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This is the first comprehensive biography of Julius Nyerere, a national liberation leader, the first president of Tanzania and an outstanding statesman of Africa and the global south. Written by three prominent Tanzanians, the work spans over 1200 pages in three volumes. It delves into Nyerere's early days among his chiefly family, and the traditions, friends and education that moulded his philosophy and political thought. All these provide the backdrop for his entrance into nationalist politics, the founding of the independence movement and his original experiment with socialism. The work took six years to research and write, involving extensive and wide-ranging interviews with persons from...
This third volume of Tell Me, Friends collects stories and plays written by students and staff at the University of Dar es Salaam between 2006 and 2008. The stories in the collection are: "Our Man" by Saida Yahya-Othman; "The Window Seat" by Benjamin Branoff; "The Concealed Project" by Zuhura Badru; "The Total Crisis" by Simon Mlundi; and "Testimony" by Emmanuel Lema. The plays are: "The Monster" by Anna Chikoti; "Love is..." by Kimberly McLeod; "A Tanzanian Rooftop" by Benjamin Branoff; "Judges on Trial" by Frowin Paul Nyoni; "The Route to Success" by Yunus Ng'umbi; and "The Mop" by Vincensia Shule. Read and share these stories and plays, and enjoy how they depict some of the social-economic and political factors that condition and shape our societies today.
Yes, In My Lifetime is a collection of selected articles and essays by Haroub Othman, written over the span of his career of nearly four decades. Originally appearing in a wide range of fora, the writings reflect Othman’s growth as an intellectual and an activist. They also encapsulate his life’s passions ñ the plight of the people and their struggles for their rights, the state of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and international solidarity with the oppressed the world over. A child of Zanzibar, Othman fought long and hard for the unity of those islands, and for their continued presence in the Union, and the set of articles in that section pay homage to that work. Haroub Othman was a professor of development studies at the University of Dar es Salaam, having specialised in international law and political science. He was still working with the University when he passed away in 2009. His many Kiswahili writings are unfortunately not included in this book.
Zanzibar Was a Country traces the history of a Swahili-speaking Arab diaspora from East Africa to Oman. In Oman today, whole communities in Muscat speak Swahili, have recent East African roots, and practice forms of sociality associated with the urban culture of the Swahili coast. These "Omani Zanzibaris" offer the most significant contemporary example in the Gulf, as well as in the wider Indian Ocean region, of an Afro-Arab community that maintains a living connection to Africa in a diasporic setting. While they come from all over East Africa, a large number are postrevolution exiles and emigrés from Zanzibar. Their stories provide a framework for the broader transregional entanglements of decolonization in Africa and the Arabian Gulf. Using both vernacular historiography and life histories of men and women from the community, Nathaniel Mathews argues that the traumatic memories of the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 are important to nation-building on both sides of the Indian Ocean.
This study presents challenging findings on language choice and discourse formation in participatory development co-operation. Situated in the framework of two rural development programs in Tanzania, it questions multilingual routines in development co-operation and deals with issues of linguistic exclusion in postcolonial societies. At the same time, it demonstrates how development objectives are negotiated at grass-root level, addressing persistent questions of agency in donor-driven planning processes.
Pragmatic Faith and the Tanzanian Lutheran Church: Bishop Erasto N. Kweka’s Life and Work examines the operations and organization of the Tanzanian Lutheran church through the life and times of its longest serving diocesan bishop, Erasto N. Kweka. Amy Stambach and Aikande Kwayu develop the concept of pragmatic faith, belief-in-practice, to analyze the integration of religious experience, institutionalism, and doctrine or orthodoxy. Pragmatic faith breaks down the lingering binary found in anthropological studies of Christianity between transcendental experience and pragmatic struggle, and between religious revival as rupture or continuity. Stambach and Kwayu analyze the instrumental use of...
This handbook provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of key theoretical and analytical approaches, topics and debates in contemporary scholarship on African masculinities. Refusing to privilege Western theoretical constructs (but remaining in dialogue with them), contributors explore the contestations around and diversities within men, masculinities and sexualities in Africa; investigate individual and collective practices of masculinity; and interrogate the social construction of masculinities. Bringing together insights from scholars across gender studies, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, literature and religion, this book demonstrates how recognizing and upholdi...
This book explains why many governments in Africa are including African languages alongside European languages as media of instruction in elementary schools. It argues that a number of factors have combined to make multilingual education attractive: France has changed its foreign policy toward its former colonies, language NGOs are transcribing more languages, and pressure toward democracy makes African leaders look for ways to divide the opposition.
“Bravely takes on . . . not the legendary shapeshifting creature spoken about sporadically on the Swahili coast of Tanzania, but rather popobawa discourse.” —The Journal of Modern African Studies Since the 1960s, people on the islands off the coast of Tanzania have talked about being attacked by a mysterious creature called Popobawa, a shapeshifter often described as having an enormous penis. Popobawa’s recurring attacks have become a popular subject for stories, conversation, gossip, and humor that has spread far beyond East Africa. Katrina Daly Thompson shows that talk about Popobawa becomes a tool that Swahili speakers use for various creative purposes such as subverting gender se...
Ritual Communication examines how people create and express meaning through verbal and non-verbal ritual. Ritual communication extends beyond collective religious expression. It is an intrinsic part of everyday interactions, ceremonies, theatrical performances, shamanic chants, political demonstrations and rites of passage. Despite being largely formulaic and repetitive, ritual communication is a highly participative and self-oriented process. The ritual is shaped by time, space and the individual body as well as by language ideologies, local aesthetics, contexts of use, and relations among participants. Ritual Communication draws on a wide range of contemporary cultures - from Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific - to present a rich and diverse study for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology and sociolinguistics.