993, p. 33). The structural design of departments and
faculties as well as the curriculum were all based directly on the University of London
system. The primary goal of the university was to train Tanzanians to take over the
running of industry and government from departing colonial administrators. Court
(1975) argued, “As the essence of this task was viewed as the furnishing of qualifications

with which these intellectuals could ‘legitimately’ replace incumbent expatriates, it did

72

not seem to require much change in the inherited and imported pattern of university
organization” (p. 194).

The majority of academic staff were expatriates, many of whom were attracted to
UCD because of Nyerere’s vision and rhetoric, and there was a nationalistic push to focus
on African-oriented topics especially in History and the social sciences. Research
activities, however, were very often extensions of the types of research being conducted
in their home universities in Europe, the United States, or Canada. One senior history
professor described the atmosphere at UCD in terms of the meaning of relevance at that
time: “In the period of development until 1967. .. the question of relevance was defined
in strictly speaking the liberal political philosophy which was really dependent very much
on liberal philosophy of the West” (personal communication, April 17, 2008).

For the initial recruitment of faculty members, UCD and UEA relied on the Inter-
University Council for Higher Education Overseas (IUC). This council internationally
advertised open positions at UCD and interviewed the candidates. UCD got the final
word in the hiring process. Most of the academic staff members during these early years
were from British universities, with a few coming from North America and other places.
Top administrators at UCD and UEA placed an emphasis on recruiting specialists with
international recognition so that the university would be seen as having the highest
standards. In this way, British institutions were significantly involved in the academic
hiring process since the UEA depended heavily on its connection with the University of
London as well as with the IUC, an extension of the British government, for recruitment

of top candidates (Kimambo, 2008a).

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Like many universities in EurOpe and North America, as well as many of the
newly established African universities, UEA (and, by extension, UCD) was first
conceived as a largely apolitical institution based around “universal” ideas of knowledge.
As mentioned previously, a major goal of the university was to train hi gh-level
indigenous manpower in much the same manner as universities in the West trained elite
cadres for industry and government leadership in their respective countries. The
institution itself was designed in what UCD scholars later referred to as the “western
academic tradition”. Using this academic model, UCD was, for the most part,
autonomous from direct government influence. Although some of the staff supported a
progressive political agenda for the college, the central administration emphasized
objectivity and neutrality with regard to Nyerere’s, and by extension Tanzania’s, budding
socialist-leanings. Shivji pointed out in his previously mentioned quote that “the
ideological level at the Campus was low.” From his own decidedly Marxist perspective,
Shivji went on to argue that “reactionary ideas held sway and what bourgeois lecturers
taught in the classrooms was taken as gospel truth. Straight bourgeois theories went
unchallenged” (1993, p. 33). According to a history professor, “In the early ‘603 up to
maybe ‘65, yes, we are an independent country, a postcolonial country, but within the
country ideology and even political set up is still generally what used to be in colonial
times” (personal communication, May 29, 2008). Yoweri Museveni, the current
president of Uganda, who was one of a small group of radical students at UCD in the late
19603, observed “Lecturers and professors were particularly hopeless in as far as the
interests of our peOple went” (Museveni, 1970). Neither the political philosophies of

Nyerere and TANU nor the strong ideological influence of Marxist-socialist thought had

74

yet taken hold at UCD. It is true, however, that UCD was more politically and
academically progressive than the other constituent colleges of UEA. For instance,
Makerere was known to be quite conservative in its approach to university development,
and stuck closely to the model of a higher education institution offered by the University
of London (Kimambo, 2008b). It is also true that most of the incoming expatriate
scholars at the end of this early time period were increasingly sympathetic to issues of
Tanganyikan nationalism.

During these early years on campus, as noted above, socialism had not yet
become the major influential ideology that it would become after the Arusha Declaration
in 1967; however, the academics at the university had, in the course of the years
immediately after independence, taken on a largely nationalistic approach to scholarship.
Also, as the previously mentioned history professor pointed out, intellectual debates
largely centered on “liberal philosophy of the West” (personal communication, April 17,
2008). According to Tanzanian scholars, while there was movement toward establishing
an African or, more specifically, Tanzanian voice in academia, scholars at UCD were still
relying on Western ideologies that, in hindsight, many considered incompatible with the
goals of national development. In an essay examining the trajectory of academic debate
at UDSM, senior Tanzanian scholar Issa Shivji (1993) described the early 19603 at UCD
as being dominated by modernization theories. He stated,

Both the continuity and the change that was political independence found a

theoretical expression in modernization theories. This school ruled the

discussions and the debates of the early sixties. As is known, the modernization
school was not of local origin. It derived its inspiration and articulation from

western and in particular North American scholars such as Rostow and Lewis in
Economics, Parsons in Sociology and Morgenthau and Apter in politics. (p. 130)

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According to Shivji, modernization theories applied in scholarship and academic
discussions at UCD depicted a dichotomous relationship between the “modern” economy
(equated with the colonial economy) and the “traditional” (or pre-colonial) economy.
Shivji argued that, for many intellectuals at the University at that time, adopting the basic
tenets of a western or colonial economy was considered the way to economic progress
and national development for the newly independent Tanzanian nation. However, it is
important to point out that Shivji was (and is) a dedicated Marxist scholar, and it was
through this lens that he viewed the history of intellectual debate at UDSM. Shivji
argued that the “most consistent and articulate expression [of the theory of
modernization] on the Dar Campus was in the Department of History” (p.130). The
Department of History was one of the places at UCD in which modernization theory and
early nationalist scholarship most obviously collided. The development of this academic
department, which became one of UCD’s most influential, as well as Shivji’s and others’
critique of its early approach to scholarship, is described in more detail below.

UCD’s Department of History was established in 1964 as one of the first
departments in the newly formed Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Professor Terence
Ranger was the first head of the department. Ranger, 3 British scholar, came to Dar es
Salaam from the University of Rhodesia. He had been forced to leave Rhodesia because
of the critical position he took toward the minority regime in that county. He was
considered an activist scholar, and played a major role in shaping the development of
UCD’s (and later UDSM’s) Department of History, as well as wider research activities on
campus. Although Ranger left the university in 1969, his legacy had a lasting impact.

The expatriate scholars that he recruited to work in the Department of History, the

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Tanzanian scholars that he trained, and his contribution to what was later called the Dar
es Salaam School of historiography were evidence of this legacy.

In its first phase, the Department of History took on what has been described as a
nationalist approach to history and scholarship (Denoon & Kuper, 1970; Kimambo,
1993). The main thrust of its research agenda in these early days was what Ranger
termed “the recovery of the African initiative in Tanzanian history” (1969). This
approach was a reaction against colonial historiography that had dominated the still
young field of African history up to this point. The argument was that previous scholars
had presented the history of Africa and Tanzania from a Eurocentric, colonial perspective
and represented Afiican people as having been acted upon by outsiders rather than having
agency in their own history. In his inaugural speech, Ranger gave the example that
previous writings on Tanzanian history assumed state-building ideas diffused from
outside sources. Several scholars in UCD’s Department of History offered a counter-
argument to this diffusionist theory. They contended that while certainly there were
ideas moving in from the outside, one cannot discount local initiatives in transforming
and adapting them to a particular society (Ranger, 1969). This approach to history formed
the foundation of what was later known internationally as its own school of
historiography—the Dar es Salaam School.

Later on of course it came to gain a name as Dar es Salaam School. It came from

the history department, because even the new publications which came out tended

to be to be a bit nationalistic and therefore, people felt that there was a special
school being developed here. (History professor, personal communication, April

17, 2008)

Kimambo (1993) argued that the political environment in the country at that time

did affect the work of scholars at UCD. He stated, “The political climate in Dar cs

77

Salaam from the 19603 had contributed to [this] single dynamic school of historiography,
able to adjust its production of knowledge to meet the needs of the masses” (p. 6).

Again, the nationalist approach fell within the post-independence framework of creating a
national identity, but that identity had yet to be defined in terms of the African socialist
agenda that it would later pursue. The nationalist initiative of the history department did
continue until after the Arusha Declaration, when it shifted under the influence of
socialist discourse and the input of other scholars who arrived after 1967.

A major component of the Dar es Salaam School was its effort to connect with the
masses of Tanzanian society, foreshadowing the path of “relevance” that it would follow
post-Arusha Declaration. A primary goal of the department was to uncover and
subsequently disseminate knowledge about the pre-colonial history of societies in
Tanzania by documenting their oral histories. According to Kimambo, this is what
separated Dar es Salaam from the rest of the nationalist historiography on the continent at
that time. The Historical Association of Tanzania, founded in 1966, played a significant
role in this connection with Tanzanian local communities. The association was made up
of scholars from the college, students, secondary school teachers, and members of society
who had an interest in history. Members undertook large collective projects to document
the oral histories of various ethnic groups in Tanzania, and out of these projects came
some of the first publications of UCD’s Department of History, as well as many
cunicular innovations. The first publications were put out in 1969, two years after the
Arusha Declaration, however, due to the time lag in publishing, they are the products of
research conducted within the first three to four years of the department’s history and fall

within the nationalist ideological framework.

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It is important to note that these first research initiatives and publications were
collective in nature. While individuals continued to work on their own foci, the research
outputs from this time period were collaborative, collective efforts shaped by the vision
of the departmental chair, Professor Terrance Ranger, and senior staff in the department.
This type of research program would continue throughout the socialist period, but would
change to a more individualistic approach in the post-socialist era.

The history produced in UCD’s Department of History during this era, which
ultimately led to the “Dar es Salaam School”, had its critics from across the intellectual
spectrum. Shivji and others have critiqued this nationalistic historiography as a
“bourgeois” approach to history because it searched for African initiatives “in the
direction of modernization” (p. 132) and did not question underlying social and economic
structures. Others critiqued it for its “romantic emphasis upon the role of African
initiatives,” its idealism, and its rejection of theory (Kimambo, 1993, p. 10). Still others
argued that it overemphasized the role of nationalism and nationalist movements in
Tanzania’s history to the exclusion of other historical factors. This argument contended
that historians working in Tanzania, where “they were surrounded by the activity of a
highly articulate national political party building a nation out of ex-dependency”, were
exposed “to stronger ideological currents than scholars in other independent countries
where national movements were less pervasive and dominant” (Denoon & Kuper, 1970,
p. 330), thereby making their focus overly political and ideological rather than historical.
While Shivji, a scholar located within Tanzania, argued that the Dar School was not
ideological enough, external scholars like Denoon and Kuper argued that it was too

ideological. In any case, it was clear that while class analysis and socialism were not yet

79

the main influences, as Shivji may have argued for and as they would later become post-
1967, the political situation in Tanzania and the influence of TANU’s nationalist
ideology did play a role in these intellectuals’ scholarly work. It is also clear that these
historians, while focused on the Tanzanian national context, were also trying to speak
against what was then the dominant colonial historiography by innovating new
approaches, themes, and epistemologies that could be of interest in wider scholarly
debates in the international field of African history.

During this time period, the college also began to formulate its own research
policy. In the very beginning of UCD’s development, there was no coherent strategy in
the institution’s philosophy and vision for research (Luanda, 2008). Part of this process
of fleshing out a clearer and more consistent approach involved the establishment of the
Research and Publications Committee in 1964. Although this committee began to
operate more fully later on in the history of UCD and UDSM, this was the beginning
stage of articulating a coherent research agenda and policy for the college. As Luanda
(2008) pointed out in his chapter on the history of research and publications at UDSM,
“The Committee was founded on the premise that good research enriched the whole life
of the College” (p. 134). Its central mission was to initiate and support research on East
Afiican, and more specifically Tanzanian topics. Other responsibilities included
arranging for the publication of research outputs and recommending grants from UCD
sources to academic staff for funding research initiatives (UCD academic board, 1964).
This committee did not emphasize a particular approach to scholarship; however, it did
have as central to its research agenda an emphasis on African-related or, more

specifically, Tanzanian-related t0pics.

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In 1965, the University College expanded again with the addition of the Faculty
of Science. Along with botany, chemistry, mathematics and physics, the Zoology
Department was among the originating departments in the faculty. The department was
comprised of one professor, one lecturer, and a senior technician, all of whom were
expatriates. A3 Tanzanian scientists began returning from abroad, they took up positions
alongside these expatriate scholars, but recruitment and training of Tanzanians was slow,
especially during the first years. While this department did not have the same obvious
connection to defining Tanzanian nationalism as the history department, there was a
stated intent to conduct research and teach on scientific topics relevant to Tanzania.
Given the nature of their subject and Tanzania’s biodiversity, it was not difficult for
zoologists to focus their research locally: “much of the zoological interest centres on the
wealth of biological material immediately available on the local shores and in the coastal
waters” (as quoted in Luanda, 2008, p. 136). According to Luanda, the goals of these
early research agendas in the natural sciences at UCD were both to build knowledge
about the country and “to locate the College and hence Tanganyika on the world map of
scientific research” (p. 135). The only problems with research production lay with a lack
of up-to-date equipment for the fledgling faculty. This paucity of resources forced the
department into narrower research capabilities and lines of enquiry. A zoology professor
described how one of his colleagues handled the constraints of equipment on research
during the department’s early years:

The way we did back then was you looked to the department and look at the

equipment that is available, and then you tuned your research that way. We had

one professor... he had a very flexible philosophy. He said, well look, in a place
like Tanzania, if it’s a biological specimen, if it’s a dudu [insect], you take it and

describe it, you cut it and so on. Probably whatever it is, it is new. Nobody has
described it before. (personal communication, April 29, 2008)

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Being that studying African contexts was relatively new in the natural sciences,
describing and analyzing local species was a way that scholars at UCD could
simultaneously adapt to equipment constraints, contribute to knowledge about local
environments, and make a name for themselves in the wider scientific community.

Not only were researchers at UCD trying to develop scholarship related to the
Tanzanian context and speak to a wider academic audience, they were involved in initial
debates about the appropriate structure and mission of an African university. As
mentioned in chapter two, the debate concerning the optimal balance between Afiican
universities’ academic autonomy and government involvement was prevalent throughout
Africa at this time (Yesufu, 1973). As UCD staff later argued, the UCD administration’s
(which was almost completely composed of expatriate men) over-riding concern was “to
establish in Dar es Salaam a university of international standing within the Western
educational system” (Role of UCD in socialist Tanzania, 1967, p. 125). To achieve this
goal, UCD and UEA were meant to emulate established internationally prestigious
institutions in the West, specifically those in the UK. In this way, UCD and UEA would
fit into what were then considered “universal” academic standards including autonomy
and political neutrality. Some of the original administrators offered the argument that
infusing the university with a political agenda would interfere with scientific objectivity
and associated notions of rigorous scholarship and teaching. This was also the argument
of scholars like Denoon and Kuper (1970) in their critique of UCD’s nationalist approach
to history. They contended that:

Afiican history is too important to be left to politicians. The African scholar
should be committed to writing the truth rather than the politic half-truth. Further

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generations in Africa will be better served if the highest standards of scholarship
are maintained... (p. 348)

The counter-argument later put forth by academics at the college was that this approach
created “architecturally, academically, socially and organizationally a pattern... for the
university which is based on hierarchy and privilege” (Role of UCD in socialist Tanzania,
1967, p. 125). Academics who supported this line of thinking argued that while wholly
adopting the “Western” model of education may have heightened UEA’s initial
international prestige and given some assurance of international standards, it caused the
university, its staff, and its graduates to be far removed from the rest of East African
society.

The separation of UCD scholars and students from Tanzanian society as well as
the potential for elitism instilled by the curricular structure and general mission of the
university was evidenced by a 1966 student protest. This incident would eventually play
a large role in Nyerere’s 1967 Arusha Declaration and the subsequent reshaping of
UCD’s goals and structures. In September of 1966, the Tanzanian parliament passed a
policy that all post-primary students, including university students, would be required to
complete at least six months of national service. This service could include military
training, infrastructure construction, farming, teaching adult education, and other forms
of civil service. The goals of the policy were to give tax payers a return on their
investment in the education of university students and to connect university students with
the wider Tanzanian society thereby stifling any burgeoning elitist attitudes (Mapunda,
2008b). The students, however, did not react well to this directive. In October 1966
more than three hundred UCD students demonstrated against the policy, which they felt

was demeaning to their status as intellectuals and scholars. A UDSM history professor

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who participated in the protest as a student contended that they were protesting the low
pay they were to receive for mandated national service (personal communication, June
27, 2008). The government subsequently ordered that these students be expelled. When
the government broadcast news of the incident to the public, it became clear that the
wider population supported the decision to expel the students. Public opinion landed
finnly on the side of constructing a university that was more closely tied to the needs of
the society rather than one which trained an educated elite. Eventually most of the
students were allowed to re-enter the university after sending apology letters to President
Nyerere. This incident, however, was a major turning point in terms of UCD’s
involvement in Tanzania’s nation-building project.

The first era of UCD/UDSM focused primarily on replicating and sustaining
westemized institutional structures, curricula, and research. The goal was to emulate
Western universities in order to maintain Western standards of teaching and research.
However, within this period, a shift toward a more “nationalistic” approach to scholarship
began to emerge. Faculty members and administrators began to shape research agendas
around Afiican-oriented or Tanzanian-oriented scholarship. Researchers pursued topics
that contributed to international scholarly dialogues and, at the same time, were also able
to produce knowledge relevant to establishing Tanzania’s new nationalistic identity.
Leading up to 1967 and the issuing of the Arusha Declaration, Tanzania had already
begun slowly moving in a direction different than its East Afiican neighbors in terms of
higher education toward what would later be called a “developmental” university. The
Arusha Declaration, which laid out the country’s new political and ideological trajectory,

solidified Tanzania and UCD/UDSM on the path to this model. As the next section will

84

examine, the adoption of Afiican Socialism by Nyerere’s government significantly
impacted both the structure and the intellectual atmosphere of the university.
The Arusha Declaration and the Socialist Period: 196 7-1979
The year 1967 was a turning point for Tanzania and for the University College,
Dar es Salaam. It was in February of that year that President Nyerere issued the Arusha
Declaration, which laid out the principles of his Socialism and Self-Reliance doctrine or
Ujamaa in Kiswahili. In the Declaration Nyerere states,
Socialism is a way of life, and a socialist society cannot simply come into
existence. A socialist society can only be built by those who believe in, and who
themselves practice, the principles of socialism. A committed member of TANU
will be a socialist, and his fellow socialist — that is, his fellow believers in this
political and economic system — are all those in Afiica or elsewhere in the world
who fight for the rights of peasants and workers. The first duty of a TANU
member, and especially of a TANU leader, is to accept these socialist principles,
and to live his own life in accordance with them. In particular, a genuine TANU
leader will not live off the sweat of another man, nor commit any feudalistic or
capitalistic actions. (N yerere, 1967a)
With his pamphlet, Education for Self-Reliance (Nyerere, 1967b), which was issued
shortly thereafter, Nyerere tied education to his goal for developing a socialist Tanzania.
He included within this framework not only basic education, but also the university
system. This marked a definitive shift in the mission and structures of the University
College, Dar es Salaam. Not only was the college moving toward integrating nationally-
oriented curriculum and research, it was also moving away from the Western ideal of a
“neutral” academic environment. The University College, Dar es Salaam, its
administrative staff, intellectuals, and students whole-heartedly took up the challenge to
build a socialist society put forth in the Arusha Declaration. Several scholars who were

either students or staff members at this time noted the shift in the atmosphere of the

college. “[A]s I said, I didn’t see any radical students before 1967 but suddenly there was

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a very good crop of very radical students active in the TANU Youth League. . ..[A] lot of
radical literature began to appear, and we had a very interesting group of radical scholars
at that time who were quite effective, quite influential” (history professor, personal
communication, June 27, 2008). A history senior lecturer commented, “From ‘67
towards the ‘703, that’s a major shift, major debates and quite aggressive debates”
(personal communication, May 29, 2008). Another IDS professor observed, “It was
intellectually quite stimulating. There was a lot of discussion, a lot of debates. And I
joined one year after the Arusha Declaration so this was really quite exciting” (personal
communication, October 13, 2008). In the Annual Report for 1967, Principal Chagula
refers to this as a period of self-examination after the 1966 student uprising as one that
“helped a great deal to influence (for the better) the College’s attitude as an instrument of
service and national development” (University college, Dar es Salaam report for the
year, 19657-1968, 1968, p. vii).

One of the major actions that the University College undertook just a month after
the Arusha Declaration was to host a conference on the role of the University College,
Dar es Salaam in a socialist Tanzania. Attendees included faculty and staff members of
UCD, representatives from UEA and other Afiican universities, prominent members of
TANU, and other members of the community. The goal of this conference, as UCD’s
Principal W.K. Chagula put it in his opening address, was to “discuss the various ways in
which Colleges. . .can be fully incorporated into the social and political fabric of the
nation so that their contribution to the countries in which they are situated could justify
the large amounts of money that have been invested in them by the people” (Role of UCD

in socialist Tanzania, 1967, p. 6). This discussion included strategies for inculcating

86

students with the fundamentals of socialist ideology, ways for UCD to work more closely
with TANU and to integrate TANU into the operations of the university, the need to
recruit scholars fi'om and train Tanzanian scholars in socialist countries so that UCD
could achieve a high concentration of people “with real socialist attitudes” (p. 9), and
finally, the importance of relating academic work to the concept of service to the nation.
In his address, A.M. Babu, the Minister of Health, connected these issues to a shift in the
very nature of the UCD. “[O]ne of the tasks of this Conference will be to consider how
to transform a hitherto neutral institution into a committed socialist institution” (p. 43).

In his speech before the assembly at the conference, Vice President R.M. Kawawa
argued that when UCD was first established, it needed “to demonstrate to people both
inside and outside Tanzania that the College would be as good as Colleges elsewhere. . .if
not better,” but he argued that this could also lead to the dangerous temptation of elitism
(p. 9). Many of the participants made reference to the 1966 student uprising and linked
this to a need to socialize students into socialist values to make sure that while they are at
the college, but definitely once they graduate, they use their knowledge and skills to serve
the rest of the nation. It was at this meeting that a common course for all students was
recommended. The course would teach students the fundamentals of socialist ideology.
The college subsequently implemented this course, and it laid the foundation for the
Institute of Development Studies, which will be discussed in more detail below.

The relationship between the government’s ruling TANU party and the college
was another major topic of discussion. Participants encouraged TANU to set up a branch
office on campus to facilitate the political education of UCD students and staff. They

also recommended that government representatives become more involved in the

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governing of the college by taking up seats on the Council of the University College, Dar
es Salaam and its various committees. A plan to establish a branch of the TANU Youth
League (TYL) on campus was set into motion, and a TYL office was opened by the end
of March 1967, later joined by UWT (Umoja wa Wanawake wa T anzania3) and NUTA
(National Union of Tanganyika Workers). The general consensus of conference
participant was that UCD and TANU should be more closely linked so that the college
could better align its activities to the goals of the party, i.e., to build a socialist Tanzania.
Participants at the conference expressed a concern that most of the current
expatriate academic staff members came from strongly capitalist countries and that the
majority of Tanzanian or East Afiican staff members were trained in these same
countries. To achieve a concentration of academics with socialist values, all of the
committees at the conference recommended that the recruitment process be modified to
give UCD more control over interviewing and hiring decisions. Moreover, they asserted
that the administration make a greater effort to recruit scholars from socialist countries as
well as to give African scholars opportunities to study or conduct research in socialist
countries.
It is clear that the University College must have a larger percentage of its staff
committed to the same outlook as the nation itself. It needs to draw teachers and
research scholars from the socialist countries and from other developing nations.
Equally important, some of the growing number of East Afiican staff must be
recruited from those with educational qualifications from socialist countries, and
others should be given the opportunity for education and training in such
countries. (Role of UCD in socialist Tanzania, 1967, p. 122)
Finally, conference participants discussed the need for research projects to be

formulated with the concept of service to the nation in mind. The College should, they

argued, place an emphasis on research directed toward local problems. In fact,

 

3 Union of Tanzanian Women

88

participants mentioned this recommendation repeatedly throughout the course of the
conference. The research outputs could then be used practically in the work of “building
the nation” or could be infirsed into the newly designed curriculum whose purpose was to
integrate development and socialist ideology.
Overall, the Arusha Declaration and the subsequent conference on UCD’s role in
a socialist Tanzania sparked an era that was, as many described it, rich and vibrant with
political and intellectual debates. “[A] lot of debates and discussion were on Marxism and
socialism and the development initiative in Tanzania” (development studies associate
professor, personal communication, July 15, 2008). An art professor observed,
In the 603 and 703, the University of Dar es Salaam, or the Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences where I belong was known all over the world because of its
political activism. That was the time when the lecturers here were part of the
socialist system, almost all of the lecturers in the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences. . ..That was another exciting time and you can see from my paintings
and from my writings. . .such things reflecting the mood of that time. (personal
communication, April 11, 2008)
Several scholars recounted stories of forums that were held every weekend to discuss
pressing political issues of the day.
Every Sunday, 9 o’clock to 1 o’clock, ideological classes... they were inviting
people to come and talk on issues or the research findings or on books published,
on manuscripts. You know it was very, very lively academically. (Development
studies professor, personal communication, July 18, 2008)
So, people used to go to classes on Saturday, but students had their own, they
started... Sunday class, what they called ideological class. And the hall was full.
You see, on Sunday morning instead of going to church most of them came to that
class there. . .. Both the students and teachers sat down on the floor together.
(Development studies professor, personal communication, October 13, 2008)
Both students and staff contributed to this intellectual atmosphere on campus. As

was noted earlier, radical student groups began to appear, including the University

Student African Revolutionary Front (USARF). The TANU Youth League also became

89

very active at the university. These groups published forums such as Cheche and later
Maji Maji where students and staff could disseminate their work and where intellectuals
could debate in print the ideal role of socialism at the University College and in
Tanzanian society.

In keeping with Nyerere’s self-reliance philosophy, Africanization — or more
specifically, East Africanization - of the academic staff was a major initiative at UCD at
this time. Expatriate scholars, however, played a significant role in shaping the
intellectual debates that were occurring. Many of these scholars were attracted to UCD
because of Nyerere’s philosophies and his reputation as a leader. As a Zoology Professor
put it,

The political situation was very fervent. There [were] so many expatriates who

had come in whether e was a scientist, a hard scientist, a social scientist, they

really came here to serve, and they identified themselves with the political
ideology of that time which was Socialism and Self-Reliance. .. So that was quite,
it was a melting pot. There were people from all over the world. So, in that way,

it was quite a good experience. (personal communication, April 29, 2008)

BC. Honeybone, a British professor of education, pointed to one of Nyerere’s post-
independence speeches as a major influence on his decision to take up employment at
UCD.

[Nyerere] said, ‘Our job now is to convert the land we have won into a good place

for all citizens to live in, to build a society based on equality in which no on

suffers without medical attention, no one is ignorant without means to improve
himself, and no one loses his freedom to live his own life in harmony with his

neighbors.’ Certainly Tanganyika, with a leader such as this, seemed to be a

country where I could work happily and hopefully have something to contribute

towards the achievement of these ideals. (Role of UCD in socialist Tanzania,
l967,p.30)

Not only were socialist scholars attracted to UCD, the administration of the

college began to make a concerted effort to hire academics with intellectual orientations

90

that were in line with the socialist intellectual atmosphere that was emerging at UCD.
This led to a concentration of Marxist/socialist-leaning scholars in Dar es Salaam and
contributed to UCD’s international reputation as a center for political debate and
progressive scholarship. “Everybody wanted to be here. Some of the great names were
here today in academia. They were baptized here” (development studies professor,
personal communication, October 13, 2008). The Dar es Salaam School that had
emerged from the history department in the 19603 shifted and became synonymous with
the progressive scholarship that was taking place in all of the departments of the
university, but especially in the social sciences.
I don’t know whether you have heard about the Dar es Salaam School. You
know, Dar es Salaam, because of the influence of Mwalimu [Nyerere] on,
particularly on liberation and ideas about what dependency is all about. I mean
the world really respected this place. But there were certain issues, there were
certain issues particularly liberation where people from outside, if they wrote
papers, they came to test the opinion with the Dar es Salaam School. (Former
vice-chancellor, personal communication, November 14, 2008)
Remember I told you there are quite a number of outstanding professors fiom all
over the world who were coming here to try to, you know, demonstrate the
success of Ujamaa, to try to shape and demonstrate the success of Ujamaa.
(Development studies assistant professor, personal communication, August 12,
2008)
It was clear that UCD and then UDSM had developed and promoted their international
reputation as a place where radical progressive scholars could thrive intellectually.
Walter Rodney is one such radical scholar who arrived at UCD during this phase
of the college’s history. Rodney, originally from Guyana, was hired by the Department
of History and contributed significantly to the direction of research within this

department as well as to research and scholarship across campus. His most famous and

influential work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, was published jointly by British

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and Tanzanian publishing houses while he was at UCD. Senior scholars at UDSM

remember the impact that Rodney and his ideas had on the UCD community.

That’s the period of Walter Rodney if you have heard about him. Walter Rodney
was here, he was our bishop, high priest. (Development studies professor,
personal communication, July 18, 2008)

In this department we had Walter Rodney, who came in right at that time when
the Arusha Declaration had just been declared, and he was, I must say, he had a
tremendous influence. In fact, I remember talking to Ranger and other lecturers
after the exams, and they were saying, you know Rodney has influenced every
course, you know. And the students had adopted his Marxist perspective in their
thinking. This was reflected in almost every course. You would see a critique of
bourgeois thinking, bourgeois scholars almost in every writing of students, that
includes myself I must say. (Former history professor, personal communication,
November 20, 2008)

Tanzania was welcoming, was, you know, very fiiendly to progressive thinkers
around the world. So, a lot of them came here actually, from Europe, from Latin
America, from various countries in Africa, and some of them found themselves at
this university. You have heard of Walter Rodney. He’s one of those that came
here. I think he started in the ‘603, late ‘603, continued up until early ‘703, but the
impact came out after, you know, these people started publishing books. Now,
those people who were being taught here at this university, they all absorbed this,
the ideological and political current that was growing and spreading from here.
(History senior lecturer, personal communication, May 29, 2008)

For many of the academic staff who were at UCD/UDSM during the late 19603 and

19703, either as students or as academics, Rodney and like—minded progressive

colleagues had a significant influence on their scholarly careers and intellectual outlooks.

According to several scholars, the atmosphere at UCD was so overwhelmingly

socialist in nature that non-progressive scholars faced serious criticism and even in some

cases ostracism. This pressure on conservative intellectuals, they claimed, did not

emanate from the government, however, but from the radical students and scholars on

campus. One former head of the Department of History related a story of a conservative

scholar whom they had hired to work in the department. Once he arrived and it was

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obvious that his ideology did not match with the culture of the department or the
institution, his contract was not renewed. Students, however, were often not so civilized
in their opposition to scholars who did not support socialism.

One student in the TANU study group, Maji Maji study groups, decided that they
will arrest one political scientist who was opposing socialism, openly, and deport
him... So, they arrested him and took him to the airport... and then Nyerere
called and said, look, these students have gone too far, we haven’t, we have
nothing against this person. Urn, so the immigration said, well the students can’t
do that... The students did identify conservative lecturers and they dealt with
them. They said, ‘We’ll deal with them! ’... He, [the conservative lecturer], came
back, but later decided to go because he didn’t have a very favorable environment
to work in. (Former history professor, personal communication, November 20,

2008)

Another professor described opposition to an economics professor that occurred
while he was a student,

The Marxist discourse here was quite strong. Heavy, heavy discourse on

Marxism, and that was the general vibe. So, even if you were an economist, I

remember one professor who came to class in economics, I was a third year at that

time, he was, the name was Muslim or something, and he was teaching now the
typical neoclassical economies which we never had for the last, for the three
years, and this was in conflict with the economics... being taught which was
about, it was inward looking economics. .. And so, I remember that fellow, the
students protested that this man is not teaching the proper material, and I think...
either he ran away or his job was terminated. (personal communication, August

12,2008)

The increased progressivism and support of a socialist agenda on campus post-
Arusha Declaration created an environment which deterred expatriate conservative or
capitalist-oriented scholars from coming to or staying at UCD, and most Tanzanian
scholars who had been trained in “capitalist” countries were quickly socialized into
socialist ways of thinking by the overwhelming progressivism that existed at that time.

As one history professor confirmed,

[P]eople who had alternative views to Marxist modes of analysis had a very hard
time in the social sciences. You know, in a way, it had its positive and negative

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consequences. It encouraged critical thinking, there’s no doubt about that. But, it

also encouraged some kind of intellectual intolerance... The people who didn’t

subscribe to that sort of scholarship you know tended to sort of keep their views
to themselves and they would kind of toe the line because you have to sound, you

know, trendy. (personal communication, June 27, 2008)

From the evidence, it appeared that during this era Marxism and Socialism were the
dominant ideological positions at the university to the exclusion of other theoretical
frameworks.

It is important to note, however, that while scholars at the university
overwhelmingly supported leftist ideologies, they were not necessarily unified in their
approaches to socialism. Moreover, Nyerere and TANU had taken an approach to
socialism that adapted universal socialist values to the Tanzanian context in order to
create a new and unique form of the doctrine specific to Tanzania. They referred to this
ideology as African socialism or more specifically Ujamaa, which literally meant
‘family-hood’ in Kiswahili.

By the use of the word ‘ujamaa’ . .. we state that for us socialism involves

building on the foundation of our past, and building also to our own design. We

are not importing a foreign ideology into Tanzania and trying to smother our
distinct social patterns with it... This emphasis on growth from traditional
patterns of social living means that we shall be trying to create something which
is uniquely ours, and by methods which may be unique to Tanzania. This does

not invalidate our claim to be building socialism. (Nyerere, 1969, p. 28)

Many scholars at the university supported Nyerere’s goal of constructing
Tanzania’s own brand of socialism that would adapt socialist values to the history,
traditions, and cultures of Tanzania. Others felt that deviating from models based on
scientific socialism and Marxist thought would dilute the founding principles of

socialism. This difference in approach led to some tension among academics on campus,

and, more notably, between scholars and the Tanzanian state. Nyerere’s regime was for

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the most part tolerant of Marxist scholarship, although, as we shall see, toward the end of
Tanzania’s socialist period this tolerance may have waned. At the height of the socialist
period, however, Nyerere himself often engaged with Marxist intellectuals at the
university. “Nyerere was a leader who was, he was an intellectual himself and he liked
ideas. He used to come here sometimes uninvited and he used to engage the students and
staff in discussions and debates” (Development studies professor, personal
communication, October 13, 2008). A history senior lecturer observed that Nyerere
supported Marxist thinking but was resistant to more extreme leftist ideologies.

The political regime itself was not Marxist. It wasn’t. It was not communist.

And it was not socialist in the strict sense. They were talking of, you know,

something called African Socialism, but it wasn’t socialism per se. But the

political system here was tolerant to Marxist thinking, and it wasn’t tolerant to
communist politics, no. . .They were a little bit uncomfortable when they saw
people talking and thinking and trying to organize things along communist lines.

They were not happy with that but they tolerated all the discourse, academic

discourse on communism, on socialism of all kinds, on all kinds of radicalism.

They invited it, and the president used to come at the university to entertain

questions from the academic members of staff, even on broader political,

ideological issues... and he would, you know, exchange fire. OK, he would
challenge the academicians to go to the village and get to know the reality on the
ground, rather than stay in the ivory tower, just sit here generating ideas. (personal

communication, May 29, 2008)

Nyerere’s argument against a strict adherence to socialist models adopted in other
places like the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, or even China, is that while these systems
offered examples for Tanzania to learn from, it was necessary to adopt socialist values in
such a way that they meshed with the particular strengths and needs of Tanzania. In the
introduction to his Socialism and Freedom, he clearly articulated his view on the tension
between his Ujamaa policies and the opinions of strict socialist scholars at UCD.

Unfortunately some of our people—often the ones who were most insistent that

we should copy the democracy of the West—are now judging our socialist
policies and progress by what Moscow or Peking have done, and are demanding

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that we do something because it has proved useful in one of those places...

because they believe that the model for socialism already exists there... Once

again they are saying that Africa has nothing to contribute to the world and all

good things must come from elsewhere. (N yerere, 1969, p. 46-47)

The essence of the debate between Marxists and those who supported African
socialism was the idea of applying external ideologies directly to the Tanzanian context
or adapting this ideology to post-colonial Tanzania (in the way designed by Nyerere and
TANU). The majority of scholars, no matter what their opinion, were concerned with
Tanzania’s national development. Furthermore, this debate among scholars and between
the state and intellectuals did produce theories and knowledge that gained the interest of
the wider global scholarly community and contributed directly to broader discussions in
this era’s international intellectual debates on socialism. The state’s tolerance of
alternative progressive approaches, however, began to decrease in the later years of the
university’s socialist period as will be demonstrated later in this section.

In the post-1967 era, the university began new expansions and among the
departments added was the Theater Arts Department. (It would later grow to become the
Fine and Performing Arts Department and would also include music and visual arts.)
The Arusha Declaration ’3 call for relevance to Tanzania also affected the research and
teaching priorities of this department. One of the founding members of the department
noted the challenge the academic staff in the theater faced to infuse their curriculum and
research with Tanzanian elements. Up to that point, theater as a field had been
dominated by European theater, American theater, and Western theater in general. Not

much work had been done to develop African theater as a legitimate field of study. She

recounted,

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We were in a movement of proving to the world that there was African theater...

So, we went through a fantastic debate trying to define what is African theater and

we had interesting arguments... having pursued that area, so we introduced a

course on Afiican theater, but we also had to do a lot of research in terms of what

is Afiican theater theoretically... So, that is another contribution which I think
that, all that whole process of trying to research for Afiican identity which started.
in 1967, it has brought out those kinds of developments. (Former theater arts

professor, personal communication, July 3, 2008)

This exploration of theory and practice in African theater arts had a significant impact on
international academic discussions in the Arts as a whole. The research done by UDSM
academics helped to lay the foundation for African theater as an area of scholarly
enquiry, and it also contributed to goals of nation building that had been laid out by the
government and the University staff in the immediate post-Arusha era.

In 1970, the University College, Dar es Salaam officially became the University
of Dar es Salaam. The dissolution of the University of East Africa was due largely to
nationalistic pressures within the member nations. Across the continent, a national
university became one of the major symbols African nations used to project to the world
that they were fully independent. By this time, all of the constituent colleges had
expanded their curriculum. They were able to each serve as an autonomous university
for their own citizens rather than specializing in particular subject areas, as had been the
original vision under the University of East Africa. The University of Dar es Salaam
remained nominally attached to Makerere and Nairobi through the Inter-University
Committee of East Africa (Nhonoli, 1973), but policymakers in Tanzania now had
autonomy to determine fully UDSM’s structures, curricula, and mission.

With the Arusha Declaration in 1967, Tanzania and the University College, Dar

es Salaam had already begun to diverge from the other constituent colleges in terms of

their approach to higher education. Nyerere’s government, the administrators, the

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academic staff and the students had committed themselves to creating a university that
could serve as a tool for defining and supporting a distinctive Tanzanian national identity
based on a socialist agenda. UDSM had also already begun the transition to what
Nyerere and other scholars have defined as a “developmental university”. With the break
up of UEA and the transition from UCD to the autonomous University of Dar es Salaam,
these stakeholders were able to assert this approach more fully. As Nyerere stated in his
UDSM inaugural speech on August 29, 1970,

We believe that through having our own higher educational institution in this

country, we shall obtain the kind of high-level manpower we need to build a

socialist society, and we shall get the emphasis we need on investigating the

particular problems which face us. In other words, we expect that our University
will be of such a nature that all who pass through it will be prepared both in
knowledge and attitude for giving maximum service to the community. (N yerere,

1970, p. 4—5)

The new developmental model that UDSM innovated included a change in course
structure as well as a greater emphasis on teaching and research that connected with
service to the Tanzanian nation and the principles of African socialism.

The common interdisciplinary course on socialist principles that was
recommended in the 1967 conference on UCD’s role in a socialist Tanzania was part of
UDSM’s new teaching program and would eventually lead to the founding of the
Institute of Development Studies (IDS). The changes in the teaching program were
meant to align the curriculum with the newly articulated mission of the University as
expressed in Education for Self-Reliance and then later in the 1970 University of Dar es
Salaam Act. Initially, from 1967 to 1970, the course was ad hoc. It fell under the

purview of each department or faculty separately and was therefore largely incoherent in

design and approach (Kimambo, 2008b). For example, the Faculty of Arts and Social

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Sciences developed a course called East African Society and Environment (EASE), and
the Faculty of Law had its own separate common course on development. In 1970, when
the Department of Development Studies was established, it designed its own common
course for students. The Institute of Development Studies then emerged from the
Department of Development Studies in 1973 and was founded in part to add coherency to
the common teaching program. The goal of the new course was to refocus the curriculum
to center on TANU’s approach to socialism and the specificities of Tanzania’s chosen
path to development.

The Department of Development Studies and later the Institute of Development
Studies had its critics among those who had designed the precursor common courses on
development. Specifically, a tension arose between the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences (FASS), which had designed the EASE course, and Development Studies. The
argument stemmed from differing philosophies on the role of party politics at the
university. While many members of the academic staff supported TANU’s deep
involvement at the university, others felt that they needed to defend against the
domination of party politics on campus as a way to preserve academic freedom. To be
sure, those who were critical of TANU’s influence were themselves progressive scholars.
Most supported a socialist agenda, although not all agreed with the particular approach
taken by TANU and Nyerere. The EASE course focused on the East Afiican context and
its content was more general than Development Studies with regards to the history of the
region and its treatment of development in terms of the progressive principles behind

East Afiican development.

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Until 1973, the EASE and the Department of Development Studies courses were
both offered. In 1973, when the Department of Development Studies became the
Institute of Development Studies, it took over full responsibility for the common course.
Nyerere and Vice-Chancellor Msekwa appointed Ibrahim Kaduma (who had been a civil
service employee) to head the new Institute of Development Studies. Kaduma was a
staunch supporter of TANU and made it his mission to promote TANU’s philosophies at
the university. In talking about the differences between Development Studies and EASE
and the need to institute a common course in IDS to replace the EASE course, he said,

There’s a big difference because Development Studies was teaching the political

philosophy of this country, the political philosophy of this country... the party

line of this country. So, EASE, you can talk about East African society, but what

have Kenyans to do with Tanzania. This is the truth. We were trying to mold a

society of Tanzania. (personal communication, November 14, 2008)

Furthermore, he addressed the criticism of academic staff who had opposed the
implementation of IDS’ course and IDS’ approach to teaching development.

These were the guys who had been to school... they thought government
or the party was interfering with the freedom of drinking, with the freedom of
thought... Because when we went to Makerere. .. the principle of Makerere was
that you have come here to seek the truth, so to them, teaching development
studies did not appear to be allowing academic freedom. It’s not true! Because
Mwalimu never, never, never, never interfered with the thinking of anybody.
(personal communication, November 14, 2008).

There is some disagreement, however, over the role that Nyerere and party
politics played at UDSM during this time period and their influence on teaching and
research. As put forward earlier in this chapter and in chapter two, UDSM was a site of
fervent intellectual exchange concerning socialism and Tanzania’s ideal path to

development. While many staff members believed that to achieve goals of national

development it was necessary to foster a close relationship between the government and

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the university, others felt that this would have a detrimental impact on academic freedom
and intellectual autonomy. It was a continuation of the same debates that happened
around the founding of the university and then again with the 1966 student uprising. This
tension between academic autonomy and government involvement became all the more
stark in a 1977 incident, to be discussed in more detail below, in which staff members
were dismissed from the university.

IDS, at the time it was established, fell solidly on the side of supporting TANU
and Ujamaa. The “Aims and Objectives” section of IDS’ constitution stated, “It [IDS]
shall especially involve itself in the problems of socialist construction in Tanzania and in
this it shall base its programme on the principles and policies of TANU” (Institute of
Development Studies, 1975, p. 8). Not only was teaching directed toward socializing
students into the principles of TANU, but also research in the institute was to focus on
“the problems of socialist construction in Tanzania” (Institute of Development Studies,
1975, p. 3). Indeed, the social sciences were a priority at UDSM during this era.
Developing research capacity in the applied social sciences was a particular priority for
the state. The scholarship produced by a unit like the institute, with a focus on applied
research and development, would provide data that was immediately useful to solving
some of the most urgent economic and social problems in Tanzania (Court, 1975). The
relevance of this kind of research was obvious to government leaders and to the
Tanzanian public at large. An IDS professor who was a graduate student in the institute
during the early to mid-19703 described the role of the party in IDS’ teaching and
research.

That was the heyday for socialism and self-reliance and single party democracy,
and that was when they were also talking about the supremacy of the party. So,

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most of the things were actually controlled by the political party, both in terms of
programs on the ground, the party trying to influence the content so that it’s
oriented towards enlightening students on socialism and self-reliance, but also,
uh, the whole issue of socialism, democracy under socialism... Even research, a
lot of research was focusing on the development initiatives, look at how it is
implemented, what are the results, how is the reaction from the people. So, for
Development Studies for instance, we were supposed to research on these issues,
look at the policy frameworks, and also looking at the implementation of it on the
ground. We even had been assigned some villages to sort of influence in terms of
implementation of socialism and self-reliance. (personal communication, July
15, 2008)
She went on to describe her participation in research at a particular Ujamaa village close
to the city of Dodoma.
1972 was the time when this massive shift of people from their traditional villages
to new villages was done. So, for development studies, the staff members were
supposed to research on this, the process, and were engaged. . .. [I]t was really
exciting. It’s like you have the theory and you want to see it in practice, and you
get an opportunity to see it in practice, and then you just can’t keep quiet. (ibid.)
IDS played a role in researching, documenting, and to some extent trying to shape
the Ujamaa villagization policy issued by TANU in the 19703. Another development
studies professor mentioned this involvement with Ujamaa: “The students and some of
the members of staff were encouraged to go in the surrounding villages, both in the
menial work and also in teaching” (personal communication, October 13, 2008). The
link between the government, its policies and this particular academic unit was very
strong throughout this decade.
In 1974, several TANU leaders met in Musoma town to review the success (or
failure) of the implementation of the educational policies expressed in the Arusha
Declaration and Education for Self-Reliance. From this meeting emerged the Agizo la

Utekelazaji wa Elimu ya Kujitegemea [Directive on the Implementation of Education for

Self-Reliance] or as it was more commonly known, the Musoma Resolution. Party

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leaders felt that educational polices were not being effectively enacted and this directive
was meant to address that issue. In terms of higher education, they were concerned with
the failure on the part of students, scholars, and administrators at UDSM to integrate
theory and practice (Itandala, 2008). The Musoma Resolution included a policy which
postponed students’ admission to the university until they had completed one year of
national service and at least two years of practical work experience. In this way, students
entering the university would have both academic and practical experiences to draw upon
in their studies, making it more likely that they would be able to effectively integrate
theory and practice. UDSM had already started making efforts to merge theory and
practice based on recommendations from the 1967 conference held in the wake of the
Arusha Declaration as well as from portions of the 1970 University of Dar es Salaam
Act. The policies in the Musoma Resolution, such as the admissions work requirement,
were intended to speed up this integration process.

Another part of the rational for this policy was that students would be more
mature when entering the university (since they had to wait an additional two years) and
therefore more likely to be prepared to serve the nation upon graduating. Itandala (2008)
argues that party leaders wanted to admit mature students because, they reasoned, these
students would be less susceptible to the kinds of radicalism that had been growing on
campus in the late 19603 and early 19703. While TANU wanted to encourage students’
indoctrination into socialist ways of thinking, they had a very particular idea of what
socialism meant in Tanzania. Some of the popular radical leftist ideologies at UDSM
during this time questioned TANU’s brand of socialism and challenged the authority of

the party. TANU’s strategy failed in the end, however, as it did not reduce radicalism

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among students. A 1978 student demonstration against parliament’s “un-socialist” vote
to substantially raise its own salaries is clear evidence of sustained student activism
(Itandala, 2008, p. 202). Instead, the policy led to a decline in academic quality among
students on campus, as the increased requirements made it harder for qualified students to
enter. It was overturned in 1984.

TANU’s desire to reduce radical inclinations among students and staff at the
university, hinted at in the rationale for the Musoma Resolution, is indicative of a
growing tension between UDSM and Nyerere’s government. In former Vice-Chancellor
Kaduma’s quote above, he defends Nyerere’s relationship to academia in Tanzania by
claiming that the president encouraged open, unfettered academic debate on campus.
There is, however, some disagreement among those who were at the university at this
time about Nyerere’s tolerance of dissenting opinions. One history professor contended
that Nyerere thought of himself as a “scholar king”. He told a story of listening to
Nyerere speak in a seminar and present ideas as his own that had come fi'om a book by
another historian with whom the professor was very familiar. He claimed that even
though others were aware of such incidents, many were afraid to point out discrepancies
for fear of being transferred away from the university.

Nyerere brought this whole idea of self-reliance, which was not a bad idea at all,

it was very good, but this was an idea that had been written in a paper by some

British fellow and Nyerere picked that, and this fellow who was a mathematician

wrote a paper to show that Nyerere picked this idea here. He was thrown from

this university and taken to the regional headquarters of my region, which in those
days was seen as a faraway Siberia of Tanzania because he had sort of said the
king was naked, or he was plagiarizing ideas as it were. So, you know, there was

that time when this person was seeing himself as a scholar king, and was a

tendency therefore to see scholars at the university like, oh, those fellows out
there with their impractical ideas. (personal communication, September 3, 2008)

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While many at the university revered Nyerere and were inspired by his philosophies on
development and nation-building, there remained an undercurrent of tension between a
perceived intolerance of dissenting opinions.

A 1977 incident in which five academic staff members, including a prominent
historian who was clean of the Faculty Arts and Social Sciences, were dismissed from
UDSM was a culminating point in this state-university tension. Ibrahim Kaduma had
taken over the vice-chancellorship in 1977 and was advocating for the dismissal of these
staff members. He argued that,

They had something called the Kimara Club. They used to meet there and drink

and therefore if you touched any one of them, you want to demote him or you

want to punish him or discipline him, it would be an argument. . .. Their quality of
their work, I mean, they were living by experience, but not publishing,

researching. (personal communication, November 14, 2008)

When speaking about the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, he said
that he was a good academic at one time, but his academic production had waned, and he
was spending time partaking in the so-called “Kimara Club.” Kaduma recounted that he
went to Nyerere to ask what to do with these academics who, he said, were not doing
their jobs. Nyerere gave him free rein in his capacity as the vice-chancellor to
recommend transfers of staff members without democratic review. Kaduma then
compiled a list of academic and administrative staff to transfer away from the university
to other governmental positions, and submitted these to Nyerere. These staff members
were subsequently dismissed from the university and offered transfers within the civil
service.

Many, including the dismissed dean, argued that there were political reasons

behind these dismissals.

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Every year that I was Dean, none of these people had ever been reported of
being... unproductive... Just because you don’t agree with them or if you fear
their power, because, you see, Msekwa [previous vice-chancellor] admits I was
very powerful. I was powerful because of the base I had in the faculty, because of
the policies we were following there. It was a left-wing kind of thing and this is

why they were so worried about it. (personal communication, November 20,

2008)

Even Kaduma said that these people were “practicing politics rather than academic
work,” however he denied any role that differing political philosophies may have played
in his decision.

People think that oh, because these people were Marxist, I tried to remove [them].

No! I didn’t, I had no quarrel with Marxists. I had arguments with Marxists, like

Mwalimu had arguments with Marxists. You see, there’s no book about socialism.

We can’t go by the book. We have to think about what socialism we are trying to

build. That was Mwalimu’s philosophy and that was my philosophy too. . .There

was no politics whatsoever. (personal communication, November 14)

Despite this assertion, the fact that this decision was made in such a top-down
manner caused many to fear that disagreeing with Nyerere and TANU would lead them
to a similar fate. Rumors continued to circulate about the reasoning behind the
dismissals, and the fear stirred up by this incident led to both a growing rift between the
academic staff and the administrative leadership at UDSM and a decline in academic
productivity, especially in the social sciences. Academics saw the head administrators at
UDSM as largely disconnected from the concerns of intellectual life at the university.
The administrative leaders were mostly political appointees, such as Vice-Chancellor
Kaduma and his predecessor Msekwa. The issue of democracy on campus came to the
forefront of academics’ concerns. However, it wasn’t until 1980 that the academic staff

was able to form its own organization (UDASA) that could advocate on behalf of its

members.

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Also, fear of being censored or transferred caused intellectuals to be more hesitant
to publish controversial ideas or research. The Department of History, as well as social
science departments, was most affected by this decline in scholarship. One history
professor described this fear and its impact in his department,

[I]t seems there has been some timidity in writing, and this came specifically from

the debates on socialism. Historians continued to debate for a long time, without

daring to write. They were very strong attackers of other writers, but they
themselves didn’t... Especially because the removal of Professor Temu, people

thought that was because of his opinion, his socialist opinion, but I don’t think, I

don’t believe that is true. So, I think people have been timid because they thought

other people would be molested by having a strong socialist opinion, and
especially if they thought that their socialist opinion would differ from that of

Nyerere. I think this was the fear. Nyerere understood this and told people not to

be afraid, write anything you want to write, I will give you the foreword, but the

fear continued. (personal communication, April 17, 2008)

This fear would continue into the 19803, and is one of the multiple reasons for the
decrease in research and publications during the late 19703 and early 19803.

The intellectual atmosphere of fervent academic debate described earlier in this
section persisted for much of the 19703, albeit hampered at times by strain (or perceived
strain) between government philosophies and the ideological approach of UDSM
intellectuals. In the late 1970’s, however, several local and external factors combined to
lead Tanzania into a period of economic crisis. Locally, economists argued that
government policies of state expansion without subsequent increased economic
production contributed significantly to Tanzania’s financial decline (Tambila, 2008).
Additionally, the external factors leading to Tanzania’s economic collapse included the
breakup of the East African Community, the global oil crisis, Tanzania’s financial

support of liberation movements throughout East and Southern Africa, and a costly war

with Uganda’s Idi Amin. The country’s economic crisis had a severe impact on UDSM,

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which had heretofore been supported mainly by state funding. Funding shortages at the
university led to a stagnation of institutional development, staff recruitment, research, and
other intellectual activities.

Conclusion

From 1961 to 1979, the University of Dar es Salaam shifted from its roots as a
neutral, regional academic institution based wholly on the British university model to a
highly political, national university which had been reshaped along a “developmental”
model. These changes had a significant impact on intellectuals working, teaching, and
researching at UDSM. While research was conducted largely by expatriates and
followed the trajectory of international research trends, albeit with a “nationalist”
approach in the beginning, after 1967 the emphasis turned toward research which would
serve the needs of a socialist Tanzanian nation. The role of government and the influence
of political philosophies increased significantly as did the number of Tanzanians in
academic positions.

Many academics saw this as a “golden age” for the university. The level of
academic debate was extremely high and the institution had made a name for itself in
international academia. This was the era of the Dar es Salaam School of Thought which
focused on nationalism in the beginning, but later expanded to include progressive
scholarship linked to socialism, specifically to Tanzania’s particular brand of Afiican
socialism. As a whole, scholars from UDSM supported the developmentalist model the
state had adopted for education after the Arusha Declaration. Even those in less
obviously socially-oriented fields, such as the natural sciences, were strongly tied to the

goals and philosophy of Nyereres’ Ujamaa. “He [Nyerere] made us feel that we have an

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obligation, and we are not here just to serve our own interests, but to serve the nation”
(Zoology professor, personal communication, April 29, 2008).

These Tanzanian scholars were also able to contribute ideas generated under this
model to broader global debates on development and socialism. The political, economic
and social developments in Tanzania had captured the attention of scholars across the
globe, many of whom were attracted to teach and conduct research at UDSM. As a
development studies professor put it, “This was like a new experiment. This is the
government that was dreaming far-sighted to look at socialism and construction”
(personal communication, July 18, 2008). International interest in Tanzania’s experiment
contributed to the ability of the first generation of Tanzanian intellectuals at the
university to publish in international journals, and their work was subsidized by the state
and by international donor agencies alike. They strove to do work which served the
nation, and interacted significantly with international colleagues. In short, they were able
to fulfill a dual role in contributing to national development and engaging with global
scholarship. In his essay, Freedom and Socialism, Nyerere captured the sentiment and
the goal of Tanzanian intellectuals during this era:

For too long we in Afiica—and Tanzania as part of Africa—have slept, and

allowed the rest of the world to walk round and over us. Now we are beginning to

wake up and to join with our fellow human beings in deciding the destiny of the
human race. By thinking out our own problems on the basis of those principles
which have universal validity, Tanzania will make its contribution to development

of mankind. That is our opportunity and our responsibility. (N yerere, 1969, p. 58)
This idea that Tanzanian scholars could simultaneously focus on the development of their

own nation and contribute useful knowledge “to the development of mankind” defined

their experiences during the socialist period at the University of Dar es Salaam.

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As the 19703 progressed, however, signs of strain between academics and the
state began to appear. The end of the 19703 through the 19803 was a difficult time at
UDSM in many ways. A rift was growing between academic staff and administrative
staff who were allied with the national government. Unease was increasing among
academics, and many began to leave for work in other countries or the private sector.
And, most importantly, the financial situation in Tanzania was deteriorating. The next
chapter will examine this later transitional time period and trace how academic life at the
university changed with the onset of a financial depression and the subsequent isolation

of Tanzania intellectuals.

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Chapter Five:

Transition at UDSM (1979-1994)

The late 19703 to the early 19903 was a time period marked by severe financial
strain and political and economic transition in Tanzania. The lingering effects of the
financial downturn are still evident at the University of Dar es Salaam today. They play a
large role in scholars’ narratives about their own careers as well as the university
atmosphere in which they worked. This era saw the transition from socialism to an open
market economy. It also saw the advent of multi-party politics, a movement away from
socialist ideologies, and the shrinking role of the central government in the educational
realm. Finally, it saw a severe decline in research production at UDSM which led to
diminishing levels of prestige for the university and its scholars. Recruitment of
academic staff waned and, at various points, was frozen completely. The fervent debates
over socialism and development were no longer a staple of life at UDSM. Indeed, with
the end of the Cold War, Marxist and socialist scholarship moved to the margins of the
academy. Many Tanzanian scholars, most of whom maintained their leftist leanings,
became isolated because of their inability to attain firnding for research and because their
theoretical frames were no longer the mode among mainstream academics. On the other
hand, scholars who had felt hemmed in by the socialist overtones of the university and
perceived government pressure in the ‘603 and early ‘703 expressed a sense of relief and
increased freedom in their work in terms of their choice of subject matter and theoretical

frame. This chapter will examine how the academic environment and influences on

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academic life at the university changed during this time of severe financial hardship and
then again during the period of subsequent rebuilding and rejuvenation at UDSM.
The Beginnings of Financial Decline: 1979-1985

All scholars who were at the university in the late 19703 and 19803 pointed to this
time period as having a severe impact on the University of Dar es Salaam and the
scholarship produced there. While researchers have offered multiple and varied
explanations concerning the roots of Tanzania’s economic crisis (see Boesen et al., 1986;
Havnevik, 1993; Hyden & Karlstrom, 1993; Sarnoff, 1981), many UDSM academics
provided their own impressions of the causes and contributing factors. It is interesting to
note that these scholars focused primarily on the external shocks that hit the country from
1978 onwards and few critiqued directly the economic policies of Ujamaa or African
socialism. For instance, most academics at UDSM during this time identified the 1978-
1979 war with Idi Amin of Uganda as the beginning of this era of financial strain and
economic strife. When Idi Amin seized power in Uganda through a 1971 military coup,
President Nyerere offered sanctuary to Uganda’s ousted leader, Milton Obote and his
supporters. The relationship between Tanzania and Amin became even more contentious
in 1972 when a group of exiled Ugandans based in Tanzania unsuccessfully tried to
invade Uganda and overthrow Amin. In 1978, there was another failed attempt by
Ugandan rebels to overthrow Amin. The rebels fled Uganda across the border into
Tanzania. Amin sent troops into Tanzania in pursuit. When the fighting escalated,
Amin declared war on Tanzania, invaded an area of northern Tanzania called Kagera, and
declared his intentions to annex this region. Nyerere mobilized the Tanzanian army for a

counterattack. The Tanzanians defeated Amin’s troops in Kagera and then took the fight

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all the way to Kampala, the Ugandan capital, arriving there on April 10, 1979. Amin
fled, and Tanzanian troops helped return the country to civilian rule. Unfortunately,
other countries in the Organization of African Unity (OAU) did not support Tanzania’s
invasion of Uganda. Nyerere, who was known for his support of liberation movements
throughout East and Southern Africa, had controversially backed a 1977 coup in
Seychelles, and the OAU was reticent to support the perpetuation of such contentious
tactics. Many Tanzanians had thought that the international community would, as one
IDS associate professor put it, “congratulate them for ousting this dictator, but nobody
did and nobody helped Tanzania” (personal communication, August 29, 2008). The
other OAU countries saw Nyerere’s invasion of Uganda as another breach of national
sovereignty and did not provide any financial support to Tanzania. Consequently,
Tanzania had to cover the entire cost of the war and the peacekeeping efforts of the war’s
aftermath, which amounted to an estimated $500 million USD (Tambila, 2008, p. 230),
from its own finances. This cost was devastating to the country’s already struggling
economy and subsequently compounded the other economic problems that were to come
in the early 19803.

The worldwide oil crisis in 1979 also had a severe impact on Tanzania’s
economy. With the sharp rise in oil prices, the Tanzanian state was forced to divert
earned foreign exchange to emergency use. Foreign exchange, however, was in
extremely short supply because of decreases in agricultural and industrial production and
other economic factors. To illustrate this crisis Boesen et al. (1986) used the apt image of
a “tanker anchored in the harbour of Dar es Salaam, waiting for days, even weeks to

discharge its badly needed cargo of oil” (p. 19). Because oil had to be paid for up front,

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the cargo of oil was delayed because the Bank of Tanzania did not have the funds for
payment. Fuel shortages led to fuel rationing, which led to a further decline in
agricultural and industrial production. Stores were unable to keep everyday products
stocked on their shelves and shortages of basic necessities were widespread. At the
university it became extremely difficult to buy books and other materials.

Most of the things had to be ordered from outside using foreign exchange, and
foreign exchange was difficult to get. You had to request foreign exchange from
the government, from the Bank of Tanzania, and if you got allocated foreign
exchange to buy a book, that was very unlikely. (personal communication, history
professor, April 17, 2008).

Even with their level of elevated prestige in Tanzanian society, as government
employees, scholars at UDSM faced the same economic challenges as others in Dar es
Salaam. The professor quoted above went on to describe his experience with commodity
shortages.

I think in the 19803. .. things were tight that way. If you wanted to buy anything,
including sugar or anything, you had to go and queue in a shop and that’s a shop
which had provided things by the government, would have been a very special
shop, perhaps a cooperative shop or something, and you would stay there the
whole day and get nothing. That’s how things were bad in that period. (personal
communication, April 17, 2008).

Another professor expressed how shortages, economic constraints and familial
obligations impacted his ability to carry out his academic responsibilities.

In all my 40 years of teaching here, there was only one day I missed a class, and
that day my sister had come to visit with her small baby, and all night that baby
was crying because my sister didn’t have the milk to feed her, we tried to give the
baby tea, and so on. The baby wouldn’t touch it, and there was a milk factory
here at Ubungo, which was selling milk in the afternoon, and I went there to the
long queue. So I had to be on the queue, and I had a class at two o’clock... Now I
had to decide whether to stand on the queue and wait for the milk or to go to the
class. Ok. And I decided to stay on the queue and waited for the milk, and I got
the milk and sent it home. The next day of course I had to apologize to my
students. They understood. (Development studies professor, personal
communication, October 13, 2008)

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Scholars who were abroad also felt the effects of the financial crisis, and in some
ways they were in an advantaged position to help their families who remained in
Tanzania. A development studies associate professor who was in Canada pursuing his
Ph.D. studies during the worst part of the crisis (1982-1985) said there was a high
demand for used clothes from abroad. He sent clothes home from Canada, and his family
survived the crisis by selling them (personal communication, August 29, 2008). On
campus, the resentment by some of the state’s involvement in the university’s affairs was
compounded by decreases in government funding. This was the beginning of an era of
low morale among academic staff at UDSM.

Despite the extremity of the economic situation in Tanzania in the early 19803
and the need for increased economic resources, Nyerere’s government refused to accept
the IMF ’3 conditions for foreign loan assistance. Giving into the IMF’s conditionalities,
top officials argued, would severely compromise Tanzania’s model of development
(Boesen et al., 1986). Between 1974 and 1980, Tanzania had wide support in the foreign
aid community, largely due to Nyerere’s ability to articulate his vision for development
on an international stage (Hyden & Karlstrom, 1993). In 1978 and 1979, Tanzania began
negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank with the goal of securing much needed
foreign loan income. Even after the strife in the late 19703 and early 19803 Nyerere
rejected the approaches and conditions put forth by these agencies on ideological
grounds. By the mid-19803 many of the donors who had previously supported Tanzania,
including strong supporters like Sweden, began to align themselves with IMF and World
Bank thinking. Donors subsequently refused to commit long-term financial support to

the country until the IMF-Tanzania negotiations were resolved (Boesen et al., 1986). It

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wasn’t until after Nyerere stepped down from the presidency in 1985 that Tanzania
finally accepted IMF/World Bank conditions (in August 1986) and embarked on the path
of structural adjustment and liberalization, the effects of which will be discussed in more
detail in the following section.

As a governmental institution, the University of Dar es Salaam felt the full effects
of the financial crisis of the late 19703 and early 19803. Not only were academics
affected in their everyday lives as discussed above, but the effects reverberated
throughout the institution, impacting the structures and capacity of the university as well
as the research work lives of its academic staff. The budget for the university was almost
wholly state funded, and money that UDSM received from donors was most often
firnneled through the government, then redistributed to the university which gave them
less control over this financial allocation. Moreover, as indicated previously, the stand
off between the IMF and Nyerere’s government meant that the availability of donor
funding was on the decline at this time. As one history professor and former chief
academic officer of the university explained,

[T]he university got money directly from the government or by soliciting from

donors, but the problem came into being, such funds became very meager, very

small, in the difficult periods of the late 19703 and most of the first half of the

19803. There were no funds which could be contributed by the state and. . .you

will discover that the university proposed a reasonable budget but they got

perhaps half or even less than half of what they wanted. (personal communication,

April 17, 2008)

Again, the budgetary shortfalls caused an even larger rift between UDSM’s academic
staff and the Tanzanian state. A theater professor referred to this time as one of

“economic disillusionment” (personal communication, June 21, 2008) on the part of

faculty members across campus, and former Vice Chancellor Matthew Luhanga (2009)

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argued that financial strain caused the rise of “an atmosphere inconducive to academic
activities” (p. 7).

The lack of funds had a particularly negative impact on research at the university.
Academic staff from all four departments under study in this dissertation asserted that
during this era research output was at an all-time low. A history professor noted that with
the budget shortfalls, the area “which would have to be sacrificed was research because
teaching had to go on” (personal communication, April 17, 2008). Another history
professor observed that the little money set aside for research activities often went into
funding doctoral candidates in their research activities, leaving very little for academics
doing postdoctoral research (personal communication, September 3, 2008). A zoology
lecturer expressed some of the disillusionment he felt when he returned from his Ph.D.
work in Nairobi in the mid-19803 to find a fairly dire situation within the department in
terms of lack of funds and laboratory equipment for research. He went on to emphasize
that research output in zoology and in the sciences in general was very low (personal
communication, September 1, 2008). A theatre professor commented on the fact that the
type of research carried out earlier at the university was increasingly difficult to maintain.

I think things we could have done in the late ‘703 and early ‘803 were not possible

to be done by the middle of the ‘803 because the resources at the university were

very limited, and even the kind of work that we began earlier that had been
supported by the university, it would not have been possible to be done then.

(personal communication, June 21, 2008)

As noted earlier, not only were day-to-day commodities scarce, but also access to
necessary resources to conduct research was extremely limited. The central library did

not have the funds or the foreign exchange necessary to keep up with academic journal

subscriptions. Books were difficult to purchase, and having limited correspondence with

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colleagues outside of Tanzania made it hard for Tanzanian scholars to keep up-to-date
with the most current research in their fields.

In the earlier period resources were available for research, were much more

readily accessible to many people and you didn’t propose something and you

missed and you had to give up because you couldn’t finance it. But in the ‘803, it
became very difficult to get even publications, even some of the subscriptions to
journals were not available as most of the journals and new books were not
available and so a lot of things were difficult. (History professor, personal

communication, April 17, 2008)

Yes of course [there were] limited resources, and you couldn’t purchase the books

you want and maybe you would not even know which [book it] would be. . .So, it

was a world where people were not really informed much. (Development studies

assistant professor, personal communication, August 12, 2008)

In fact, as this development studies assistant professor pointed out, the books that were
available in his field of research were mostly donated by Eastern European countries and
were therefore largely written from a Marxist perspective. Books that drew on other
ideological or theoretical frameworks were much more difficult to find. He argued that
this limited access to materials hindered his ability to gain a wider perspective in his area
of study.

In order to aid both academic staff members and graduate students in gaining
access to much needed resources for research, a former chief academic officer recounted
that the administration encouraged departments to make connections with their
counterparts at other universities.

I remember when I was in the administration... we saw this... lack of resources

and we were afiaid that there would be even declining some of our programs

including post-graduate training, so we encouraged links with other departments
in other universities, and such links helped not only to share materials, but also to
help people in the department to... visit some other departments well-equipped in

order to update their scientific knowledge, including our graduate students.
(personal communication, April 17, 2008)

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While some departments began to forge these types of relationships, others such
as the Department of History with its strong socialist leanings followed a policy of
“disengagement” with departments in the capitalist West. Before liberalization in the late
19703 and early 19803, the history department was very staunch in its Marxist approach,
and, as noted earlier, many scholars within the department were resistant to scholarship
from other theoretical perspectives. As the former vice chancellor and history professor
quoted above argued, departments in Western institutions were seen as “imperialist,” and
UDSM historians issued strong criticisms of scholarship produced within these
institutions.

I remember at the time when Professor Sherriff was head of department—

disengagement. Now it means then disengagement, we must not make those

connections with imperialist departments. They wanted to remain alone. To
remain alone meant missing a lot of resources which other departments were

getting. (personal communication, April 17, 2008)

Although Marxist and socialist thought were beginning to wane in their popularity with
scholars during this era of financial strain, departments (especially the history department
and those in the social sciences) maintained their commitment to this framework. This
stance, however, meant further limiting of resources available for conducting scholarly
activities.

Additionally, the lack of funds for research compounded the more general
problem of low staff salaries. Inflation in Tanzania at this time was out of control.
Commodities were difficult to purchase and those that were available were extremely
expensive. Salaries of government employees including the academic staff of UDSM

could not keep up with the rising costs. Since they could not supplement their incomes

with research grants, many scholars instead sought out paid consultancies with NGOs,

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donor agencies, or businesses. While consultancies (mainly for the government) were a
regular part of the duties of scholars at UDSM to fulfill their obligation for service,
during this era consultancies began to take the place of pure scholarly research.

I think at the university, quite a bit, some research was done, but quite a lot of

people went into consultancies because there were, I mean you could sort of

personally assist the individual pocket a little bit, and so there was a time that

research, yes, was going on, but not, I think, as actively as it had been in the [603

and 703]. (Theatre professor, personal communication, June 21, 2008).

Without a doubt, this rise in consultancies impacted the academic environment at
UDSM. Many held the perception that fellow scholars were not engaged in rigorous
scholarly work and that the donors funding consultancy work heavily influenced the
choice of research topics, especially within the social sciences. A Development Studies
associate professor contended that, for about ten years (from the late 19703 through the
19803), scholars were forced to take on consultancies due to low wages. Because these
scholars were focused on the work that they were doing for consultancies, they lost
interest in the political and economic debates that they had once participated in so
fiercely. According to him, academics at UDSM “just wanted to sell their work to a
donor” (personal communication, August 29, 2008). They pursued topics in vogue with
external agencies and largely abandoned other academic interests.

Another development studies associate professor noted that the research agendas
that were pursued for the Institute of Development Studies and for UDSM in general
were heavily influenced by consultancy work at this time.

If you look at the budgeting for research... there was a big cut in terms of funds

allocated for research... and you could also see that by then what was done was

basically consultancy, not research as such. Consultancy, because the money for
consultancy was there from outside, so even in terms of choice of issues to

research on, I think there was a lot of influence from outside. We had some
research agenda, for the institute, for the university, for the different departments

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and faculties, but that was not fully implemented because of lack of funding, so

we relied on support from outside in terms of consultancies. (personal

communication, July 15, 2008)

Contention concerning the influence of outside funders, which began during this era, was
later echoed by UDSM academics when donor funding for scholarly research increased
after Tanzania’s liberalization. Indeed, it continues to the present day, as will be
discussed in a later section.

Not only were consultancies affecting scholarly research, but researchers were
also engaged in other money-making activities outside the university that limited their
time for academic work. Many Tanzanian academics were involved in subsistence
activities such as cultivating crops or raising livestock. Others ran small businesses,
importing and selling items like second-hand clothing. Several scholars discussed the
impact that these activities had on research activities at UDSM.

They [research activities] started sort of fragmenting in the late 803 and mainly

because of economic problems... People have no time to write papers because

they are chasing maize or because they are chasing this and that to make ends
meet. Academic work also suffers and it suffered, so from around ‘83, ‘84, things

became even worse. (History professor, personal communication, September 3,

2008)

Again, even after structural adjustment this practice of academics participating in other
money-making activities did not disappear and, as a later section will note, is still an
issue at the university.

Finally, due to financial constraints, low salaries, lack of access to research
funding and resources, and the associated strain on daily life in Tanzania, scholars began
to leave the university for “greener pastures,” as one theatre professor put it. In an

autobiographical book of his experiences at UDSM, former Vice-Chancellor Matthew

Luhanga (2009) pointed to staff attrition as one of the main consequences of this era’s

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economic crisis. Some of these academics left for other universities in Africa, Europe or
the US. Others moved into the private sector, working for donor agencies and NGOs
where salaries were higher than in the public sector. Later, after liberalization, staff
continued to leave the university; however, some argued that the financial strain of being
an academic at UDSM was not the only reason for their departure. The following section
will address more fully the contention that shifts in the dominant ideology and associated
changes in the intellectual atmosphere at UDSM caused some socialist-leaning scholars —
expatriate and Tanzanian — to leave the university. In any case, this migration of
academic staff away from UDSM put even more strain on the institution’s capacity for
teaching and research, and had a lasting impact on scholarly life at the university.
Economic Transition: 1985-1992

In 1985, Nyerere voluntarily stepped down as president of Tanzania, and Ali
Hassan Mwinyi took over the position. Nyerere did, however, remain the chairman of
the CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi)4 political party and served as an advisor to President
Mwinyi in that capacity. Mwinyi ended the standoff between Tanzania and the IMF in
1986 when he signed the agreement to accept the IMF/World Bank conditionalities for
structural adjustment (SAPs). In that way, Mwinyi’s government took the first steps
away from Afiican socialism and Ujamaa toward economic (and eventually political)
liberalization.

Structural adjustrnent’s effects on higher education in Africa have been well
documented (Ajayi et al., 1996; see Ilon, 2003; Johnstone, 2004; Lulat, 2005). African

universities like the University of Dar es Salaam, which had previously relied almost

 

4 CCM was formed from the merger of the TANU political party of Tanganyika and the Afro-Shirazi Party
(ASP) of Zanzibar in 1977

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completely on funding from the state, saw their government budget allocations shrink and
were expected to increasingly seek funding from private sources or external funding
agencies. The predominant socialist ideology of the Nyerere era had emphasized the
government’s obligation to provide the necessary resources for educating its citizens.
Schultz’s human capital theory, to which governments and donors had largely subscribed
in the 19603 and 19703, had further cemented Tanzania’s commitment to state-sponsored
higher education. This theory stated that education was an investment in human capital
and would therefore lead to a marked increase in productivity and economic outputs
(non,2003)

After structural adjustment, Tanzania’s commitment to public higher education
shifted in light of IMF and World Bank conditions for privatizing certain aspects of the
economic sector and recommendations from their cost-benefit analysis of higher
education’s rate of return to society. In short, the rate-of-retum argument contended that
the state’s investment in elementary and secondary education had much higher rates of
return to society than higher education. Economists argued that the benefits of higher
education were largely to the individual rather than to society in general. Based on
findings from economic rate-of-return studies, foreign donors —- including the World
Bank and the IMF — encouraged countries like Tanzania with limited financial resources
to decrease the state’s support of higher education in favor of elementary and secondary
education. Johnstone (2004) argued that such policies had the effect of plunging tertiary
institutions and ministries of higher education across the continent into serious and

steadily deteriorating financial austerity. The financial situation at the University of Dar

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es Salaam during the 19803 provides a clear example of this kind of economic
deterioration due to an increasingly sharp decline in government funding.

With the standoff between the IMF and Tanzania resolved, donor aid to the
country began to increase once again. Under structural adjustment, the severe budget
cuts at the University of Dar es Salaam which had caused academics to increasingly seek
out consultancies became even more severe. Because donor investment was again on the
upswing, however, scholars began to not only seek consultancies from external agencies
(which they continued to do in large numbers), but they were also able to access funds for
academic research activities. “You see, with accepting the World Bank and IMF,
bilateral donors have also opened up, so the research funds are more readily available
than before” (History professor, personal communication, April 17, 2008).

This increase in external donor funding of research activities led to various
reactions among UDSM academic staff. Most scholars expressed grave concerns over
what they perceived as the dominance of foreign agendas in research activities at UDSM,
which one scholar went so far as to call “academic colonialism” (personal
communication, September 11, 2008). Mkandawire (2005) has also referred to reliance
on foreign donors for research as the “compradorization of the intellectual exercise” (p.
42). It is important to note that these reactions mainly emanated fi'om the social sciences
and from history — areas which examine political, economic, and social interactions and
are often associated with more ideologically-laden analyses. Many in these fields said
that, with these changes in funding during this transition era, they observed that local and
national interests were losing ground as a factor in determining individuals’ research

agendas.

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There was a time when the university had money available for research. You
would ask the Research and Publications Committee for money for research, and
you would receive it, but now there is a dependency on donor funding, and in this
way the donors set the priorities. This has been a complaint for a long time, that
the university has changed from having its own priorities to taking on the
priorities of donors in order to get funding for research. (Development studies
professor, personal communication, August 14, 2008)

Research is more individualistic now. People get funding from abroad. They
apply. They get money... More and more money is going into the so-called
developmental areas, the kind of research that would have an immediate impact, if
you say today that you want to do a history of politicians in Afiican, chances are
you know no one is very keen on it... but if you want to do something on the
environment. . .then you know, chances are they’ll look at it... That’s where the
money is. (History professor, personal communication, April 8, 2008)

As another development studies professor stated, “[He] who pays the piper, calls the

tune” (personal communication, July 18, 2008).

This sentiment is echoed in Issa Shivji’s 1988 essay Reflections on Intellectuals in

Africa. He asserted that “imperialism,” — in this case referring to Western donor agencies

— was not interested in sponsoring the production of social theory in Afiica.

As with industries so [it is] with the academia. If Western monopoly capital
invests, at best, in assembly and processing plants so western funding agencies, at
best, fund consultancies and policy-research under the guise of relevant research.
That these consultancies and policy-research take for granted the theoretical
premises manufactured in the west is part of the international division of labour.
After all, Afiican scholars are neither “fit” nor do they have the comparative
advantage of pursuing the vocation of intellectuals—that of contributing to
knowledge. That is reserved for the universities and scholars of the north. (in
Shivji, 1993 p. 119)

In Shivji’s argument, African intellectuals are kept in an inferior position in the world

academic community by foreign donors who refuse to support their work on theoretical

issues, and choose instead to fund research that applies knowledge rather than produces

it. The development agencies and bilateral donors in the “aid establishment” emphasized

the need for “feasibility studies, evaluations and ‘rapid assessment’ results”

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(Mkandawire, 2005, p. 42). Because this research did not contribute directly to basic
knowledge production, it was not as highly valued in wider academic circles, thus
Afiican scholars were marginalized in this community because of their over-reliance on
external agencies for funding their scholarly work.

This argument was also expressed by a development studies professor, who said,

There are instances where people lack resources to do research. So whoever

comes along with money and looking for partners will pick you, and you end up

with that division of labor. That in participating in data collection, you’ll not
participate in analysis. So then you become the growers of data, not participating
in the knowledge production process firlly. They will ask you, collect this data,
do this research, and send us your findings, but those findings will undergo
further processing into the type of knowledge that they need to have, so that
division of labor. .. is a hierarchical knowledge production process whereas the
north determines what types of knowledge you produce, how that knowledge will
be packaged and how that knowledge should be distributed. (personal

communication, July 18, 2008)

In this way, UDSM scholars perceived that their hands were often tied by their
dependence on external funding in determining the framework and parameters of their
own research agendas.

In the fine arts, however, one former professor expressed that by this time local
Afiican art, theater, dance, and music were just beginning to be recognized as a
legitimate field of study in the wider academic community and by their colleagues in
other disciplines at UDSM. Grants from external agencies were beginning to become
more available for research in this area. “There was a lot of emphasis now of putting
African art, African theater, African music at the center” (personal communication, July

3, 2008). So in this discipline, more locally-focused research was beginning to gain

legitimacy for a wider audience than it had enjoyed during the socialist era.

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During the ‘703 and ‘803 the Fine and Performing Arts Department had developed
a concept and later a practice known as “theatre for development,” which became very
popular with development agencies in the late ‘803 and ‘903. These agencies increasingly
directed money towards sponsoring research in this area. In this way the department
gained somewhat of an international reputation as the innovators of “theatre for
development” within the development community: “By the time we were in the ‘903, the
development agencies realized that that’s a very powerful process for community
development processes. So, in actual fact, the students that we trained into this theater
for development process became quite marketable” (former Theatre Professor, personal
communication, July 3, 2008). It is not clear, however, if this work was valued beyond
the development community in wider fine arts academic circles.

While the impact of donor funding on the Zoology Department was not as stark as
in other areas, it did have certain influences on the trajectory of research within the
department. Although most scholars in the department expressed concerns about their
dependence on donor funds, one zoologist was particularly outspoken about the topic.

You have no funds, what can you do? You can’t do anything. I mean, you just sit

there and wait to be dictated upon by people who are bringing funds that we want

to do this and then do it. And somebody else comes, says stop that one, do this
one. Here’s the money, then you stop... I think that’s the problem. (personal

communication, October 29, 2008)

Like all departments at UDSM, zoology suffered ftom a severe lack of funds, and
consequently, they did not have the equipment to conduct many of the experiments
necessary for basic scientific research. The department, therefore, began moving toward a

more fieldwork-oriented wildlife conservation approach that did not require the same

kind of laboratory equipment as basic research. The shift away from basic to applied

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zoology was reinforced by donor funding that specifically targeted these types of wildlife
and biodiversity studies. A few scientists, however, pointed out that donor funded
projects did allow them to collaborate with colleagues abroad and to gain access to
laboratories in Europe or the US, helping them to move forward on laboratory-based
research projects.

Some UDSM academics saw the new funding structure as a way to make a break
with the Tanzanian government’s agenda, which they perceived as dominating the
university during the socialist era.

So, if you look at the history of the University of Dar es Salaam fi'om the 603 until

today, it has changed a lot, it has changed from that socialist university which was

leaning on socialism... influencing students on socialist development and so forth
into a university that is now open-minded and trying really to discover what’s the
best way for development so it’s no longer a dogmatic system. It’s a system that

is more open. (Development studies assistant professor, personal communication,

August 12, 2008)

They also argued that competition for external grants would improve research
quality, and that working more closely with foreign donors was a way to gain exposure to
external venues for research dissemination. Indeed, Tanzania’s economic liberalization
and the increase in foreign donor funding had also opened up more links with Western
academic institutions. After structural adjustment, scholars had more opportunities to
travel to Europe, the US. or Canada to complete their postgraduate training or conduct
research with equipment or library resources that were not available in Tanzania at that
time. With the influx of donor funding, research activities at UDSM did begin to
increase relative to the research production at the end of the 19703 and early 19803, but

scholars overall continued to be fi'ustrated about the influence of donors’ interests on

research agendas at the university.

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These changes in external funding and their impact on research at UDSM during
this time period touches on another issue raised by scholars at the university: the
transition brought about by structural adjustment in Tanzania was not only economic in
nature, but ideological as well. This is certainly true on the level of state ideology, but
academics said that they also observed clear shifts in the predominant ideology at the
university. As far as the ideological direction of the government was concerned, adopting
structural adjustment policies was a clear and decisive move away from Nyerere’s
African socialist and Ujamaa framework toward liberalization. In his book concerning
Tanzania’s transition to neo-liberalism, Shivji (2006) wrote about the beginnings of the
state’s ideological shift just before Nyerere stepped down in 1985. “The political
situation was going through a transition in which the former legitimizing ideology,
Ujamaa, was no longer hegemonic, and the new legitimizing ideology, liberalism, had
not yet become 30” (p. 8). Mwinyi’s acceptance of the conditionalities of SAPs was a
straightforward step towards making liberalism a dominant ideology in Tanzania’s
government.

Moreover, the ideological shifts in Tanzania and the rise of structural adjustment
programs as a prescription for economic and political change were also situated within a
changing global environment. The World Bank and IMF were at the forefi‘ont of a
paradigmatic shift in development theories and policies that affected nations throughout
the “developing” world. Their support of market-oriented approaches to economic
development spread to the donor community, which in turn led to the resurgence of neo-
classical economics theories. In this way, what came to be known as “neo-liberalism”

gained intellectual hegemony (Young, 2004) not only among donors, but also in global

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social scientific academic circles. This ideological shift was further reinforced by the
continuing decline of socialism worldwide. The yearl985 signaled the beginning of the
decline of the Soviet Union, and by 1991 it had collapsed completely. The Berlin Wall
fell in 1989, opening up Eastern Europe to economic and political liberalization. All of
these events radically altered the international environment, and impacted not only
economic, social and political development, but also how intellectuals worldwide flamed
these issues in their research and in resulting scholarly publications. These intellectual
trends had an indelible impact on academics at UDSM.

At the university, many scholars noted a rather sudden shift away flom the
dominance of leftist leaning ideologies toward the acceptance of neo-liberal theoretical
perspectives. Issa Shivji (2006) argued that, “the intellectual elite embraced liberal
ideology uncritically as it joined the IFIs5 in demonizing the state and debunking
nationalism and socialism” (p. 9). While Shivji may be overstating the case, as will be
discussed later, academic staff in several departments on campus did exhibit changes
towards neo-liberalism in their espoused theoretical perspectives. This shift was
especially noticeable in the social sciences and in history largely due to the fact that these
areas are concerned directly with social theory. During the socialist period, as described
in the previous chapter, leftist scholarship dominated the intellectual atmosphere at
UDSM. The story of the political scientist who was driven to the airport after he dared to
speak out against socialism illustrates this fact. In certain social science fields, the
dominance of socialist ideology lasted up to the early 19803, just before Nyerere stepped
down and Tanzania started down the path of structural adjustment. In The Courage for

Change (2009), former Vice-Chancellor Matthew Luhanga related an incident that

 

5 International Financial Institutes

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occurred when he was a member of the Senate Higher Degrees Committee in the early
19803. A doctoral student in economics had passed review by both the External and
Internal Examiners, but had failed in his viva voce (oral) examination. Upon review of
the decision, it came to light that the student had failed on ideological grounds. He had
presented the first thesis in economics at UDSM to be written flom a market-fliendly
perspective. At this time, Tanzania was still constitutionally a one-party socialist
republic, and the chairman of his oral examination committee had strong leftist ideas;
therefore he failed because his capitalist approach was not in keeping with the socialist-
dominated atmosphere on campus.

After 1985, however, the environment at UDSM shifted. Many academics who
were at the university during the transition flom socialism to liberalization stated that the
intellectual atmosphere on campus changed very quickly.

From 1985 there was another big shift now. It’s like the socialist, Afiican

Socialist project was kind of put aside, not officially put aside, and a new

orientation begins and now you see at the university. . .there are discussions, not

quite on ideological things, but what you see is also the beginning of a major

ideological shift. (History senior lecturer, personal communication, May 29,

2008)

One development studies associate professor gave the example of two of his
colleagues who were at one time outspoken Marxist economists but dramatically changed
their ideological approach.

They were extremely vocal because they were party, they belonged to the youth

wing of the CCM and they were very, very staunch Marxists in the economics

department, but then somehow, I think they changed their line of philosophy and

thinking. They became hardcore conservative economists. (personal
communication, October 3, 2008)

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Another development studies professor also mentioned the economics department’s rapid
shift. “You can see, for instance, the Department of Economics coming very quickly and
embracing neo-liberalism root and branc ” (personal communication, July 18, 2008).

The Tanzanian state’s movement away from socialist policies and the subsequent
decline in socialist thought as the dominant ideology at UDSM particularly affected the
Institute of Development Studies. As noted in the previous chapter, IDS was created to
socialize students into the principles of TANU and to address “the problems of socialist
construction in Tanzania” (Institute of Development Studies, 1975, p. 8). During the
socialist period, scholarship produced in the institute focused on socialist development
initiatives, and academic staff and graduate students did a significant amount of research
on the process of implementing Ujamaa policies. Now that the Tanzanian state was no
longer following this path to development, the Institute of Development Studies at
UDSM had to search for new ways to define itself.

Moreover, due to the influence of structural adjustment and the wider intellectual
movement towards neo-liberalism, discourse in the field of development studies had
changed significantly. The worldwide decline of socialism cemented this ideological
shift in academe.

[There was] a lot of change, because you see after the collapse of the Soviet

block, of the USSR and the Berlin Wall and all that... we had quite a difficulty,

we as IDS, in legitimizing what we were teaching. We had this strong socialist
orientation and suddenly socialism had like collapsed, and so people were saying
that Development Studies is no longer relevant... Even in the States and Canada,

International Development Studies is not one of the popular programs in those

countries... It’s on the margins. It’s on the periphery. So, here too, we were on

the periphery but now we became even more marginalized because of what

happened... in the global political system. (Development studies assistant
professor, personal communication, August 12, 2008)

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While some scholars did begin to adopt a different approach to development
studies, others remained staunchly leftist in their perspectives. As the professor quoted
above noted, “We had people who were strongly socialist, until today. My neighbor here
is strongly socialist” (personal communication, July 2008). One such scholar expressed
his flustration with the movement toward neo-liberalism in the academy.

With the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, collapse of Soviet Union, the

hegemonic rise of the United States as the only super power and the new neo-

liberalism became the world ideological framework, we are now made to think,
forced to think one way, a Washington consensus. . .lt’s either you are with us or
against us, and this is a way of looking at things. You either join us, or you lose
out, either globalize or perish... It’s hegemonic. It’s economics, it’s politics, it’s
sociology, it’s culture, it’s movement of people, you know it’s everything. That is
hegemonic ideology, hegemonic politics, economics, you see? (Development

studies professor, July 18, 2008)

While this professor stated that he had no problems securing funding due to his status as a
senior scholar with established professional connections, he did talk about his concerns
with the academic publishing industry, which he said subscribed wholly to a neo-liberal
flamework. Anyone who wanted to express alternative views, he contended, was not
able to do so in mainstream journals, but had to seek out other, less well-circulated
publications for their work.

Furthermore, the leftist scholars who remained during this time were concerned
that the ideological coherence of the socialist era had faded away. In a 1987 essay, Issa
Shivji qualified the debates of the 19803 as “uncoordinated, incoherent, inconsistent, and
mostly spontaneous” (in, 1993 p. 150). Elsewhere he argued, “Unlike the debates in the
‘603 and ‘70s, the debates of the ‘803 were not always situated firmly within an anti-

imperialist ideology nor guided by a grand theory of society” (as quoted in Mkude et al.,

2003p. 7). In UDSM’s early years, a commitment to socialist ideologies had given

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scholars in the social sciences and the humanities a particular focus in their teaching and
their approach to research. With socialism’s decline in Tanzania, and with neo-liberal
ideology beginning to make inroads with academic staff, especially in economics—the
field flom which this theoretical flamework stems—there was indeed an ideological shift;
however, the new flamework was not as coherent an ideology in other departments as
socialism had been in the 19603 and 19703. Leftist scholars remained and very few
scholars adopted neo-liberalism completely. A historian argued that post-modemism had
taken the place of socialist ideologies, and that “there [was] no longer any commitment to
ideology, any commitment to pre-established principles or theories” (personal
communication, May 29, 2008). He went on to argue that with the end of the Cold War
and the end of the liberation struggles in Eastern and Southern Africa, intellectuals were
struggling to find a way to move forward in their thinking. “How does Aflica become
something other than what it is in terms of its economic status? So there’s confusion
there. . .The old ideology was no longer helpful” (personal communication, May 29,
2008)

As another history professor pointed out, throughout the whole university,
struggles for liberation and against imperialism were no longer the rallying points that
they once were amongst Tanzanian intellectuals. “By the time we come to the ‘903, we
have a new situation where in the whole university, people who were very strong against
cooperation against imperialism changed their minds” (personal communication, April
17, 2008).

Another historian observed that after the 803 there was not the same coherent and

coordinated approach to research as there had been in the socialist, nationalist period.

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Previously. . .before the 803, they had a research agenda, like Maji Maji War.
They did that research, Maji Maji, and then they had Pangani. I don’t know how
it collapsed, but they had those agendas. When we came in the 803, no common
research theme [was] going on, and each one for himself. And you go hunting
and gathering and collecting whatever you get out there. (personal
communication, May 5, 2008)

In his review of research at the University, N.M. Lema wrote, “ UDSM lacks an
articulated vision and philosophy for research” (quoted in Luanda, 2008, p. 146). A
zoology senior lecturer observed,

Nyerere, he had his own problems, but he had vision. You see it is better for
someone who tells you this is, we are going this way, than someone who says just,
let’s just move, we’ll get there. Where? Nobody knows, you see? Nyerere was
very clear where we came flom, where we are, where we should go. . .. He knew
what the education system should do to the country. So, he had all these things,
and once he left it appears now that we are hanging around. The education
system, nobody really knows what it will serve. People change curriculum every
fortnight. So, I think we have problems. We have problems. (personal
communication, October 29, 2008)

While the legacy of Nyerere remained to a certain extent, the coherence in purpose and
commitment to a particular ideology among academics at UDSM had waned in the face
of a changing domestic and international economic and political landscape.
Democratization and Institutional Transformation: 1992-1994

Tanzania’s shift flom a single-party to a multi-party political system in 1992
further distanced the university from its connection with the socialist era. This was the
second term of Ali Hassan Mwinyi, and it was a period of rapid political change in the
country. The IMF and the World Bank began to assert political conditionalities to
accompany their economic ones. These organizations were pushing countries to
“democratize” their systems by legalizing opposition political parties. Moreover,

economic liberalization had brought more stakeholders to the national political table

including economic business groups, grassroots associations, and new religious groups

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(Kimambo, 2008a). Nyerere, as the chairman of CCM, advised Mwinyi’s administration
to initiate debates on the subject. In fact, Tanzania had a relatively smooth transition to
multi-party politics and the country officially instituted the policy in 1992.

The multiparty act forbade politics in the workplace and the offices that had once
housed branches of TANU and then CCM on campus were closed. As a result, the ruling
party, CCM, was no longer the only political influence on campus, and its direct role in
debates at the University about ideology or scholarship was significantly diminished.
The role of national politics however, did not disappear. Isaria Kimambo (2008a)
described “[the] appearance of new political parties seeking debating avenues and
opportunities for recruitment of intellectual members” (p. 250). One theater senior
lecturer pointed to the tension that the proliferation of opposition parties on campus
created between the university and the ruling party. “The university was seen as pro the
opposition... So, during that time there was that kind of negativity. Any criticism,
constructive or whatever, that was coming up flom the university was taken negatively by
the government because of that” (personal communication, April 4, 2008).

In general, the university was seen as supporting opposition political parties, and
some have argued that this has led to the development of new schools of thought.
Kimambo (2008a) contended, however, that this assertion was a bit premature.
Academics at that time, he argued, had not yet developed full-fledged schools of thought
to provide ideological support for new political parties. Political pluralism did, however,
move the university further away flom the coherent Dar es Salaam School of Thought

that had existed during the socialist period.

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Political liberalization on the national level also contributed to the
democratization of UDSM governance structures. In fact, the state’s role in the
governance of UDSM began to decline after Nyerere stepped down flom office. The
chancellorship of the university, which had been held by Nyerere flom 1961 to 1985, was
transferred to President Mwinyi upon his taking office. Mwinyi, however, did not
consider himself an intellectual in the same way that Nyerere had, and although he still
maintained a certain amount of authority over university governance and policy while he
served as chancellor, he did not involve himself in the intellectual and ideological debates
among scholars on campus. President Mwinyi served as the chancellor until 1993, just
after the state’s adoption of multi-party politics. At this point, the chancellorship of
UDSM became a civilian position. Overall, President Mwinyi and President Mkapa, who
would become Tanzania’s third president, were not as interested in activities at the
University in the same way that Nyerere had been. They relied on scholars for some
input on policy matters, but did not seek to shape the terms of academic debate as
Nyerere had. With the introduction of a civilian chancellorship, the state further divested
itself flom UDSM.

Mkandawire (2005) argued that the movement for democratization in Aflican
countries during the early 19903 also marked “a growing self-consciousness of [Afiican]
intellectuals as a social group, with rights and responsibilities. Academics themselves
began to clamour for academic fleedom” (p. 43). I would argue that intellectuals at
UDSM came flom a strong tradition of seeing themselves as a distinct social group,
although one that overlapped at times with the political elite. In some ways Tanzanian

intellectuals were a less coherent group during the early 19903 than they had been in the

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past. Nevertheless, it was evident that with the ideological shift after socialism and the
state’s decreased role on campus, both in terms of its ideological contributions and its
involvement in administrative governance, UDSM academics were searching for new
ways to define themselves in terms of their roles, rights, and responsibilities. With the
changing national and international context outlined above, the role that Aflican
universities in general, and UDSM specifically, had established for the state during its
formative years was no longer feasible or relevant.

Moreover, many academics expressed concern that with the changes adopted
through structural adjustment, the state was now an extension of the donor community,
pursuing a “foreign” agenda in the guise of national development. Some also pointed to
what they saw as increased corruption in the new regimes. A development studies
associate professor contended that during the socialist era Tanzania was not very corrupt
but then starting around flom 1985 onwards “with the introduction of the second phase
government, Ujamaa was over and everyone wanted to get rich” (personal
communication, August 29, 2008). In fact, with evidence across the continent that the
Aflican nationalist projects had failed, distrust of Aflican govermnents was rife among
academics. Aflican intellectuals, therefore, sought to define themselves and their
institutions as autonomous flom the state in ways that were not possible or perhaps even
desirable in previous eras. The “Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social
Responsibility”, adopted at the 1990 Symposium on Academic Freedom and Social
Responsibility of Intellectuals in Kampala, Uganda, is an example on a continental scale

of this effort at redefining African intellectuals’ roles, rights, and responsibilities.

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Earlier that same year the academic staff at UDSM, along with academic staff at
other Tanzanian higher education institutions, issued their own declaration on academic
fleedom, “The Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social
Responsibility of Academics” (1990). The first line of this declaration expressed
frustration with structural adjustment and its impact on higher education institutions in
Tanzania; “The stringent conditions of the international Shylocks have begun to put a
squeeze on education in a dramatic fashion.” The second paragraph went on to also
criticize the state; “The state has become increasingly authoritarian. Authoritarianism is
being further reinforced as the crisis-ridden government fails to offer palpable solutions.”
The resulting document defined more clearly than ever before the autonomy of scholars
flom state control, but it also reasserted their responsibility to the nation and to Tanzanian
society.

First, in terms of research, the declaration stated,

All members of the academic community with research functions have the right to

carry out research work without interference, subject to the universal principles

and methods of scientific enquiry. In particular, researchers shall not be denied
information or permission to do, or hindered in any way flom doing, research on
any ground except for reasons of public health and morality...
With this statement, Tanzanian scholars recommitted themselves to what were seen to be
universal standards for academic fleedom for carrying out research activities. The
declaration also addressed, however, the responsibilities of academics to address issues
pertinent to the development of local society.

All institutions of higher education shall address themselves to the contemporary

problems facing our society. To this end, curricula and academic programmes as

well as other activities of the institutions shall respond to the needs of the society

at large without prejudice to the needs of scientific enquiry and production of
knowledge.

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Furthermore, the declaration acknowledged issues of intellectual dependence that
had been debated at UDSM since its founding and were still a major concern for scholars
at the institution.

All institutions of higher education should strive to prevent scientific,

technological and other forms of dependence of our society and promote equal

partnership of all academic communities of the world in pursuit and use of
knowledge.
With this declaration, Tanzanian academics sought to address intentionally and
concretely their roles both in their distinct local context as well as in relationship to the
wider academic community in a way that freed them flom control of both the state and
the “Shylocks” of international financial institutions.

As Mkandawire (2005) has argued, although Afiican scholars were again
“adopting a self-consciously public position on national issues... They are probably
much less ‘organic’ to the current project of reintegrating African economies through
structural adjustment, dependent as it is on global technocrats” (p. 43). While Tanzanian
intellectuals were seeking to re-orient themselves not only in terms of autonomy in purely
scholarly pursuits but also with regards to their role in national development, the terms of
national development had shifted and were now aligned with foreign agencies rather than
being driven by state ideology. In fact, even though some scholars embraced the new
development agenda, many resisted its theoretical underpinnings. Their hands were tied
however because although they were relatively freer flom the influence of the Tanzanian
state, they now saw themselves in many ways as dependent on foreign institutions
financially, but also in terms of their approach to national development.

The 19803 and 19903, as outlined earlier, were difficult times for Tanzania and

the University of Dar es Salaam. By the early 19903, scholars were beginning to emerge

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flom this crisis and were able to begin the process of redefining themselves. In 1994, the
university itself began a process of redefinition with the Institutional Transformation
Programme or ITP. The goal of the ITP was to assess the state of the university and then
to put into place strategic plans of University development so that UDSM would be able
to take a leadership role in participating in the “globalised, knowledge-based economy of
the twenty-first century” (Luhanga, 2009, p. 45).

Basically, the ITP was an effort to be more intentional in planning the direction of
the university on all levels, financial and academic, and to evolve a long-term vision for
the institution. It was adapted flom a successful strategic planning exercise conducted by
the Faculty of Engineering in the late 19803. The initiative was widely accepted among
academic staff as a positive endeavor.

Obviously quite a number of changes started emerging with the Institutional

Transformation Programme that was instituted in 1994. Now that brought on

board quite a number of areas of assessing what is going on at UDSM. Do we

want to do this? Do we want to change this? And that has been healthy in a sense,

in assessing our own work. (theater professor, personal communication, June 21,

2008)

Some academics, however, continued to express concerns about external donor influence
during the process of designing the program. Vice-Chancellor Luhanga, who was
instrumental in constructing the ITP, wrote about a political science professor who “made
a claim that the Mission Statement was donor-driven, drafted in Washington, DC by the
World Bank or International Monetary Fund” (Luhanga, 2009, p. 40). Though the
program was implemented with significant support flom the academic staff in the end,

this comment demonstrates the sensitivity that many scholars had regarding the influence

of external international agencies.

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Part of the ITP involved the process of mapping out research priorities on
departmental, faculty, and institutional levels. The Directorate of Research and
Publications was established in 1996 to lead this effort as well as to be in charge of
receiving and distributing firnds for research activities at UDSM. In fact, the ITP was
successful at bringing in new revenue sources. The Director of Research and
Publications asserted that, “[UDSM] became very attractive to donors, the fact that the
University had a very clear vision of where it wanted to go, of what it wanted to do and
what programs it wanted to institute” (personal communication, July 21, 2008). These
donors, most notably the Carnegie Foundation and SIDA/SAREC6, saw UDSM’s
proactive approach to institutional development as a positive thing and believed that the
university could serve as an example to similar institutions throughout Afiica.

The research agenda was formulated largely in response to an influx of research
funds flom SIDA/SAREC. The administrative and academic staff saw this as an
opportunity to document their research priorities so that they would be able to assert their
own research goals rather than having them defined by outside agencies. It is important
to note at this juncture that not all foreign agencies that contributed research funds to
UDSM asserted a strong ideological perspective or placed demands on the types of
research that scholars could conduct. Beginning flom around 1994 SIDA/SAREC was
(and continues to be) a major donor to research activities at the University of Dar es
Salaam. SIDA gave funds directly to the Directorate of Research and Publications who
then distributed them through an internal grant competition based on UDSM’s outlined
research agenda. It is also important to acknowledge however, that the agenda, while

generated by the staff of UDSM also likely reflected their understanding of the priorities

 

6 The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency—Department for Research Cooperation

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of external agencies. Indeed, this document was intended to be used in raising funds
flom the government as well as other external donors.

While the agenda was now more geared toward UDSM-generated research goals,
SIDA/SAREC did have a hand in the process of formulating UDSM’s priorities and has
in the past asserted requests for the University to focus on specific areas.

I think they did that they wanted us to focus on certain areas like science and

technology, IT and so on. For instance, for many of the phases in the past, there

was very little firnding for the social sciences and even less for the humanities, but
for this coming phase, we’ve established that it is going, we set the priorities and
we invite proposals or we choose select proposals in relation to those priorities
that they have set. Of course, the priorities themselves, I mean the concept paper
that we prepared was also sort of looked at by SIDA/SAREC, discussed and so
on. They suggested some amendments, but nothing major in relation to the areas
that we set up. (director of Research and Publications, personal communication,

July 21, 2008)

Overall, however, the ITP did allow the University of Dar es Salaam to gain a sense of
control over the development of their institution. With less direct government
involvement and the increasing presence of international donor agencies in the operations
and research activities at the university, this was seen as an opportunity for the staff of
UDSM to assert its own agenda. The ITP continues to the current day, and academic
staff members have perceived it to be largely responsible for the slow but steady
rebuilding that the university has accomplished over the last decade.

Conclusion

In the context of the Institutional Transformation Programme, the long-term
vision of UDSM became “to become a reputable world-class university that is
responsive to national, regional, and global development needs through engagement in

dynamic knowledge production” (Luhanga, 2009, p. 53). With this the University of Dar

es Salaam was once again situating itself at the crossroads to influence (and be influenced

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by) national, regional and global developments. The financial crises of the late 19703 and
19803 and the fall of socialism in Tanzania had severely and negatively impacted the
“world-class” reputation that UDSM and its scholars had attained in the late 19603 and
early 19703. The ITP was the university’s effort to re-gain some of the prestige in the
international academic community that they had experienced in the post-independence
nationalist, socialist period but that had been all but lost in the immediate post-socialist
era.

The lingering effects of the financial devastation and the political and social
changes of this period remain at UDSM and are evident today. They played a significant
role in Tanzanian intellectuals’ narratives about their research careers and the evolution
of UDSM as an institution. Scholars who were at the university during the socialist era
recalled the lively intellectual exchanges that had occurred at that time and their
substantial interactions with colleagues around the world. This vibrant atmosphere
disappeared however in the early 19803, and the university experienced a protracted
period of downturn and degeneration. Resources became scarce. The government no
longer provided the majority of research funding to the university and scholars had to
increasingly turn to external agencies for research funds, consultancies, and contract
research. Many saw this shift as a drain on the university’s capacity to produce relevant
and rigorous research outputs. Donors often funded research application rather than
basic research. As Shivji (1993) argued, African scholars were often charged with
applying knowledge rather than producing it. Tanzanian academics became concerned

about falling behind both in terms of their relevance to the national development project,

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which was shaky at best during this time, and of their prestige in the international
academic community.

Moreover, the adoption of structural adjustment programs in 1985 and the fall of
socialism in Tanzania and worldwide caused a shift in the dominant ideological
flameworks both in Tanzania and in the broader scholarly community. Leftist and
Marxist scholarship based on class analysis was no longer in mode. A neo-liberal
oriented approach began to gain a foothold among academics globally and in certain
departments at UDSM. Those Tanzanian intellectuals who maintained their commitment
to leftist scholarship expressed frustration with this ideological shift and some
experienced marginalization and even isolation. However, others who had felt
constrained under the heavy hand of Nyerere’s government and what they saw as a nearly
single-minded commitment to socialist ideologies at UDSM commented that this
ideological shift allowed them some freedom in their research in terms their choices of
subject matter and theoretical framework.

Overall the transition period was a time of decline in research at UDSM and
Tanzanian scholars became isolated both by material conditions and ideological and
epistemological shifts in the world order and in academia. This is the time of what
Mkandawire (1995) called the second generation of African intellectuals, many of whom
left African academic institutions for consultancies or for “greener pastures” in the
private sector or abroad. Those who stayed saw a decline in their interactions with
colleagues abroad and in their voices in global scholarly dialogues.

In the mid-19903 the UDSM academic community began to take a proactive

approach to rectifying their situation with the ITP program whose success has yet to be

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determined. The historical narrative laid out in chapters four and five of this dissertation
have used the experiences of Tanzanian academics to address the central question of what
happens when a university formed within a clearly articulated post-colonial, nationally-
oriented, socialist agenda collides with significant economic and political changes both
on a national and global level. The next chapter will touch on the contemporary situation
at UDSM and will analyze the question outlined above further in terms of this study’s
specific research questions that deal with how local, with an emphasis on national,
influences and broader global processes have interacted to impact scholarly life at the

University of Dar es Salaam.

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Chapter Six:
National Engagement and Global Scholarship

In more recent years, with the decline in “national planning”, the triumph of the

market, the preponderance of foreign institutions in policy-making (through so-

called “policy dialogues”) any pretension to national priorities providing
guidelines to research has simply vanished. (Mkandawire as quoted in Brock-

Utne, 2000, p. 211)

Mkandawire’s quote captures much of the sentiment currently felt by many
Tanzanian intellectuals at the University of Dar es Salaam. Some of these academics
were fortunate enough to have experienced what they describe as the institution’s golden
era during the late 19603 and early 19703, and remember fondly the intellectual
interactions and debates they had with colleagues within the university and
internationally. They are also extremely proudof the contributions they made to
Tanzania’s national development and the role their work played in shaping Tanzania’s
national identity and in addressing the nation’s pressing social and economic problems.
As the last chapter laid out, financial devastation and shifts in national and global
political landscapes ended this golden age and led to a severe decline in research output
at UDSM. Currently, the university is undertaking a new proactive approach to
rebuilding itself with the Institutional Transformation Programme, implemented in 1994.
While this effort has reaped some benefits for the university, a sense of frustration still
remains among academics in terms of their ability to address research priorities of their
oyvn choosing and to participate fully in the global academic community. Many continue
to feel the same obligation to national development that was so prevalent in the

University’s socialist period, but feel as if the tools for that development are now out of

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their hands. Those who experienced the socialist years would like to reinvigorate the
kinds of intellectual debates that occurred then. Even the younger generation, who did
not have personal experience with that era, expressed a desire to return to that level of
intellectual engagement. Nyerere’s legacy lingers; yet, scholars feel constrained by
factors both internal and external to their environment at the University of Dar es Salaam.
The tension between a commitment to serving their national society and larger global
processes — which they see as largely beyond their control — is evident in their narratives.
This chapter complements the previous two chapters by presenting a more thematic
analysis of the data based on this dissertation’s research questions. It builds on the
historical narratives offered in chapters four and five in order to make the story of
Tanzanian scholars’ experiences with research more complete. The following sections
examine the tension described above in detail, flamed by the research questions posed in
chapter one. The goal is to shed light on the central question of this dissertation— How
have Tanzanian academics experienced and negotiated shifting local and global demands
in their research lives over the course of the history of UDSM?
Influences on Academics’ Research Agendas

This section addresses the first research question posed in this study: What have
been the key factors influencing faculty members’ research agendas? The factors
discussed below are not meant to be an exhaustive list of influences on academic research
at UDSM, but a discussion of the most consistent factors that emerged flom participants’
narratives about their work lives. I have divided the factors roughly into the categories of
“local” and “global” by relying on how scholars described these influences. Scholars

TGferred to a wide range of influences as “local,” related to a context that they saw as their

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immediate environment, or “global,” related to wider trends and processes that extend
beyond national boundaries and are not anchored in a specific locale. The discussion of
these factors includes local influences such as personal interests, institutional conditions,
and departmental factors; however, the main analysis lies at the national level (the widest
local level) and the global level because these emerged as absolutely central to Tanzanian
intellectuals’ narratives. I also note the interaction between the different levels. It is
essential to recognize and acknowledge that nothing happens in isolation. Global
processes shape local contexts, just as the local environment can feed into and influence
what constitutes the global.

Incorporated into all of the levels of what affects researchers’ work lives are
national influences. This is the widest level of local impacts and pervades all other local
levels. As evidenced by previous chapters, the influence of national issues, politics,
economics, etc. have been central to this dissertation’s findings. More importantly, they
have been central to how Tanzanian intellectuals view their scholarly work. Contributing
to a sense of national identity, solving national problems, and building the nation were
all prominent themes in Tanzanian academics’ descriptions of their work. The institution
itself was established as a national university, and its employees are civil servants who
have interacted regularly with the state. Indeed, many academics have been involved in
national politics or served in other national ministries at various points in their careers. It
is therefore understandable that ideas and influences of the national are at the core of the
institution and, by extension, its academic staff.

National identity is key to how academics at UDSM have defined themselves.

They are first and foremost Tanzanian intellectuals. In the post-independence era,

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Nyerere enacted a very deliberate strategy to construct a national identity that superseded
the multiple ethnic identities existing in Tanzania at the time of independence. To a large
extent this plan was successfirl, especially in urban areas such as Dar es Salaam, and in
elite levels of society including intellectuals. Many scholars pointed to their Tanzanian-
ness as central to their identities as academics. In speaking about his mentorship of
younger academics, a development studies professor argued that it continues to be
important to instill students with a sense of national identity.
We still need to teach people who would, you know, who would distinguish
themselves as Tanzanian scholars or Tanzanian practitioners regardless of where
they will be working. (personal communication, October 13, 2008)
A fine arts senior lecturer spoke about maintaining his Tanzanian identity while pursuing
his graduate studies abroad.
There was a strong force in students’ minds on who they were, you know, their
identities as Tanzanians, and how they go around living in this world, and... it is
actually very helpful now when. . .we say that the world is just like a village. So
everyone is around, mingling around. Now if you do know your direction, for
Tanzanians, they still feel that they are Tanzanians anywhere. They have their
identity. You know? And they are proud of themselves. (personal
communication, December 1, 2008)
Another history professor spoke about Tanzanian scholars’ strong identification with
national service,
Most Tanzanians follow the saying ‘charity begins at home’. Even when he is
away, either when doing his Ph.D. or working outside of Tanzania he is always
thinking of how something relates to Tanzania. (personal communication,
September 11, 2008)

For many scholars, a sense of national identity has been connected to pride in their own

national history and strongly tied to their sense of purpose as academics.

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Intellectuals especially indicated their loyalty to Tanzania and their Tanzanian
identity when they spoke about their decisions to return to Tanzania after completing
their graduate studies overseas.

Someone sees you, he says, yes this one is a Tanzanian which we achieved in

those days. I don’t know whether they told you, Tanzanians never stayed abroad.

Whenever they went to study, they came back here, and no country insisted on

visas for Tanzanians. They say, we know those guys will go back. (Former vice

chancellor, personal communication, November 14, 2008)

During the early era of the university in the late 19603 to the 19703, this
dedication to Tanzania was strongly connected to Nyerere and TANU’s vision for
national development and the President’s call to national service.

Really the major attractive feature at that time was the philosophy of Julius

Nyerere. He was really asking all of us to make a contribution to the national

building and I thought that since [I was] afforded the opportunity to get an

education, I thought that I had an obligation to do as much as I could. It might
have been a naive idea to just follow ahead of political persuasions and so forth,
but Nyerere was a very, very powerful force in terms of really asking people to do
what they can in their private and public lives. (Zoology professor, personal

communication, April 29, 2008)

Even in later years, scholars expressed a commitment to Tanzanian development.
A fine arts senior lecturer who finished his Ph.D. abroad in the 19903 conveyed a desire
to return to Tanzania after his studies to fulfill his patriotic duty.

We stayed there for 3 years. After that we said, no, we are going. The drive was,

I love my country. I wanted to serve my country. (personal communication,

December 1, 2008)

Scholars’ commitment to Tanzanian development and their strong identification with
their national identity have contributed significantly to decisions about their work lives.
Many indicated that they considered the Tanzanian public as the primary audience for

their work, and, as will be discussed later in this chapter, their dedication to national

development drove their ideas about the purpose of research.

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The national scene has not remained static, and as chapters four and five
document, the ebbs and flows of national politics and economics have had a significant
impact on the university and its intellectual environment. After the university was
established, it adopted the goal of national service which later shifted to include a
socialist agenda. Subsequently, academics there took up the principles of socialism as
laid out in the Arusha Declaration. While the Afiican socialist policies of Nyerere were
not strictly Marxist, the Tanzanian national experiment attracted
progressive/leftist/Marxist scholars flom around the world and led to a vibrant
intellectual atmosphere focused on ideas of socialism. These philosophical debates and
the scholarly work coming out of the university at that time helped put it on the map in
terms of international academia. Tensions developed between the national government
and academics, especially after the dismissal of staff members in the late 19703, which
may have caused some scholars to tread more carefirlly in terms of fleely expressing their
ideas. The national economic downturn in the ‘803 and ‘903, which was also strongly
connected to regional and global processes, severely impacted UDSM, and as the
historical analysis of this dissertation has asserted, shifts in the national political
landscape — also tied to external global political trends — markedly affected the
intellectual (and political) atmosphere of the university.

The institutional level is another local influence on research at UDSM. The
mission of the university has guided the focus and approach to research at various points
in its history. Additionally, the types of support provided by the institution and its
structure have impacted the ability of academics to conduct research in a given

institutional environment. Again, it is important to note that institutional factors are not

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isolated flom other levels of influence. For example, the structure of UDSM is largely
inherited flom the West. Although it has changed over time to fit different
circumstances, the institution has maintained the research university’s basic “universal”
structure. The influence of this institutional heritage will be discussed more thoroughly
in relation to global influences later in this chapter.

The institutional mission of the university has been a major influence and guiding
force for determining academics’ research priorities and their sense of themselves as
scholars. This mission, however, has shifted with the changing political and economic
situation in Tanzania. In fact, it has mirrored closely events and trends on the national
level, which makes sense since UDSM is by definition a national institution. The
institution’s mission, which has impacted how academics at the university have
approached their work, is included with institutional factors, but also represents how
national demands have shaped research agendas. It is, like other factors, intertwined with
wider national and global processes.

Nyerere and TANU laid out a clear mission for the institution at its founding — to
provide an Afiican-oriented education. Its central purpose would be “directed at meeting
the needs of Aflica. .. our present plans must be directed at reaching the village” (as
quoted in Omari, 1991, p. 182). When UCD joined with Makerere and Nairobi to form
the University of East Aflica, it adopted the larger mission of this regional institution.
The UEA’s mission aligned in many ways with Nyerere’s ideas about the university’s
purpose, although rather than focusing on national development, it was concerned with
development on a wider regional and continental scale. Upon introducing the University

of East Aflica Bill, the Secretary General of the East African Common Services

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Organization declared, “Above all the University should be relevant to our situation,
should be Aflican in a true sense. . .and make a peculiar Aflican contribution to the world
of scholarship, achievement, and research, and the advancement of knowledge” (as
quoted in Court, 1975, p. 196). In the University College’s 1964/ 1965 Annual Report,
Vice Principal W.K. Chagula stated that the college was making its contribution to
UEA’s mission in research by addressing “the many pressing problems facing the East
Aflican countries” (University College Dar es Salaam, 1965, p. 3). The college instituted
the type of education outlined in the UEA Bill, but its main goal was training Tanzanians
(or East Aflicans) to take over government and industry posts previously held by colonial
expatriates. To fulfill this particular aspect of the mission, university administrators did
not see the need to change the inherited pattern of university organization (Court, 1975),
and therefore, though the mission included a demand for an Aflican orientation, the
institution maintained a principally Western approach to higher education.

With Tanzania’s adoption of the Arusha Declaration, the mission of the
university shifted again to focus specifically on Tanzania and national development in
line with the state’s African socialist policies. Higher education was tied to the goals of
socialist development, thereby connecting the institution’s mission very closely to
national political and economic goals. In a speech before the Conference on the Role of
the UCD in a Socialist Tanzania, R. M. Kawawa, the country’s vice-president, asserted,
“In the long run our success in building a socialist society depends on our success in
educational matters” (p. 6). The state and, by extension, university administrators began
to recognize the importance of different goals of development, such as accelerated

economic growth, equitable distribution of resources, the development of a distinct

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national identity, and the improvement of living conditions for the citizenry (Court,
1975). In terms of research’s contribution to this mission, in a 1968-1969 Report on
Research at UCD, then Chief Academic Officer Isaria Kimambo stated,

In the 1967/1968 Research Report, we indicated that this University College was

conscious of its role as a national institution... Research in all fields has been

encouraged and geared towards the needs for development in Tanzania. (p. i)
The mission of the University and its research priorities were closely aligned with
priorities for national development as laid out by the Tanzanian state. Given the close
relationship that was beginning to develop between the state and the university, the
institutional mission, as a factor in research production, was inextricably tied to national-
level influences.

In 1970, UCD split flom UEA, and the University of Dar es Salaam Act of1970
established the institution as an autonomous national university. This structural change
solidified the connection between the university’s mission and the state’s vision for
Aflican Socialism and Self-Reliance. The Act indicated the objectives of UDSM,
including “to preserve, transmit and enhance knowledge for the benefit of the people of
Tanzania in accordance with the principles of socialism accepted by the people of
Tanzania” (as quoted in Kimambo, 2008cp. 160). The mission as put forth by the UDSM
Act pervaded the culture of the university. A zoology professor observed,

Yes, there was a clear purpose—to provide the needed skills among people and

the graduates to serve the nation. . ..[Nyerere] made us feel that we have an

obligation and we are not here just to serve our own interests, but to serve the

nation” (personal communication, April 29, 2008).

With regard to research, a letter flom the chief academic officer confirmed that the

university would only consider supporting research projects “which are beneficial to the

University and the country” (University of Dar es Salaam Senate, 1978).

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As chapter five argued, after the university’s decline in the 19803 and the fall of
Afiican socialism in 1985, morale on campus waned. While the mission the university
had had under socialism remained part of the institution, it was not as prominent as it had
been in the early era. As the institutional culture changed due to a distancing of the
university flom the state, a decrease of resources on campus and shifting ideologies, the
influence of other factors increasingly grew in dominance. The next section will address
this dynamic in more detail.

With the implementation of the Institutional Transformation Programme (ITP) in
1994, the mission of the university changed slightly again. Now the vision was “to
become a reputable world-class university that is responsive to national, regional, and
global development needs through engagement in dynamic knowledge production”
(Luhanga, 2009, p. 53). An emphasis on national relevance remained, but the focus
shifted to include regional and global development issues as well. The mission
statement’s inclusion of the phrase “engagement in dynamic knowledge production”
demonstrated UDSM and its academic staff’s desire to reinsert themselves into global
scholarly dialogues. As chapter five of this dissertation argued, the ability of Tanzanian
intellectuals to participate actively in the wider academic community had significantly
diminished, and these scholars experienced intellectual isolation to a certain degree.
With ITP, they were making this re-engagement a central part of their institutional
mission, which certainly had implications for the priorities that were put on research
activities and outcomes.

UDSM’s local community of scholars has also figured significantly into the

academic experiences of Tanzanian intellectuals flom the time of their educational

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training and throughout their entire academic careers at the institution. During the early
years at the university, as we have seen, the community of scholarship was vibrant.

There was significant interaction between scholars and their colleagues (both Tanzanian
and expatriate) around issues of national development and political and economic
philosophy. As chapter four noted, during this time period, radical scholars (and
students) placed significant pressure on other academics to adopt a progressive or leftist
ideological approach. Expatriate scholars were literally driven out of town for espousing
conservative viewpoints. An academic committee failed a student in his oral dissertation
examination for utilizing a conservative flamework. As the intellectual atmosphere at the
university shifted away from socialism after structural adjustment, the pressure that the
local progressive community of scholars had been previously able to exert dissipated.
Scholars were now freer to take up alternative approaches; however, as Shivji argued,
this led to “inconsistent” and “incoherent” debates on campus. As many participants
observed, the vibrancy of the local intellectual community members dwindled in terms of
their interactions and debates with one another and also in their ability to address current
issues in a coherent way. As some argued, it became “everybody for himself” (Zoology
professor, personal communication, April 29, 2008). A historian lamented the collapse of
his department’s formerly cohesive research agenda. “When we came in the ‘803, [there
was] no common research theme going on, and each one for himself.” He went on to
argue, “We have to think it down and see what we can do, what identifies us as a
department and what we can sell out there. That this is not commonly done” (personal
communication, May 5, 2008). According to these scholars, the unified research

priorities that had existed within the local academic community were no longer intact.

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Of course, the composition and dominant approach of the local community of
scholars, while located at the local, institutional level, were certainly affected by larger
trends in the national and global political climate as well as global academic trends. For
instance, in the 19803 when neo-liberalism rose as a dominant theoretical framework in
the global economic and academic community, this ideological shift had an impact on
Tanzanian scholars, which in turn reshaped their local community. Moreover, the
mission of the institution, which, as demonstrated earlier, was tied closely to national
objectives and policies, certainly played a role in shaping the overall dynamics within the
local academic community at UDSM. Indeed, a central finding of this dissertation is that
scholars at UDSM have maintained a strong commitment to national development
throughout the history of the university, and this dedication pervades the institutional
culture.

While there were many themes within faculty members’ personal narratives that
sparmed departmental and disciplinary affiliations, the departmental cultures of the four
academic units included in this dissertation research did affect scholars’ experiences with
research throughout the course of the university’s history. Scholars flom all of the
departments expressed a strong commitment to national development. This was one of
the strongest themes running throughout their personal narratives. They also conveyed a
desire to participate in and contribute to a global community of scholarship. The ways in
which they were able to fulfill these two roles, however, were impacted by both their
departmental environment and their disciplinary affiliations.

It is important to note that department and discipline are two factors which are

closely tied. The department and its culture are a local influence on researchers in that it

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is the location in which they are anchored. How the department has operated, the
priorities it has asserted, and its research culture have been closely tied to UDSM’s
institutional mission and culture and, therefore, to national priorities and influences.
Discipline, on the other hand, is global in nature. Disciplinary standards, norms, and
trends are not tied to a particular location, but are generated by and impact scholars in
their respective fields worldwide. Discipline, along with institutional and national
factors, has played a significant role in determining departmental culture at UDSM. The
department is the site where disciplinary influences are adapted to local institutional and
national contexts. Therefore, while departmental factors were considered local in nature
and are included in the discussion of local influences, it is necessary to acknowledge that
they are also inextricably tied to global disciplinary cultures. It is impossible to separate
the department flom the discipline.

The Institute of Development Studies is the academic unit that was arguably most
affected by the historical changes on the national level as well as the wider global
political and economic shifts described in the previous chapter. Indeed, it became clear
from academics’ narratives that IDS experienced a type of identity crisis during the
19803, and this impacted how academics within this unit defined themselves. IDS had
been founded as an extension of the Tanzanian state’s socialist agenda. Its first annual
report stated, “It shall especially involve itself in the problems of socialist construction in
Tanzania and in this it shall base its programme on the principles and policies of TANU”
(Institute of Development Studies, 1975, p. 8). The staff members and students were
encouraged to participate in national development and the Ujamaa villagization process.

For example, in the 1973-1974 academic year, IDS initiated a research project into the

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“Problems and Strategies of Building Ujamaa Villages” (Institute of Development
Studies, 1975, p. 3). A few of the senior scholars within the department described their
experiences in researching and teaching in the villages. “[T]he students and some of the
members of staff were encouraged to go in the surrounding villages. They used to go and
help in the villages... Some of them went as far as Tanga, and so, it was quite exciting”
(Development studies professor, personal communication, October 13, 2008). While
faculty members within the institute during the early years wrote about and engaged with
development theory such as “underdevelopment theory” and “modernization theory” as
well as Nyerere’s African socialism’s ideas about development, there was also an
emphasis placed on applied research that was readily usefirl in Tanzania’s development.
When Aflican socialism ended in Tanzania in the 19803, this political and
economic change had a disproportionate effect on IDS because its identity as an
academic unit had been so closely tied to the state and its socialist agenda. It still
maintained its emphasis on national development, but had to search for new ways to
address these issues because of Tanzania’s transition to structural adjustment reforms.
As one scholar put it, “We had quite a difficulty, we at IDS, in legitimizing what we were
teaching” (Development studies assistant professor, August 12, 2008). The change in
global approaches to development and development studies compounded this local shift.
“[W]e became even more marginalized because of what had happened, you know, in the
global political economic system. So, we had to change our curriculum to remove items
that were strongly ideological” (Development studies assistant professor, August 12,
2008). Research topics associated with Afiican socialism, self-reliance, and even labor

relations were replaced with a focus on issues such as technology, gender issues, and

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environmental planning. While many of the IDS scholars who had had a strong
Marxist/leftist/progressive ideological approach were able to maintain their focus and
were supported by others within the institute, they began to feel marginalized within the
international academic community and in their relationships with other departments on
campus, like economics and political science, which had made the quick transition to
dominant neo-liberal approaches.

It was also clear from the narratives of historians at UDSM that the academic
culture inside the university’s Department of History played a significant role in shaping
the experiences of its scholars. This department was one of the first founded at the
university, and under the innovative leadership of T0. Ranger, it gained a strong
reputation both within the institution and the wider field of African history. Tanzanian
scholars interacted with expatriate colleagues like Walter Rodney, John Lonsdale, and
John Iliffe, and scholars worldwide traveled to deliver papers and participate in
discussion in the department. It was known for having a coherent vision leading to the
founding of a new school of historiography—the Dar es Salaam School. During the
early years of the university, historians at UDSM undertook large scale, collaborative
research initiatives such as the Maji Maji Research Project. The emphasis of the
department was on building an Aflican-oriented approach to historical scholarship of the
continent, and it was successful in playing a role in contributing to both international
conversations in their discipline and a Tanzanian national identity.

As with IDS (and the other departments under study), however, the economic and
political transition in the 19803 had a detrimental impact on the department as well as its

scholars. According to a senior scholar in history, the department supported a policy of

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“disengagement” during this time, meaning that they did not want to form links with
“imperialist” departments abroad.
[T]he history department was very staunch, staunch in Marxist stand, and they
were insisting on disengagement. The stand of the department was
disengagement. I remember at the time when Professor Sheriff was head of the
department—disengagement. Now, it means then disengagement, we must not
make those connections with imperialist departments... They wanted to remain
alone. To remain alone meant missing a lot of resources which other departments

were getting. (personal communication, April 17, 2008)

This policy led to decreased access to resources and eventually contributed to a sense of
isolation for many historians at UDSM. No longer did the Department of History have
the resources or the manpower to conduct large-scale research initiatives. They no longer
felt that they were at the center of Afiican historical research. Moreover, with new
funding structures during these later years, historians felt as if their work was not
prioritized by donors and, therefore, was not prioritized within the institution.

The same perception of marginalization holds true for the Department of Fine and
Performing Arts. In a conference held on campus by the American Council for Learned
Societies, scholars from this department expressed their concern that the humanities,
which had played a significant role in forging and documenting Tanzania’s post-colonial
identity during the Nyerere era, were no longer valued in donors’ agendas. While this is
a flustration conveyed by members of the department, it was also clear that department
had taken a proactive role during the 19803 by formulating initiatives and areas of study,
like “theatre for development” (using theatre as a tool to communicate with communities
and strategize about development solutions), which have been able to tap into donor

support because of their applications in development projects. In this way, many of the

members of this department developed a focus on the connection between fine arts and

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development to successfully support their research agendas in the arts. Indeed many
contended that in this way they have been able to contribute to their wider disciplines of
theater, dance, and the visual arts by defining a distinct African art, which is not just art
for art’s sake, but a tool for social communication and community development. This
theme, which has been woven throughout the departmental culture, is directly related to
contributing to academics’ wider disciplines.

The scholars in the Department of Zoology and the natural sciences were not as
affected by the ideological shifts that occurred between Nyerere’s era and the post-
structural adjustment phase as those in the social sciences and history. Many of the
senior scholars indicated that the department, like others at UDSM, has had a strong
commitment to national development and serving local communities, yet also maintained
a strong desire to contribute to general scientific knowledge. It was, however, the
department most impacted by the financial constraints that ensued after Tanzania’s
economic and political transition. To conduct scientific research, especially basic
scientific research, it is necessary for scientists to have up-to—date laboratory equipment.
Though the department had not acquired this equipment before the transition, it was able
to provide some facilities to its scientists. With the Tanzanian state’s transition away
flom funding higher education in the 19803, the quality of lab space and access
equipment seriously deteriorated. One zoologist walked me through the lab space within
the department and explained to me that much of the space once allocated for research
was no longer available. Many zoologists (as well as some administrators) indicated that
basic research in the department was on the decline. In terms of its research priorities,

the department had begun to move away flom basic science to focus on more applied

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themes such as biodiversity and environmental issues, areas which would likely gain
money from donors and had immediately applicable outcomes to development.

In general, departmental (and disciplinary) environments have impacted scholars’
experiences in their research work lives, however, some common themes did emerge
among academics flom all of the departments under study. All expressed a commitment
to national issues and development coupled with an aspiration to contribute to larger
bodies of scholarship. Additionally, while some were more affected by ideological shifts
(both local and global) and others by financial, all departments — and, by extension their
scholars — experienced significant changes in their research cultures with the transition
flom Aflican socialism to a more open-market economy. Some adapted to this new
environment better than others, but it was clear that each of the departments experienced
a cultural shift with Tanzania’s adoption of structural adjustment reforms.

Finally, as noted in chapter one, the most basic level of influence on scholars’
choices of research initiatives is the individual level, directly related to personal interest.
Researchers’ interest in a discipline or a specific topic appeared to be a primary factor in
their initial choices of which field to pursue in their education and then which themes to
investigate once they were situated in their academic careers. Of course, these personal
interests do not develop apart flom other factors. In fact, personal interests are impacted
by all of the other levels of influence. They can stern flom a range of experiences that
scholars may have had throughout their lives. For instance, choice of research interest
may have been connected to the local environment in which the scholar grew up. One
development studies senior lecturer spoke about his choice of research for his Ph.D. in

terms of his home region.

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I come flom the north, the region we call the Kagera. .. By then it was one of the
regions which had been hit by different refugees. The war with Idi Amin, it was
at the center. There is the problem of bananas, banana weevils in the fields,
killing this type of bananas. .. That’s why I went to a Ph.D. I got an interest in
doing that. (personal communication, August 8, 2008)

A history professor who had recently become interested in disease and health in
history because of the problem of HIV/AIDS in his home district provides another
example.

As you know, or maybe you don’t, the first victims of AIDS to be discovered
were discovered in my district of birth. Yes, in Bukoba district. Yes, and these
were really the initial victims, although they don’t like the word victim. And
everybody in Tanzania — and this is the point I make in this paper — thought that,
you know, these people have a history of prostitution and that sort of thing. They
are dying of AIDS because they are morally depraved, I guess. A lot of people
were dying so you get concerned. So that’s part of the reason I got involved in
this. But then as a result I have become interested in disease generally speaking,
and that’s why we... are running this master’s course on disease and healing in
Afiica. So, this was my initial entry. (personal communication, June 27, 2008)

Not only were scholars impacted by the general national context, as noted elsewhere, but
some also felt a commitment to a more specific local region, most often their home
district.

Academic advisers also played a role in shaping many researchers’ interest,
especially in the early phases of their graduate study. A history professor recounted his
first meeting with his dissertation adviser at a British university.

And I didn’t have anything specific 30 to say, I thought I would, you know, sort of

pick a subject, so after we sat down to discuss what I wanted to do, he said well

look, you have an added advantage if you took an area or a subject area for which
you don’t know, you’re not very familiar with. Because the temptation to pick
something you already know is very great and you’ll always assume that you

know the topic, so pick a new subject. So, I picked a new subject... That’s why I

chose that. So, it was my supervisor’s suggestion, but definitely the reasons he
gave were very convincing. (personal communication, April 8, 2008)

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Indeed overseas training could be considered a global factor, since most academics
pursued their graduate education in the West, at what Altbach (1998) would refer to as
the “centers” of knowledge production. These experiences played a large role in shaping
scholars’ personal interests and approaches to research. Oftentimes, where scholars
studied — and with whom — significantly influenced their research throughout their
careers, as well as their interaction with academic communities outside of Tanzania.

Furthermore, once academics returned to the university to take up full time
employment, many found the restrictions placed on them by local availability of
resources to be a central force in taking their research interests in a particular direction.
As noted above, this was especially true in the natural sciences, where up-to-date
laboratory equipment was difficult to procure.

It’s a personal interest. It’s a way to keep alive, and so that means digressing,

learning new tricks and so on, but still be effective. . ..So, I’ve adapted and now

still maintain my neuroscience, but now I’m also into ecological issues and

biodiversity. (Zoology professor, personal communication, April 29, 2008)

It is sufficient to say that while personal interests have been the foundation on
which academics build their research agendas, they are highly influenced by
circumstances flom a range of directions. As Ayindoho (2006) points out in her
discussion of intellectuals’ positions in relation to their research, the “locations” flom
which a scholar writes, including their personal orientation toward the subject matter is
“mobile because each person inhabits [multiple locations within and across time” (p. 163).
This, of course, is not specific to the Tanzanian context, but is relevant to scholars’

worldwide. Personal interests are by their very nature the least static, most malleable

influence on academics’ decisions about what research they pursue. They are the basis of

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academics’ research lives and are impossible to separate flom influences on wider
national and global scales.

What I am calling global influences on research at UDSM were clear in
participants’ narratives. From the beginning, the structure of the university was based on
inherited models flom the West that are now ubiquitous worldwide. Chapter two
indicated that Aflican universities such as the University of Dar es Salaam have reflected
on and debated how to adapt this model to the Afiican context, but the basic structures of
the inherited system have persisted. Moreover, in recent years, UDSM has adapted in
ways that align it with the current international higher education systems’ dominant
structures. This adaptation has allowed the university to create institutional links
internationally and work more easily with universities abroad. Semesterization is one
example of this type of structural change. Some academics have embraced this change,
but many others have expressed concerns. A development studies professor went so far
as to equate this structural change to the current political global order.

As you move flom the bipolar world into a unipolar world, yes, then there’s this

hegemony of neoliberalism. .. And this catches up flom the late ‘803 to the

present... Unipolar world, hegemonic world, and you have Americanization of
everything. You go to all universities, they have semesters. We didn’t have
semesters... Now we have semesters... Semesterization is distracting (personal

communication, July 18, 2008).

Not only do some scholars believe that this change is symptomatic of undue

American/Westem influence, but under this new system, many scholars have found it
more difficult to balance the demands of teaching and research. In this way, a change
sparked by the university’s desire to more easily interact with institutions abroad may

have had a detrimental impact on research production, at least as far as scholars’

perceptions of their own work is concerned.

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Another key element of the university’s inherited model that has affected the
production of research at UDSM is the promotion system for academic staff. Scholars
indicated that promotion criteria played a large role in how they approach research.
Promotion at UDSM, like other universities around the world, has been based almost
entirely on research output, i.e., the number of publications that a researcher puts out over
a certain time period. This was adapted flom the British university system and is
common in academic life worldwide. UDSM’s particular system is based on points
earned by various types of publications. Publishing internationally receives the highest
number of points, while local publications earn fewer. Therefore, UDSM’s promotion
system has been tied intimately with the international scholarly publishing industry, and
according to their own accounts, academics have often adapted their research to fit the
criteria and themes desired by international journals.

While promotion policies could be seen as an institutional level local factor in
research, scholars more often spoke about these policies as being imposed flom the
outside, and some criticized their colleagues and university administrators for not
questioning or reforming the system. One zoology professor called it the “prima donna”
approach and attributed the design and implementation of the promotion process to the
inherited (and, according to him, outdated) British system (personal communication,
April 29, 2008). Many expressed concern that tying promotion to international
publications devalued work that contributed to national needs. This type of locally
relevant research has been part of the core mission of the university since its early era,
but the promotion structure, being a remnant of an inherited higher education model,

many argued, has not fit with this goal. Several Tanzanian academics contended that the

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system promoted interaction with international audiences, but left scholars feeling
disconnected flom local populations whom, many felt strongly, it was their mission to
serve.

I quite hate the system that we have now in academia. The way we have tied
research, publication and promotion, for example, in universities. Like here, we
use publications as a means of scholarly work, a means of scholarly fitness, 3
means of scholarly performance and therefore we use it for promotion. . .That will
let other scholars know that yes, this is a serious scholar and then you deserve to
be called a professor. That to me, I’m very uncomfortable to be frank. .. If we are
writing in say Tanzania Zamani, this is our journal here in History. So, if one
writes in here, then this could easily be circulated, and it would be of use. But
now if you write here, for example. . .this is not international journal, this is not...
a refereed journal and so it cannot be used for promotion. I find it to be just a
component of neocolonialism and we have not been able to actually completely
disentangle ourselves flom. .. academic colonialism. We are still tied to that and
it is haunting. Look at people who have contributed, written something that is of
use to our people. We should also consider that for promotion... but anyway, we
are blindfolded. We don’t see what we are doing. (History professor, personal

communication, September 11, 2008)

An arts professor indicated that even though promotion is tied to international
publications, he would often forego publishing internationally and choose instead to
publish in local newspapers where Tanzanians would read his work. He contended that
this was the way to maintain the ideal of a “classless society.” He argued, “So, this is the
thing, most of the people here say well, we are not going to employ you, to promote you
because you don’t write in international journals. 1 say, who cares? Who cares about
promotion?” (personal communication, November 26, 2008).

Some faculty members commented on problems with the publishing industry in
general. They argued that the structure of the industry limited scholars in their approach
to research and in the themes they have been able to take up in their studies. Decisions

made by the international publishing industry have also tied in closely with standards,

norms, and trends within the wider international academic community. Several scholars

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felt constrained by trends that they perceived as marginalizing the type of scholarship
they were committed to pursuing.

Now there is hegemonic thinking. What they call a Washington consensus is very

hegemonic at all levels, globally, and those who contend to have different mode

of thinking are considered dinosaurs. You cannot publish in any journal of your
choice; I mean journals are, there are few remaining journals where you can have
your work published outside the mainstream journals, and it is these journals that
determine what is knowledge, what is not knowledge, what is new knowledge and
what is old-fashioned knowledge. So that is the hegemony of neo-liberalism.

(Development studies professor, personal communication, July 18, 2008)

This was especially true of academics who had maintained leftist or Marxist approaches
in their work. As chapter five indicated, many Marxist scholars either changed their
orientation after the fall of socialism in the 19803 and 19903 or began to feel
marginalized within the broader academic community.

Moreover, the arguments made in chapters four and five, as well as the discussion
of local factors earlier in this section, have demonstrated that global economic and
political events and processes have had a significant impact on scholarly work at UDSM.
The decline of socialism worldwide and the subsequent decrease of its prominence in
academic circles is one example. The rise of neo-liberal development policies is another.
Factors both internal and external to Tanzania in the late 19703 led to the financial crisis
that devastated the UDSM academic community until the early 19903. While there is no
doubt that internal national policies were partly to blame for the crisis, a number of global
events also contributed to and compounded the consequences of the economic downturn.
These include the worldwide oil crisis in 1979 and the drastic fall in international prices
for agricultural exports. In the aftermath of the crisis, Tanzania moved away flom

Afiican socialism, and the country was pressured by the international community to

adopt neo-liberal structural adjustment programs. Chapter five outlined the impact that

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structural adjustment policies had at the university. Under these policies, educational
funding shifted flom higher education to the primary and secondary levels. The
University’s budget was slashed and administrators and academics were forced to
increasingly turn to external funding sources. More and more, scholars had to take on
consultancies to make ends meet, which took time away flom academic research. A
recruitment fleeze was instituted at UDSM, and those scholars who remained at the
university had to compensate for their colleagues who had left during the lean economic
years, with not much hope for relief from new hires. As chapter five showed, the
consequences of structural adjustment programs on academic work at the university
figured strongly into participants’ narratives.

The rise of donor research funding at UDSM, triggered by Tanzania’s adoption of
structural adjustment and its subsequent shift toward a market economy, is another
external or global factor that scholars emphasized as shaping their work lives. Though
donor money was present during the Nyerere years, the majority of funding for the
university came from the government. After 1985, funding for research shifted to
become almost completely external in origin. Multilateral agencies such as the IMF and
World Bank and foundations like Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie have sponsored some
research. Foreign govermnents flom countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the
Netherlands, and Britain have provided other sources of funding. The influx of foreign
funding changed the way that scholars had been conducting research and impacted the
research agenda of the University of Dar es Salaam.

As pointed out in chapter five, some scholars found that this opening up of

external resources allowed them to move away flom full reliance on the government and

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to escape to some extent its influence. However, the majority of faculty members
expressed concerns about over-reliance on outside funding sources. An academic audit at
the university in 1998-1999 was quite critical of the quality of research on campus and
stressed that an overdependence on donor funding was part of the problem. The audit
claimed that “dependence on external funding has affected research priorities” (Mkude et
al., 2003, p. 27). A development studies senior lecturer’s comments illustrated this
concern.

When it comes to the support of some of these researches, the support comes with

some strings, 0k? Yeah, I mean someone comes with his money and said, we are

conducting this research in this area, and we are looking for people who are
ecologists because we want to do this and this and this. It’s not necessarily that it
will fall into your research agenda, but people might be involved simply because,
first of all, just to be honest, they want to publish so that they can climb the
ladder... So, the people who are coming up with money, they have their own
research agendas. So, sometimes you don’t have a choice. (personal

cormnunication, September 25, 2008)

In order to remedy these types of concerns, the academic audit went on to recommend
that “the University should increase efforts for securing local funding sources in order to
reduce current overdependence on such funds flom external sources” (UDSM, 1999, p.
31).

Chapter five gave examples of scholars’ concerns over the undue influence of
donors and how it had shaped research. Shivji (1993) argued that it contributed to an
international division of labor in which scholars in developing countries applied research
rather than contributing to knowledge production. Members of the history department
saw donor research funding as favoring more developmentally-oriented fields.

People are more interested on areas where the application, all the research is much

more development-oriented. And that’s where my problem is now. When I want

to do much of the population research for teaching for students, you may not
acquire funding. People want more probably HIV or the environment, or things

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like that, and for me I have other problems which I want to study. (History senior
lecturer, personal communication, May 5, 2008)

In an informal discussion about the changing nature of “relevance” at the
University, a history professor told me that when scholars and students write proposals to
funders now, they must include the significance of the study. As has been the case
throughout the history of the university, significance often means utility to the
development agenda of Tanzania, but now it is put in a very mechanical way. The
authors of the proposals are straining to prove relevance to the development agenda,
“instead of saying that they are contributing to a new paradigm, a new way of thinking
about something.” He claimed that this came from general academic discourse, which is
dominated by particular ideas of development, but that it is also a product of donors and
the resources that they provide. These donors include development foundations like
Carnegie, Rockefeller and, especially, the Ford Foundation. According to him, these
foundations want significance of the social sciences and the humanities to relate
immediately and directly to policies and interventions, rather than contributing to
innovative theories and methods. (personal communication, September 24, 2008).

While the evidence above indicates that foreign donors have been concerned with
the development needs of Tanzania, many scholars felt that Tanzanians and, more
specifically, Tanzanian intellectuals should be in charge of determining what these
development priorities should be and how research should address them, rather than
relying on foreign donors to dictate them. The evidence above also shows that academics
want to be involved in formulating the larger ideological issues associated with

development, rather than simply applying development theories imported flom the West.

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According to participants, significant increases in consultancies have played a
major part in perpetuating this division of labor in which Afiican intellectuals apply
knowledge that has been formulated elsewhere. Again, during the era of financial crisis
and continuing after structural adjustment, the university’s resources decreased severely.
In order to support themselves, scholars took up paying consultancies flom external
agencies. While providing experts for consultancy or service has always been part of the
mission of the university, during this time period consultancies began to take over the
research culture of the university, and they have continued to put a strain on research
capacity today. As the 1998-1999 audit documented, “Research, particularly that
conducted in the research institutes, has degenerated into consultancy services, with very
little new knowledge being created in the process” (U DSM, 1999, p. 9). A development
studies professor made this observation as well.

During the early 19803 people applied for consultancies, but these were not

intended to create new knowledge, and even flom the government’s point of view,

they wanted to support action-oriented research rather than knowledge for its own
sake. For teachers, the emphasis should be on the creation of knowledge. Even
up to now, it is not. This is where I differ from many people at the university.

You should create knowledge, and tomorrow it should be applied. Where there is

a problem, it’s a scientific something, and you should approach it that way and

generate new knowledge. Social significance comes later. (personal

communication, August 29, 2008)

Though this professor stated that his opinion on this matter differs flom others at the
university, according to my data it is actually quite consistent.

The factors affecting faculty members’ experiences with research and scholarship
are numerous and varied. Although all of them are not mentioned here, the above section

has teased out the factors that Tanzanian academics pointed to as being most significant

in their personal narratives. More specifically, national and global influences emerged as

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pervasive in researchers’ work lives. This assertion supports the finding that academics
have experienced a tension between local and global forces when negotiating their
approaches to research. This section has also hinted at the interplay between influences
internal and external to the Tanzanian national context. The next section will examine
more closely this interplay and explore how these factors have interacted and shifted over
the course of three generations of scholars at UDSM.
Generational Shifts at UDSM

The historical narratives I laid out in chapters four and five of this dissertation
show that the influences on Tanzanian intellectuals’ research lives have not remained
static. At times, national influences have been very strong while, at others, foreign donor
involvement has dominated. The shifting balance between influences is central to the
tension in Tanzanian academics’ careers between a commitment to their local
environment and the desire to connect with larger bodies of knowledge, gain prestige for
themselves and their institutions, and have access to resources to do quality work.
Because of the changing balance of influences in the university environment, scholars at
UDSM have engaged with the two sides of this tension in different ways at different
times in an effort to gain a balance in their own work lives. This section will address the
second research question posed in this dissertation: How has the balance between local
and global influences shifted over time as reflected in the research work lives of UDSM
faculty members?

As noted several times throughout this dissertation, the University of Dar es
Salaam has its roots in an inherited Western model of higher education, and during its

first years, it strove to be a “neutral” regional academic institution. The staff was

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composed of mostly expatriate scholars, and research followed the lines of international
scholarly trends, albeit with some “nationalist” influences. During these initial years,
external influences dominated; however, by 1967 and the issuing of the Arusha
Declaration, national issues began to hold more sway over UCD’s intellectual
community. This was the era of UCD’s influential Conference on the Role of the
University College Dar es Salaam in a Socialist Tanzania, where the university sought to
define its central role in contributing to national development. The state cultivated a close
relationship with the university and government leaders were integrated into its
administrative structures. The institution became a highly political, national university
and was reshaped to fit a “developmental” model. Its main mission was to serve the
needs of a socialist Tanzanian nation.

At the same time, UCD and later UDSM made a name for itself internationally.
Even though national issues were flont and center in the debates and discussions on
campus, scholars were also able to engage with the global academy and influence
thinking worldwide on development and socialism. Nyerere’s experiment had attracted
the attention of governments and intellectuals throughout the world, and they listened to
scholars at UDSM who had something to contribute to global scholarly dialogues. “We
had a very interesting group of radical scholars at that time who were quite effective,
quite influential” (History professor, personal communication, June 27, 2008). The Dar
es Salaam school of thought “continued to attract a lot of people, even outsiders, even
people having papers which they really wanted to present for serious discussion — they
brought to Dar es Salaam for serious discussion” (History professor, personal

communication, April 17, 2008). Another historian noted that during his early years at

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the university the commitment to socialist-oriented scholarship and revolutionary
movements contributed significantly the university’s international prestige.

It made this place very inviting to revolutionaries around the world, and so they

came. . .It was just appropriate, an academic setting like the university to be an

avenue for some of those ideas to be generated... So, flom mid-703, the university
becomes a major source of inspiration, or you know a major influential force as
far as the ideological and political undercurrents in history teaching were

concerned. (History Professor, personal communication, May 29, 2008)

This is the atmosphere in which scholars flom UDSM’s first generation established their
careers and conducted their scholarly work.

Moreover, with some support flom the university and international aid programs,
many of the Tanzanian scholars flom this generation were able to attend some of the best
universities in North America and Europe for their graduate training, but they were also
driven to return home by a moral obligation to their nation (Mkandawire, 1995). Most
often, promising scholars were selected flom undergraduate cohorts, and then, after
fulfilling civil service obligations to the government, they received funds to pursue
graduate studies abroad. For instance, after being selected as a tutorial assistant, one
historian received Rockefeller Foundation sponsorship through UDSM’s staff
development program to complete his graduate studies in the UK with one of the
preeminent scholars in his chosen field. A development studies professor spoke about
being selected for a special scholarship to study at a prominent university in East
Germany. In the late 19703, a theater arts professor was sponsored by the British Council
and UDSM to pursue her Ph.D. with a top university in the UK. What is more, these

scholars were able to maintain strong connections to their mentors and colleagues abroad.

The theater arts professor spoke about keeping in touch with her former advisor through

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their mutual scholarly interests. The history professor spoke about the relationship with
his British advisor continuing far beyond his graduate studies.

Built into to these staff development programs was a contractual obligation to
return to Tanzania and the university, yet as noted in the previous section, most were
compelled to comply not simply for contractual reasons, but because of their desire to
participate in national development. A historian who completed his Ph.D. in Canada in
the early 19703 through the staff development program stated that he “was quite
determined to return” (personal communication, November 20, 2008). When discussing
his decision to return to UDSM, a zoology associate professor who studied in the US.
stated,

It was the main central desire [to return]. I never expected to remain there in a

foreign country. It was, it was, it’s like it was not a decision, you know, it was

something that was very strongly in me... I just feel attached to the country, to the

situation here. (personal communication, October 28, 2008)

In short, the first generation of Tanzanian intellectuals interacted with and had a
voice in the wider academy. They had earned themselves a level of prestige within this
community. The tension between national relevance and global recognition was not as
evident at this time because scholars were able to fulfill the dual role of contributing to
national development and engaging with global scholarship in a meaningful way. They
did not face the same kind of choice that later generations of Tanzanian intellectuals
would encounter. According to their narratives, these scholars felt that they were able to
simultaneously focus on development of their own nation and contribute to what Nyerere
(1969) called “the development of mankind.” The first generation of Tanzanian

academics was influenced by both national and global factors, but in many ways they had

the space, access, and support to navigate these factors and find their own balance.

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Mkandwire (1995) defined the second generation of Afiican scholars as being
generally disenchanted with academic life at Aflican universities. Tanzanian intellectuals
of this era returned home flom graduate studies abroad in the late 19703 and early 19803
to find a depressing economic situation and growing tensions between the state and the
university community. Many of them did not stay long at the university, leaving for what
participants called “greener pastures” in the private sector or at universities abroad. A
zoology senior lecturer gave the example of colleagues that he had begun to train in the
19803.

I trained them and they left. They are employed by other agencies, either

agencies, they didn’t stay in the university as such, yes. Normally when

somebody is bonded to the university, you find that the bond can sometimes be
broken. I think that more than 60% of the cases or 70% of the cases, the bond has
been broken. Somebody goes off where it’s greener. He goes off where it’s

greener, or somebody just gets fed up with the academic life, and says, well, I

don’t want. I want a more peacefirl life or more, a life which is less taxing.

(personal communication, June 24, 2008)

A history professor made a similar observation,

Of course, the Africans, the local professors, I don’t know why, but again, there

was quite a large [number] of them, quite a good number of them who left in the

late ‘703 for, you know, universities all over the place. Some went to America,
you know, others went to South Afiica because South Aflica then was slightly
opening up, especially Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and Kenya
for sure, Uganda, certainly yes, and Nigeria, even Ghana 1 think... So you know

quite a good number of people went away in the late ‘703, both local and foreign.
(personal communication, April 8, 2008)

Mkandawire argued that this constituted the first wave of the “brain drain” flom the
Aflican academy (p. 77). The enthusiasm for and commitment to national development
that had existed in the first generation seemed to have waned a bit in the subsequent
generation. The guiding vision for the nation and the university had dissipated. The

morale of the scholars who remained on campus was very low. “[W]e have gone through

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difficult times... It has been very difficult working in Tanzania, doing research in
Tanzania because we passed through an extremely difficult time” (History professor,
personal communication, April 8, 2008). Because of the lack of funding and access to
resources and, in some cases, intellectual isolation as described in the previous chapter,
scholars during this time had difficulty fulfilling their roles, both in shaping the nation
and in producing research that would gain voice in the international scholarly
communities.

These years were a difficult transition period for the academic staff at UDSM.
Due to the budget constraints that the financial crisis and structural adjustment brought
about, the university instituted a staff recruitment fleeze in the 19903 that lasted most of
the decade. The fleeze, combined with the propensity of academics of the second
generation to leave the University, led to a significant age gap at the institution which is
quite evident today.

Not only our department, the whole university was feeling this gap of recruitment

for new staff. It became almost static by the late ‘803 and ‘903 and this is why

now you are seeing that we have all these older academicians and very young
academicians and the middle there because there was this gap of recruitment.

And so, I think it started around that time where you know people were not

coming into the university... as they needed. (Theatre arts professor, personal

communication, June 21, 2008)

The third generation of scholars began to arrive as staff on campus toward the end
of the 19903, and they are now lecturers and senior lecturers. However, the university
now has what former Vice-Chancellor Luhanga (2009) called “a very bad age profile” (p.
73). This means that currently the majority of UDSM staff is more than 50 years old and

quickly approaching the mandatory retirement age of 60. This also means that the gap

between junior and senior faculty members’ experiences is all the more stark.

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In analyzing the data flom a generational perspective it became apparent that, due
to their differences in experiences, scholars flom different generations view the ideal
balance between national service and international interactions in different ways.
According to Mkandawire (1995), the third generation of Afiican academics is
increasingly produced locally or regionally in Africa. However, due to the hardships
faced by Aflican universities in ‘803 and ‘903, they received their training under difficult
circumstances in “an atmosphere inconducive to academic activities” (Luhanga, 2009, p.
7). It has been especially difficult for those in the sciences to pursue graduate studies
locally. Oftentimes, junior scholars are able to complete their master’s degrees locally,
but equipment is unavailable for the intensive research required for a Ph.D. These
students must then wait for a local project to open up with doctoral research opportunities
or wait to be funded to go abroad. A zoology lecturer explained the difficulties she has
faced in trying to pursue her Ph.D.

I’ve been really planning a long time, but actually there are no funds up to now,

yeah, there are no firnds. As an institute, Dar es Salaam, there are no really funds,

but one has to apply to other universities. I’ve been trying to some UK
universities, but again there’s a lot of competition in getting funds, and this is my
third year, oh, second year, sorry, I’m getting a regret letter and that’s very
common, that there’s no funds. . .. The problem with some of the projects, we
don’t have facilities. If I get the project, if I do my project here, that means I will

look for labs elsewhere to do my lab work. (personal communication, April 25,

2008)

Even those in other fields have found access to graduate education quite difficult. While
it is possible and even encouraged for them to complete their degrees at the University of
Dar es Salaam or another similar institution in the region, many still desire to pursue their

studies abroad in order to gain “exposure” as one IDS assistant lecturer put it.

At this moment, we have a loan board, where if you apply in this university to
have your Ph.D. the loan board can give you a loan to have your Ph.D., and the

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University has to pay. But because we want to go outside the country so as... we
can get new ideas, new vision, and to meet different people... because you know
if you have your first degree in your country, second degree in your country, third
degree in your country, you are not well exposed. So, for exposure, at least you
go outside your country. So, that’s why we are asking for funds flom different
universities and from different organizations. (personal communication,
September 28, 2008)
She went on to explain that studying for her Ph.D. outside the country would not only
broaden her perspective on her chosen research topic, but would also lead to connections
with scholars in her field outside of Tanzania. The lack of direct exposure to scholarly
communities outside of Tanzania — and the fact that the government no longer funds
research as they had in the previous era — has had a disproportional effect on junior
scholars. In this environment, academics have had to fend for themselves in securing
firnds for their work. Junior scholars who have had significantly less exposure to
international academic circles than their predecessors expressed that they found
themselves at a disadvantage when seeking these funds, but they felt that they had no
choice but to adapt to this new dynamic.

Furthermore, these junior scholars had not experienced the golden era of the
University. While Nyerere’s legacy remained at UDSM to a certain extent and younger
scholars claimed a commitment to Tanzania’s development, their identification with
Nyerere’s philosophy has not been nearly as strong as intellectuals flom the older
generation, perhaps because they did not experience it firsthand. In many interviews with
younger scholars, they did not mention Nyerere by name, but only alluded to ideas of

self-reliance and the importance of locally relevant research. While many of the older

generation still claim to be influenced by socialist ideology, socialism and class analysis,

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it did not seem to be major themes in the work and research agendas of the younger
generation.

Some senior scholars expressed concern over what they perceived to be a waning
commitment to national development amongst their junior colleagues. As one zoologist
argued, the loss of Nyerere’s vision has had a detrimental impact at the university.

He [Nyerere] had all of these things, and once he left it appears now that we are

hanging around. The education system, nobody really knows what it will serve...

I think we have problems. (personal communication, October 29, 2008)

Another zoologist observed,

The spirit of national, nation building has been dissipated. Now everybody wants

to take care of himself as much as possible... and the reason for this is that the

global economy is affecting us... We seem to be interested in building up our

curriculum vitae. That’s a way of marketing yourself. (personal communication,
April 29, 2008)

Like the professor quoted above, several senior scholars claimed that, as a consequence
of over-reliance on external sources of funding and overall economic constraints at the
university, younger faculty members have been more worried about their personal careers
than local or national needs or authentic knowledge production.

[In the early years], you had people who were really committed to doing research
for their own advancement, yes, but also for the advancement of knowledge, their
country, but since I think there’s been a lot of misorientation. There’s much more
interest in material than in knowledge and in what I’m going to leave behind,
whether I’m leaving behind in the department some talents to run the department
30 that when I look back, I’ll say I did something that’s... I think that’s changing,
but maybe it’s because I’m looking through my self, my own selfish eyes. You’ll
have to talk to these young people. They’ll tell you. (Zoology associate
professor, personal communication, October 28, 2008)

According to participants, research had become more individualized, and, as

noted in chapter five, the coherent vision that existed in the university’s early era was no

longer intact. Two historians commented on this change.

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We used to have a departmental research agenda. I’m saying that that system has
collapsed. It doesn’t work anymore. Now it’s like everybody to himself... So
everybody goes his own way now... Funding would be part of it. . .The money
doesn’t come to the department as such nowadays. It goes to individuals. It goes
to individuals, even if they emphasize on collaboration, but nowadays it’s
individuals that are secure funding... Research is much more individualistic now.
People get funding flom abroad. (History professor, personal communication,

April 8, 2008)

When we came in in the ‘803, no common research theme going on, and each one

for himself. And you go hunting and gathering and collecting whatever you get

out there. (History senior lecturer, personal communication, May 5, 2008)

According to these participants, due to the nature and structure of external
funding sources and the scramble for scholars to take advantage of a small pool of
resources, many academics, especially junior faculty members, are now pursuing
individual projects rather than contributing to a coherent and coordinated research
agenda. Another senior history professor described his flustration with trying to put
together collaborative, department-wide research projects similar to the initiatives that the
department had pursued during its early years. He claimed that these efforts had been
largely unsuccessful because the junior staff were distracted with other roles or projects
and were unable to participate fully or take a leadership role.

Furthermore, the economic conditions at the university, joined with the loss of
prestige of UDSM after the socialist period, junior scholars’ lack of international
exposure, and their sense of not being part of a coherent national or institutional mission
all mean that many of the younger generation fear being relegated to the further reaches
of the periphery within the global academic community. Mkandawire (1995) argued that
the third generation have not “acquired a sure footing in the international research

world”, and that they are “much less ‘marketable’ internationally than their predecessors”

(p. 79). It was clear in several interviews that these scholars are flustrated with the

184

current situation at UDSM and wish to live up to the legacy of scholarly inquiry and
international debate that once existed on campus.
Such things [academic debate] are on the decline currently at the university. You
don’t... even though there is a lot to be discussed nowadays given globalization
and discourses that come with it, challenges of globalization, new forms of
imperialism, new forms of international relations, um, multiparty-ism, new
democracies, and events that are happening in Aflica. So many things to discuss!
...I would think, during the, if it was early ‘803 and late ‘703, the discourse would
be very different here... Maybe it’s poverty, no resources... Today we have a lot
of technology which was not there in the past. People are more informed, so the
discussion may be very different, but it’s not different, they [the discussions] are
not there. (Development studies lecturer, personal communication, August 2008)
While scholars flom the third generation must increasingly turn outward for
financial support for their research, their voice in the wider academic community has
diminished significantly. They have expressed a commitment to national development,
but can no longer rely on the coherent vision of progressive scholarship that once existed
at the university. National ideological issues have become less of an influence in these
scholars’ work lives than they had been in previous eras, and the influence of foreign
donors is strong. Tanzanian academics of the younger generation have been concerned
about falling behind both in terms of their relevance to the national development project
and of their prestige in the international academic community. They continue to struggle,
however, against the isolation and marginalization imposed on them by their
circumstances and still strive to have their arguments, ideas, and contributions to
knowledge heard on a wider scale.
Valued Knowledge
This section will address the third research question in this dissertation: What

types of knowledge have been valued by the various stakeholders at UDSM? The

discussion in this section will focus on how Tanzanian intellectuals have perceived the

185

ways that various entities outside of the university have valued knowledge, as well as
how these academics themselves have determined what types of research to prioritize in
their own work. It will not provide an extensive analysis of calls for research flom
donors, nor an objective account of global research trends, because the goal of the study
is to understand faculty members’ experiences with research. How intellectuals have
viewed trends in what is valued is key to understanding how they made decisions
regarding research and how they have experienced the central tension of national
commitment and participation in global academia.

In the early years of the university, the state played a major role in defining the
mission of the institution. This includes participating and influencing research goals and
priorities. National issues were central to debates over research policy during this time.
As Luanda (2008) pointed out, “The Academic Board, University College, Dar es Salaam
vigorously grappled with. . .the formulation of a research policy relevant to the local
conditions of the emerging nation” (p. 134). Nyerere argued for a university relevant to
Tanzanian society. He asserted, “This means that university studies, and the university
itself, are only justified in Aflica if they—and it—are geared towards the needs of
society” (N yerere, 1973, p. 28). The conference held at UDSM after the Arusha
Declaration reasserted UCD’s commitment to the national project and the influence of
national policies on determining research priorities. At this conference TANU, the
government, and the university staff put forth that research needed to be relevant to local
conditions and to building a socialist Tanzania. The intellectuals who were at the
university during this time agreed with what the state valued and took up the challenge of

doing work that was both theory-driven but also had application to local contexts.

186

Later, perceptions of what the state — or more specifically, Nyerere — valued
changed. While some remained loyal to what they thought was Nyerere’s vision, others
spoke about a growing disconcertion with what seemed to be intolerance by the state of
dissenting opinions. This sentiment is especially clear after the 1977 incident in which
five Tanzanian academics were arbitrarily “retired in the public interest” (Mkude et al.,
2003, p. 5). This undemocratic dismissal of staff caused some academics to fear that if
they published work that was too ideological in nature or that went against state
philosophy (i.e., Afiican socialism), they would be transferred away flom the university
and their academic careers would be over. As one historian argued, this led to self-
censorship on the part of some intellectuals at UDSM.

So, I think people have been timid because they thought other people would be

molested by having a strong socialist opinion, and especially if they thought that

their socialist opinion would differ flom that of Nyerere. (personal

communication, April 17, 2008)

In this case, the perception of what Nyerere and the state valued was significant in that it
affected the work produced at the university. Some scholars were fearful of publishing
work that disagreed with what the regime valued, namely research that supported the
philosophy of African socialism.

After structural adjustment the Tanzanian government’s role in research at UDSM
began to decrease. Then with multi-partyism in 1992, the ruling party became even more
distanced flom university administration. At this point, what foreign donors valued in
terms of research became more important to scholars. Chapter five demonstrated that

with the shift in global politics (and subsequently academia) away flom valuing socialist

analyses impacted scholars at the university. Many Tanzanian intellectuals commented

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that neo-liberal scholarship had now become dominant in global academic circles,
especially in the social sciences.

Additionally, as demonstrated in the previous section, Tanzanian scholars, such as
Issa Shivji, have written about the influence of donors in setting up an international
distribution of academic labor in which money is awarded to Afiican scholars to apply
knowledge produced in the West, rather than supporting their own production of
knowledge. The evidence from the previous section shows that other scholars at UDSM
shared the same concerns as Shivji. A development studies professor argued,

Whoever comes along with money and looking for partners will pick you and you

end up with that division of labor. .. [It] is a hierarchical knowledge production

process whereas the north determines what types of knowledge you produce, how

that knowledge will be packaged and how that knowledge should be distributed.

(personal communication, July 18, 2008)
Intellectuals believe that the donor community has focused specifically on development-
oriented research and that other areas have been neglected. A historian told me that he
was planning on publishing an article in a local newspaper to advocate for the increase of
government funding for research because he felt that the types of research valued by
donors (applied research, development-oriented research) did not reflect the full range of
priorities of scholars at UDSM. He contended that government funds would provide
academics more freedom to determine for themselves the value of different types of
research. Basic scientific research, he argued, had suffered the most as a consequence of
reliance on donor funding. Academic staff in the Department of Zoology confirmed this

contention. They said that focusing on basic science was difficult because, as one

professor put it, there was “no space, no equipment, no money” (personal

188

communication, October 29, 2008). According to these scholars, foreign donors have not
valued this type of research.

In analyzing the types of research that Tanzanian academics themselves have
valued, two themes emerged. One is research that was directly applicable to national
development, and the other was research contributing to general knowledge production.
When discussing what they view as the purpose of research, many offered this dual goal
for research production.

What is the pmpose of research for me, specifically? Well, the purpose is to

generate new knowledge, and not only new knowledge, but for really [to] address

the way people view their lives here, and the limitations which accompany that
kind of life for the purpose of actually making it better. (Zoology senior lecturer,

personal communication, September 1, 2008)

I think the purpose of research, it can’t be one cause when you are dealing with

research for us here, for example, there is some academic achievement, but also

that has to solve a certain problem, a scientific problem, that some research has to
help the people and the society. (Zoology professor, personal communication,

October 29, 2008)

Definitely the search for knowledge. . .the search for knowledge in a very sort of

critical way, and that’s the role of the university and we embrace it. . .and for the

purposes of feeding into the developmental areas of the country. (History

professor, personal communication, April 8, 2008)

The purpose of research, I told you, one is promoting science... the other

component is even the science is to benefit the community, so we are forgetting

this, the use of the community. As a result we find that our scholars here, we are
here as thinkers, but we don’t contribute much to our society. (History professor,

personal communication, September 11, 2008)

The fact that scholars have assigned this dual value to research, again hints at the central
tension in their work lives—between generating new knowledge that is valued within

international academia and producing research that benefits Tanzanian society. Of

course, these two aspects of research production are not mutually exclusive, and

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searching for a way that these can overlap has been key to how researchers have
approached their work.
Conclusion

Two major dynamics have been at play in Tanzanian scholars’ representations of
their research work lives in their personal narratives. First, these academics have
conveyed a dedication to serving their nation and participating in creating solutions for
national problems. Second, scholars have been influenced by (and at times have
influenced) wider global processes and international academia. These two factors have
played different roles at different times, and academics often portrayed them as being in
tension with one another. In the beginning, national issues and priorities took center
stage. Later in the universities history, national priorities were superseded by the
influence of foreign institutions. Throughout the course of the university’s history,
scholars have been working to balance the two sides of this tension. This balance has
become increasingly difficult as control over research production has moved further flom
the hands of the scholars who do the on-the-ground work. Academics at UDSM continue
to feel a moral obligation to national development, but due to their loss in status in the
international community and the takeover of research funding by international agencies,
their role in the decision-making process has diminished. With the ITP, the university is
attempting to create a strategic plan for re-building the institution; however, flustration
still remains among the academic staff. As the balance between national and global
continues to shift, scholars persevere in their efforts to successfully negotiate between

local and global demands.

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Chapter Seven:
Conclusion

Of course, [research has] gone on, and quite a lot of people were surprised that the

University of Dar es Salaam has survived and continued to function in spite of the

crisis. I think that should go maybe to the kind of commitment of some of the

people at the university have to ensure that this institution continues. (Theatre arts

professor, personal communication, June 21, 2008)
Overview of Major Findings

This dissertation started with a question that arose flom observations I made
during my pre-dissertation work at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania: What
happens when a distinctly national university formed within a clearly articulated post-
colonial socialist vision intersects with liberal market reforms? It appeared to me that the
university had maintained, to some extent, its identity as a Tanzanian university with core
elements that were unique to its national context and history. At the same time, the
institution seemed to be facing a changing national and global environment, which had
led to a growing presence of international donors and a conscious movement away flom
the post-independence socialist era that had been such a central part of its foundation.
The global economy’s influence had created a new tension at the university between the
desire to maintain a distinctly national character and the perceived need to look
increasingly outward.

Tanzanian intellectuals have been at the center of this tension between national
identity and global influence. They have expressed a moral obligation to serve their

national society, and they have taken pride in their contributions to the national project.

They have also been in a position to interact with institutions and individuals beyond

191

Tanzania, and their identity as intellectuals makes them members of a wider academic
community. These intellectuals have a dual loyalty to the academy and to their own local
contexts. These categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, however, and at
different points in the history of UDSM, it has been easier to serve these roles than at
others. Tanzanian scholars’ ability to balance between the national and the global has
shifted with the evolution of national and global political, economic and social
conditions.

Research, as a key site of interaction between the global and the local, is where
this tension in Tanzanian scholars’ work lives has been the starkest. Researchers
participate in a global community of scholarship. When one performs research it is not
an individual endeavor. The research must engage with the literature that her
predecessors have produced and understand how her contemporaries are approaching a
given theme or question. Moreover, the audience for research outputs can be local,
global, or both, and the goal of research can be to produce knowledge about a particular
location, to contribute to global theories, or both. In the case of Tanzanian scholars,
while they valued research that contributed to national development, they also recognized
the importance of engaging with global knowledge systems. It has been their
responsibility to bridge these two worlds in their work lives, but this negotiation has often
involved reconciling competing demands.

During its early era (1961-1979), the university saw the rise of nationalist
scholarship, which in turn led to progressive scholarship and the influence of Nyerere’s
Aflican socialism. The university took a different path flom its neighbors and adapted its

structure to a “developmental model.” The role of the government and its political

192

philosophies on campus increased significantly during this time and Tanzania attracted a
lot of attention worldwide for its unique approach to post-colonial development. This
was the time of the Dar es Salaam School of Thought, and scholars from all over the
world traveled to the Dar es Salaam to interact with UDSM’s intellectuals. The first
generation of Tanzanian scholars took their ranks among their colleagues. They
described this as the university’s golden age. In terms of the tension defined throughout
this dissertation, intellectuals at UDSM in this era, especially during the late 19603 and
early 19703, were in a position to simultaneously focus on national development and
contribute useful knowledge to global debates on development and socialism.

This golden era faded in the late 19703. A rift was growing between the state and
the academic staff. Collapse of Tanzania’s financial system led to the university’s
deterioration. Scholars were no longer able to access materials to carry out quality
research and, as a consequence, research output declined sharply. In the late 19803 and
early 19903, socialism fell in most of the world, and the types of analysis associated with
leftist scholarship fell out of mode in global academia. Tanzanian scholars were
marginalized and isolated in many cases and the university’s adherence to a coherent
approach dissipated. Moreover, government funding to the institution was slashed,
leaving scholars to rely on external donors and consultancies to support their research.
This changing environment led to a shift in the balance of influences on scholarship at
UDSM. The concern over undue dependence on foreign donors was prominent in many
narratives as well as in university reports. A moral concern for Tanzanian national
development remained and was evident in the narratives of scholars across disciplines,

yet their sense of control over research production had moved firrther flom the reach of

193

those who were actually in the field conducting the research. The university’s loss of
status in the international community further compounded their sense of a decreased role
in the decision-making process.

Yet, as the quote at the beginning of this conclusion reveals, Tanzanian scholars
have persisted in their pursuit to strike a balance between national commitment and a
connection to wider academic discussions. The ITP has begun to institutionalize a
proactive approach to securing research funds. While the outcomes of this new policy
initiative remain to be seen, it has attracted the attention of foreign donors like SIDA who
are willing to give the university more control in setting their own research agenda. It
has also given the academic community an opportunity to self-consciously redefine itself
and assert a more cohesive identity.
Implications and Future Research

Findings flom this research have implications for several stakeholders in the
research process at the University of Dar es Salaam and beyond. These findings relate to
the future direction of the University of Dar es Salaarn’s approach to research, Tanzanian
academics’ attitudes about their on-going research endeavors, and foreign donors
relationship with administrators and scholars at UDSM. First, when speaking with
scholars, several indicated the need for a more coherent approach to research, especially
on the departmental level. Members of the history department, which has had a strong
background in coordinated research, were especially committed to the idea of revisiting
the time when the department designed large-scale studies and expressed a desire to re-

implement this type of research structure. They argued that becoming more coordinated

194

in their research approach would force them to be more self-reflexive as a department and
take on a more proactive approach to setting a research agenda.

Furthermore, a goal of this research is to add this national narrative into a larger
global narrative concerning higher education development and academics’ experiences.
As David Court (1975) argued, there has been a “tendency to underestimate the
importance of the particular socio-political context in which single universities in most
the third world countries are deeply rooted” (p. 193). It is important to add the voices of
these scholars who are embedded within a particular national history to the wider meta-
narrative of academia. Understanding what experiences they share with other academics,
as well as how their particular context has shaped their work lives can lead to ways of
recognizing the contributions these scholars have made to Tanzania’s national project and
increasing opportunities genuine intellectual exchange between African intellectuals at
Aflican universities like UDSM and the wider global academic community.

Finally, this study’s findings have implications for donors who support research at
universities in the developing world. Birgit Brock-Utne (2000) posed the question, “How
much has the support [of foreign donors] been given as a help to self-help, as a possibility
for Africans to do research on their own culture, and how much has it been another
‘transfer of knowledge’ project?” (p. 224). The donor-recipient relationship is inherently
disempowering for the recipient. Donors must be willing to self-consciously reform their
structures for giving and recipients must be able to assert some control over funding
distribution in order to begin to redress this imbalance of power. SIDA/SAREC is a good
example of a move in this direction. Additionally, over-reliance on donor-driven

research funds carries with it issues of sustainability. Once funding is gone, how can

195

universities like UDSM sustain research production if they have not had the funds to
build capacity? There is a need not only to support research per se, but also to build up
research structures at the university so that knowledge production becomes a sustainable
endeavor. Several scholars at UDSM argued that this should be done through increased
government spending, while others contended that the university’s advocating for
capacity-building funds through the ITP program could address this problem. Either
way, this is an area that needs more investigation.

The limitations and the results of this study indicate directions for further inquiry.
While the research examined Tanzanian intellectuals’ relationships to the nation and the
wider academic community, there are without a doubt other relationships and dynamics
at play in their work. This study is a starting point for fleshing out and making sense of
the complications in global/local interactions. How have processes such as
regionalization and globalization shaped knowledge production in Tanzania and the
developing world? How do negotiations for control over research production develop and
what are the implications for the distribution of decision—making and authority over the
research process? Bringing this research into communication with literature on
globalization and higher education could aid in addressing these questions and make
sense of the complexities that face these intellectuals in their careers and relationships.

Academic fleedom is another issue that emerged flom the study, but was not
center stage in the research analysis. Engaging with and interrogating the govemment-
university relationship and its impact on scholars’ ideas of academic fleedom could lead
to a better understanding of the implications for the state’s role in higher education in the

future, especially in countries with a history of strong government involvement. This is

196

especially pertinent with regard to emerging literature on the changing role of the nation

and, by extension, national governments in a new globalized world order.

197

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