Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
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There is a shortage of highly skilled aviation personnel in Tanzania. More than half of the pilots flying in the country are foreigners, while there are simultaneous reports of unemployed Tanzanian...Show moreThere is a shortage of highly skilled aviation personnel in Tanzania. More than half of the pilots flying in the country are foreigners, while there are simultaneous reports of unemployed Tanzanian pilots. This, in combination with the lack of research on Tanzanian aviation in general, provided the starting point for this research on the changing position of Tanzanian pilots in the Tanzanian air transport sector from 1917 to 2017. This thesis is the result of a historical qualitative research with a six months fieldwork period carried out in Dar es Salaam in 2014/2015. Additional data was collected in 2016 and 2017. Researching Tanzanian aviation elites has its own methodological challenges of access and positionality. The thesis gives an overview of a century of flight and fliers in Tanzania. It is argued that Tanzanian pilots have experienced some degree of deprofessionalization through loss of expertise, autonomy and status as a result of global and local conditions. However, measuring the state of community is not very helpful in examining Tanzanian pilots. Tanzanian pilots are not helpless in the face of deprofessionalization. Some Tanzanian pilots have moved into management functions at their airlines and others have organized in the Professional Association of Tanzanian Pilots (PATP). The labor aristocracy thesis proved not sufficient to explain the behavior of Tanzanian pilots. While once maybe rightly considered a labor aristocracy, Tanzanian pilots have become a very heterogenous group. In order to counter deteriorating conditions, some pilots organized in the PATP; this pilots-exclusive association used its connections to gain momentum, but it had severe confrontations with state and employers and pilots left the group when they got employed. This suggests that the Tanzanian pilots in the PATP were in some ways acting as a labor aristocracy, but judging from their composition, it was also an attempt to get back into one. Non-organization rather than organization became a way of dealing with the changes. The situation and (in)actions of Tanzanian pilots was very complex and must be understood in its own context. Further research is needed to find out more about individual motivations and to examine how different airlines deal with highly skilled workers. This thesis adds a Tanzanian perspective to debates on professional workers and changing professions in a globalized world.Show less
