No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization
... Des musulmans venus de la côte swahilie, ou d'Hadramawt et d'Oman et naviguant jusqu'au nord de Madagascar se sont intégrés par mariage dans les groupes locaux et y ont été des alliés commerciaux et politiques appréciés. Enfin une main d'oeuvre servile y a été amenée à différentes époques d'Afrique et de Madagascar 1 (cartes 1 et 2) (Martin 1974, Martin 1983, Wright 1992, Middleton 1992, Ho 2002, Walker 2002, Allibert, 2015. Malgré la pratique généralisée de l'islam sunnite de rite chaféite, les quatre îles ont en commun de suivre une règle de résidence uxorimatrilocale 2 . ...
... A Mohéli, des groupes de descendance réputés matrilinéaires sont articulés à un système d'âge encore fonctionnel (Blanchy 1992, Blanchy et Laguerra 2017. A Anjouan (Robineau, 1966a, Ottenheimer 1985, 1991 et à Mayotte (Breslar 1979, Lambek 1985, 2018, Blanchy 1990, 1992, 2012, la filiation est cognatique, et on ne trouve que des reliquats du système d'âge. ...
... Le rôle des étrangers dans les relations des deux moitiés du shungu de Fomboni renvoie au dualisme caractéristique des villes swahilies, souvent décrites comme organisées, sur le plan spatial et social, en deux sections parfois appelées moitiés (Middleton, 1992). Le négrier français Morice parle en 1776 des deux « nations » de Kilwa qu'il nomme les Africains et les Maures représentant respectivement un tiers et un dixième des habitants. ...
... The mosque was not just a place of worship but also a space for social interaction, discussions, and communal activities among men. Shared religious beliefs and rituals further cemented these bonds, creating an intertwined network of social and religious relationships (Middleton, 2004). Paradise offers a nuanced exploration of homosocial bonds, set against the rich backdrop of pre-colonial East Africa. ...
... These shared experiences, both mundane and profound, allow for moments of light-heartedness, shared laughter, and mutual respect. Such camaraderie provides a counterbalance to the novel's intense moments, highlighting the full spectrum of male relationships (Middleton, 2004). In the intricate narrative fabric of Paradise, homosocial relationships are not merely personal ties; they serve pivotal roles in shaping and reflecting societal norms, hierarchies, and practices of pre-colonial East Africa. ...
Abdulrazak Gurnah, a well-known Tanzanian-born British novelist, is renowned for his astute examinations of identity, migration, and colonialism. His writings, primarily, dwell on the impact of colonialism and explore the struggles of the African diaspora, and simultaneously probe into the individual relationships that defy the norm of heteronormative society. The complexities of homosocial and homosexual interactions are reflected in his works through various characters' intimate relationships and coalitions. These bonds between individuals of the same sex might be seen as indications of close friendship, solidarity, and emotional support. Homosexuality refers to feelings of romantic and sexual attraction between people of the same sex, whereas Homosociality refers to interactions between people of the same gender that are non-romantic or non-sexual, often including close bonds or camaraderie. Both approaches, however, investigate same-sex relationships from a variety of angles, each with its unique emphasis. Focusing on the complex interplay of bonds and identity within masculine relationships, this study investigates the performative nature of Homosociality and Homosexuality in Gurnah's Paradise (1994). The performative aspect of gender and sexuality in the novel's social setting is illuminated which dissects the characters and their activities to determine how both the aspects are performed, negotiated, and subverted.
... Elaborate stone mosques were accompanied by royal courts and double-story stone houses with bathrooms. Ceramics were placed into the plaster of elaborate pillared tombs and mounted around the mihrabs of the mosques (Middleton, 1992;Kusimba, 1994). Takwa, located on the south eastern corner of Manda Island, Kenya, was a thriving 15th-16th century Swahili trading town before it was abandoned in the seventeenth century. ...
... In richer homes there was a room in the first gallery, with imported rugs and tapestries on the walls and elaborate plasterwork niches called zidaka or vidaka that held the family Koran, perhaps an Omani incense burner, and the family collections of imported glazed ceramics, which were Asian and European. Domestically, ceramics were prized but were not for public display, apart from very special occasions such as a wedding or funeral and by a small group of people (Middleton, 1992). Due to their durability in tropical climates, ceramics have performed a valuable function in identifying trading movements that have placed eastern Africa within the Indo-Pacific orbit that later expanded into a global exchange system. ...
"A synthesis of archaeological work and research on Chinese ceramics found at sites in Kenya".
... Africa's eastern littoral known to many as the "Swahili Coast" has attracted traders and travelers from inland Africa and various destinations in the Persian Gulf, India, China, and Indonesia for at least two thousand years (Middleton 1992;Horton and Middleton 2000). 1 While the nature and scale of the trade has changed significantly over time, by the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries formal trading caravans bearing such valued commodities as ivory, gold, and slaves wended their way eastwards through the African interior to the shores of the Indian Ocean. There, Swahili middlemen living in urban settlements would purchase the cargo in exchange for goods acquired from seafaring traders come to the coast in vessels called dhows. ...
... While the preference for multiple football clubs is not limited in East Africa to the Swahili coast, much comment has been made about Swahili town divisions into clearly defined moieties (Middleton 1992;Farrell 1980;el-Zein 1974;Lienhardt 1968;Prins 1961). The typical Swahili town is organized around a centrally located Friday mosque. ...
... and in harmony with the sea. The people situate themselves within this islandscape, 2 and through their strong historical ties to maritime livelihoods and trading networks they have always been directed more towards the sea than to the mainland (see also Prins 1965 andMiddleton 1992). Lamu's small community has depended mainly on small-scale tourism and fishing, which in turn depend on the archipelago's rich natural resources such as its well-preserved coral reefs, significant marine and wildlife biodiversity, dense mangrove forests and white sand beaches. ...
... Religious and cultural diversity has been an essential part of Zanzibar's position at the crossroads between the African mainland, the Arab Peninsula and India. Islam and ideas of Muslim unity have, however, played a unifying role in the historical unfolding of what has been known as the Swahili world(s) (Middleton 1992;Loimeier and Seesemann 2006) and the consolidation of cultural values and ideas of civilisation (uungwana/ustaarabu) (Bromber 2006). While island identities have remained flexible and negotiable over time (Glassman 1995), issues of belonging (and non-belonging) have remained central in the governance of Muslim ways of being, and distinctions between Muslim (civilised, urban, mercantile) and non-Muslim (barbaric, rural, African mainland interior) beliefs and behaviours (Pouwels 1987;Glassman 2011). ...
... В ходе проведенного полевого исследования один респондент из 96 на Занзибаре определил себя как суахили. Подробнее о суахили см.: [Prins 1967;Arens 1975;Middleton 1992;Glassman 1995;Wynne-Jones and LaViolette 2018;Lindström 2019]. 20 В дополнение к этим внутренним процессам британской колониальной администрации на Занзибаре было удобнее определять людей более четкими с их точки зрения «этническими» обозначениями «вапемба», «вахадиму» и «ватумбату», чем более широкими и аморфными терминами «ширази» и «суахили» [Sheriff 2001: 307]. ...
... Uchanganuzi wetu wa maṭini ya Ramanime umetupa ufafanuzi wa namna mvulana anavokumbana na maisha mapya anapoingiya k̇enye maisha ya nrowa. Tumeona k̇amba jamii ya waSwahili juu ya kuhesabu kʰoo zake kukeni (Chiraghdin, 1977) na baaḍaye kuumeni walipoṭangamana na wageni (Middleton, 1992), humpa cheyo cha juu mvulana na mume. Hadhi hii ya uume nriyo inayomfanya mvulana ajiyone kuwa ana uhuru na uwezo wa kujichaguliya ṁelekeyo wa maisha yake akishaowa. ...
Katika ṭaaluma ya fasihi ya kiSwahili uṭeṇḍi maarufu uliyoṭafiṭiwa mno kuhusu masiyala ya nrowa, kazi na majukumu ya mke k̇a mumewe, ni ule wa Ṁanakupona. K̇a mara ya k̇anza, makala haya yanaangaziya uṭeṇḍi ṁengine ambao haujaṭafiṭiwa k̇a ṭafsili wenye kuraṭibu kazi na majukumu ya mume k̇a mkewe. Utendi wa Ramani ya Maisha ya Ndoa (Mume) uliyotungwa na Usṭadh Mahmouḍ Mau unampa mvulana wasiya wa kutumiya katika kufaulisha nrowa yake. Makala haya yaṇjaribu kudhihirisha elimu ya kiḍini na hekima ya ṭajiriba ya kimaisha aliyonayo mtunzi k̇a kumnasihi mvuli kuwa hakuna ukʰuu katika nrowa. Makala haya yakiongozwa na nadhariya ya Usemezano yamechanganuwa maudhui ya hekima ya mtunzi na kubainisha kuwa: k̇enye mukṭadha wa nrowa mke na mume wanasemezana si wao peke yao bali na jamii k̇a ujumla; kuna mabaḍiliko ya maana ya maneno kila kukicha basi na maana ya uume piya inabaḍilika kila kukicha; na ṁishowe, maana inayokuja baaḍa ya kukaa nrani ya maisha ya nrowa huwa ṭafauṭi na ile ilozoweleka. Makala haya yanahiṭimisha kuwa mtunzi aliṭaka kumfunza mvulana na msichana kuwa maisha ya nrowa ni ya watʰu wawili lakini majukumu zaiḍi yanaṁangukiya mume katika kufaulisha nrowa yake. Isiṭoshe, uṭeṇḍi huu unamkazaniya mume amsome mkewe kila siku kila saa ili aweze k̇idhibiṭi nrowa. Naṭija ilopatikana k̇a kuushughulikiya uṭeṇḍi huu ni kubaḍilisha nadhari katika ṭaaluma za kiSwahili na kijinsiya k̇a k̇angaziwa sana Ṁanakupona na kuṭoṭafiṭiwa ṭʰeṇḍi nyenginezo haswa zinazotiliya maanani mtoto wa kiyume.
... The Swahili language remains central to many east African Muslims, hence the occasionally heard phrase, "Swahili Islam." 6 The earliest concrete evidence of Islam and Muslims in eastern Africa is a mosque foundation in Lamu where gold, silver and copper coins dated AD 830 were found during an excavation in 1984 7 . The oldest intact building in eastern Africa is a functioning mosque at Kizimkazi 8 in southern Zanzibar Island dated AD 1007. ...
Given the evidence pointing to early Islamization of the coast of Kenya, the Digo Muslims of Mtongwe still remain attached to witchcraft- a practice that Islam is opposed to. It’s paramount that we locate the phenomenon of witchcraft within the broader history of Islamization, specifically at Mtongwe. In the research review, authors of history of Islam at the Coast, including Sperling, Trimigharm, and Lewis among others, have written extensively on factors that facilitated Islamization without focusing on witchcraft. The paper other than identifying factors for Islamization, it also brings out reasons for not accommodating Islam wholesomely. Through personal interviews and questionnaires, the research confirmed that witchcraft is one of the factors of Islamization among Digo community of Mtongwe. It also confirmed that trade, intermarriage, celebrations were the main factors that led to the Islamization of the Digo community of Mtongwe.
... La esposa Swahili y sus hijos permanecían en la casa del padre y su marido los visitaba y residía en casa del suegro cuando venía a comerciar El mismo sistema operaba entre los comerciantes Swahili y las comunidades del interior. Ello permitía que estos comerciantes o sus descendientes interculturales actuaran como intermediarios comerciales, preparando los cargamentos que se remitían a la costa y reco-giendo los encargos de telas y otras mercancías que los habitantes del interior demandaban del comercio asiático (Horton & Middleton 2000;Middleton 2004). ...
El texto desarrolla el modelo de las diásporas comerciales como alternativa a la precolonización en el Bronce Final y plantea la existencia de agentes foráneos conviviendo entre indígenas en el Centro y Oeste del Mediterráneo antes de la implantación de las colonias históricas.
... 9 Zu Geschichte und Kultur der Swahili siehe z.B. Horton und Middleton (2000), Middleton (1992) und Sheriff (2010: Kap. 10. iv). 10 https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ria_Bucht_Meer_Fluss [zuletzt besucht: 24/08/2019]. ...
When used in a purely descriptive sense, the term multicultural means the simultaneous presence of people with different cultural backgrounds. If one takes this perspective, the city of Dar es Salaam is multicultural from its very beginnings. Geographically lying on the African continent, the city was founded by an Omani Sultan and, until Independence in 1961, was the capital of German East-Africa and subsequently administered by the UK. This eventful history is reflected in the different layers of names assigned to the streets in the historical city centre. The following article analyses the German colonial names focusing on the multicultural aspects they inscribe into the cityscape.
... -британского). Эта основа, или платформа -культура суахили с ее издавна письменным языком с богатой литературной традицией, ставшим наиболее широко известным и распространенным африканским языком в Африке и за ее пределами (Prins 1967;Жуков 1983;Mazrui, Shariff 1994;Middleton 1994 . Благодаря этому в Танзании рост национального самосознания может проявляться преимущественно (хотя, конечно, не исключительно) на уровне не отдельных народов, а почти всего ее автохтонного населения. ...
The book is in Russian. Here is the English Summary: In the present monograph, its author makes an attempt to fit nation-building in post-colonial countries of Asia and Africa into the world historical and cultural process. In the context of this process, the nature of the nation and its future in the Afro-Asian and global scales are discussed. The author argues that in the post-colonial period that began after World War II, the fundamental characteristic of the nation as a culturally homogeneous (monocultural) community is changing. This feature had become a cornerstone of the concept of nation at its formation in the West by the last decades of the 18th century, but migration flows from the Global South to the Global North provoked by decolonization change nations as realities, as well as the concept of nation, in countries of the North making them polycultural. Liberated states of Asia and Africa are polycultural from the very beginning, because they inherited the colonial borders in which, as a rule, many peoples were united. The author raises the question if Asian and African countries’ initial polyculturalism can become their advantage rather than an obstacle in the path of their development in the present-day world if they stop trying to build nations on the outdated Western model of the late 18th – mid-20th centuries and go to building them as polycultural communities. The monograph is based on a combination of historical analysis with analysis of field anthropological evidence collected by the author.
... In summary, allowing for over-counting, the total number of Chinese objects recovered at the interior sites in southern Africa is unlikely to exceed 200, the majority coming from Great Zimbabwe. Macroscopically, the typology of ceramics from hinterland sites resembles that from chronologically overlapping sites along the coast such as Manda, Shanga and Gedi on the Kenyan coast and among others from Kilwa off the coast of Tanzania (Kirkman 1963;Chittick 1974;Middleton 1992;Zhao 2012;Chirikure 2014;Moffett and Chirikure 2016;Kusimba 2018). Unlike at the coast where Chinese coins were recovered at places such as Mambrui in Kenya and other few places along the coast, none are known from the southern African interior. ...
... In summary, allowing for over-counting, the total number of Chinese objects recovered at the interior sites in southern Africa is unlikely to exceed 200, the majority coming from Great Zimbabwe. Macroscopically, the typology of ceramics from hinterland sites resembles that from chronologically overlapping sites along the coast such as Manda, Shanga and Gedi on the Kenyan coast and among others from Kilwa off the coast of Tanzania (Kirkman 1963;Chittick 1974;Middleton 1992;Zhao 2012;Chirikure 2014;Moffett and Chirikure 2016;Kusimba 2018). Unlike at the coast where Chinese coins were recovered at places such as Mambrui in Kenya and other few places along the coast, none are known from the southern African interior. ...
This book entitled ‘Studying Africa and Africans Today’ is derived from the
Second Meeting of Xiamen University Belt and Road Research Institute Africa
Regions Sub-Forum, that took place at Xiamen University in April 2019. The
different contributions triggered vivid and interesting debates in a collegial and
friendly atmosphere. The Africa sub-Forum debates lead to a series of
suggestions on how to strengthen the scientific, academic and cultural
collaboration and exchange between China and Africa in the context of the Belt
and Road Initiative. The strongest recommendation suggests a stronger
promotion of cultural, scientific, and academic collaboration and exchanges that
will open the way to better mutual understanding. The study is an inter�disciplinary research initiative with focus on Africa and people of African descent
worldwide. Scholars from different parts of the world, Algeria, Brazil, China,
France, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and the United States of America
contributed to the debates and discussion that took place at Xiamen university.
Keywords: Cultural collaboration; Africa; Xiamen University; China-Africa
Cooperation.
... Most early ethnographic works provide a broad picture of Swahili social practices, especially those tied to a mercantile identity (Middleton, 1992), without explicitly recognizing gendered experiences outside the male sphere (but see Caplan, 1993). Ethnoarchaeological research, in contrast, has explored gender-based practices, such as the economic role of shellfish harvesting and processing by women and children in an urban setting of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Msemwa, 1994) and the role of women in processing, distributing, and discarding fish in the town of Vanga and nearby fishing communities in southern Kenya (Quintana Morales, 2013). ...
Swahili cuisine is known across Africa and globally as a highly distinctive product of a cosmopolitan, coastal, urban society. Here we present a comprehensive study of precolonial Swahili diet and culinary practices at the coastal town of Songo Mnara, positioning archaeological and ethnographic understandings of cuisine in a long-term coastal tradition. We explore contemporary food cultures and then present the first direct evidence for precolonial cuisine by combining ceramic lipid residue analysis with archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and faunal and human stable isotopic data. Integrating these datasets produces a detailed picture of diet at the site of Songo Mnara during the peak of precolonial Swahili urbanism. Lipid residue analysis demonstrates how plant and animal products were consumed and valued in ways not discernible from plant and animal remains alone. We also note special treatment for particular foodstuffs, including an association of fish consumption with high-status spaces and vessels, and preferential management of cattle for milk. A more complex picture of urban life emerges, recognizing influences of taste, class, and culture. Our findings demonstrate the potential of multi-layered anthropological studies for exploring cuisine and urban life in coastal contexts across the globe.
... political alliances along the way; and personal perceptions of the travelling infrastructure, sleeping arrangements, provisioning, and customs of welcoming strangers. 5 Chande refers to himself in the text as a "mwungwana," a term Velten translates as "man [19] from the coast," but which also implies a certain urban Arab refinement and Muslim identity within Swahili coastal society (Middleton 1992). This term is often used in opposition to the term "mshenzi," a man from the bush, or pagan villages, often implying a person who is not trustworthy because he does not have the habits of "coastal civilisation." ...
Travelogues are a rich medium through which to explore observations of everyday culture and rituals, perceptions of the world order, and narrative strategies of othering. In this paper, I turn my attention to travelogues written by East Africans (coastal Swahili Muslims, diasporic Shi’i and Parsi South Asians, and Christian Ugandans) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the authors come from different religious groupings, cultural-linguistic backgrounds and socio-economic milieus, they travel the same routes within East Africa and, occasionally, also to Europe or even as far as Siberia. I argue that the texts (including journals, retrospectives, and ethnographies) must be read as documents of East African cosmopolitanism. Mobility enables the authors to subvert the imperial world order by re-framing it narratively according to their own religious identity. This gives rise to reflections on humanity, equality and the beauty of knowledge, but not to the exclusion of racial and religious bigotry within and between the non-European communities in East Africa. In my analysis, I tease out narrative patterns, observational styles, and literary tropes present in the texts across religious boundaries. As all the texts were either commissioned by Europeans or edited by their translators before publication they do not document naively ‘authentic’ perspectives of East Africans, but reflect the complexities of communication within strict racial hierarchies. In concluding, I discuss the potential of religion to invert colonial centres and peripheries: European metropoles become places of exotic fascination while the familiar practices of co-religionists can turn the ‘hinterland’ into centres of learning.
... Contrary to Zambia and Uganda, in Tanzania what today serves as the socio-cultural background common for the overwhelming majority of its population began to form long before the establishment of the colonial regime (first, from 1885, German and then, in 1919-1961. This background is the Swahili culture with its written language, now the country's only official language (Prins 1967;Mazrui and Shariff 1994;Middleton 1994;Horton and Middleton 2000;Knappert 2005). Thus in Tanzania the growth of national consciousness and feelings can manifest itself mainly (although not exclusively, of course) at the level of not just separate ethnic groups but of its almost all autochthonous population. ...
In the form the nation-state has been known until now it formed in Europe and North America in the Early Modern time and flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, being adequate to realities of the world of industrial capitalism and cultural nationalism. However, nowadays other trends, related to superintensive globalization and post-industrialism, are dominating in the world. At present, the Western states have to depart from the classical concept of the nation and seek solutions to a completely different problem – of supporting their citizens' unity at preservation of cultural diversity brought by migrants from all over the world in recent decades. Under the current circumstances,
it should not be ruled out that post-colonial states, most of which are multicultural initially due to their unique history of formation, will find themselves in an advantageous position, if they abandon attempts to build nations according to the outdated classical Western pattern. While irreversible, globalization is associated with Modernity (Modern time) started in the West half a millennium ago, nation-building in contemporary post-colonial countries shows that globalization is by no means equal to Westernization, and that Modernity as a historically-specific type of society and culture, splits into multiple modernities.
... At the same time, research in eastern Africa is continuing to reveal the extent of maritime cultures and traditions across the region as well as evidence for wider maritime activity that connected this coast to the broader Indian Ocean region [24][25][26][27]. Contemporary residents of much of Africa's Indian Ocean coast, from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, are commonly referred to collectively as the Swahili, drawing on their shared language, history and aspects of a maritime culture which crosscuts modern national borders [28,29], although such nomenclature obscures considerable differences in terms of practices, status, history and origins [30][31][32][33]. To date, research on Swahili 'heritage' has focused either on the built heritage of the coastal belt, or on contemporary elements of intangible heritage such as dance, ritual practices and literature [34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. ...
The Rising from the Depths (RftD) network aims to identify the ways in which Marine Cultural Heritage (MCH) can contribute to the sustainable development of coastal communities in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar. Although the coastal and marine heritage of eastern Africa is a valuable cultural and environmental resource, it remains largely unstudied and undervalued and is subject to significant threat from natural and anthropogenic processes of change. This paper outlines the aims of the RftD network and describes the co-creation of a challenge-led research and sustainability programme for the study of MCH in eastern Africa. Through funding 29 challenge-led research projects across these four Global South countries, the network is demonstrating how MCH can directly benefit East African communities and local economies through building identity and place-making, stimulating resource-centred alternative sources of income and livelihoods, and enhancing the value and impact of overseas aid in the marine sector. Overall, Rising from the Depths aims to illustrate that an integrated consideration of cultural heritage, rather than being a barrier to development, should be positioned as a central facet of the transformative development process if that development is to be ethical, inclusive and sustainable.
... Jobs are menial and tend to be servile. This has led to negative comments about tourism as "a final form of colonialism" where indigenous people are exploited by outsiders (Middleton, 1992). Such jobs include working as porters, laborers, gardeners, drivers, waiters etc. ...
... Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 11 November 2020 Ibadi Islam to the coast, but this stayed largely with Omani populations and new converts (Martin 1971(Martin , 1975Horton 2013); it became a point of distinction between the newer ar rivals and older Shirazi groups who remained Sunni (Prins 1961;Middleton 1992; Glass man 1995). ...
... This discovery may seem to contradict the idea that the first SEB speaking group to arrive in Madagascar had already integrated original Bantu speakers. But it can possibly also be reconciled with it, given that some Swahili islands are included in the agricultural zone in question, and these islands have played a major role in the emergence of Swahili civilization (Middleton 1992). It can also be reconciled with a migration via the Comoros. ...
MUHṬASARI Mabaḍiliko ya kisemantiki ni haliya isiyopingika katika ukuwaji wa luǧa yoyoṭʰe ulimwenguni. Pahala pamoja ambapo maneno huhifaďiwa k̇a matumiyaji ya sasa na ya vizazi vijavo ni makamusini. Makamusi hukusanya maana za mingi ya maneno yanayotumika katika jamii na k̇amo mabaḍiliko ya kisemantiki hujiṭokeza. Makala haya yamelenga kuṭaťmini maana ya neno “hongera” k̇enye makamusi ya kiSwahili ya awali na ya kileo minṭarafu ya uṭamaḍuni wa waSwahili, wekahazina wa luǧa ya kiSwahili. Maďumuni ya uṭafiṭi wetu yalikuwa kučanganuwa maana ya neno hongera kama msamiyaṭi k̇enye makamusi; kučunguza maana ya neno hongera katika mila za waSwahili; na kuṭaťmini uwafiki wa matumiyaji mapana ya neno hongera katika jamii leo. Naďariya ya Usemezano, iliyoongoza uṭafiṭi huu, inafafanuwa kuwa maana haswa ya neno hupatikana k̇a k̇angaliya vigezo va usuli, mapisi, mukṭaďa, sajili, uṭamaḍuni, ainaṭi za luǧa zilizomo k̇enye lugha hiyo; la sivo, tuṭapata maana ya kijuujuu au ya kikamusi. Data yetu tuliikusanya k̇a kuwauliza, kupitiya mahojiyano yasomuunro, wasailiwa 5 wa marika zetu (wa miyaka 55 k̇enra chini) na piya wazee 5 (wa miyaka 70 na zaiḍi) kuhusu usuli, mukṭaďa wa matumiyaji, na mafafanuzi ya kiṭamaḍuni juu ya neno hilo “hongera”. Aiďan maaṇḍiko ya waṭaalamu na makamusi yenye ťika piya yalipitiwa na kučanganuliwa ili kutupa data ya neno “hongera”; kupunguza mlemeyo wowoṭʰe wa wahijowa; na piya kuhakikiša mayelezo ya wasailiwa. Uṭafiṭi wetu uliťibiṭiša kuwa hongera latumika k̇a maana ya “ku-pongeza” ṭu k̇enye makamusi ṭajika ya kiSwahili sanifu ya kileo, k̇a mfano, Kamusi Kuu ya Kiswahili (2016). Awali, katika makamusi asasi ya Krapf (1882) na Sacleux (1891/1939), maana ya hongera imeťubuṭu kumaaniša awamu katika šerehe ya ṭohara au ni kufariji k̇a mikasa iliyompata mtʰu. Aiďan, maṭokeyo yetu yaligunruwa kuwa “hongera” ni neno limaanišalo “pʰole” katika kiSwahili Asiliya (lahaja za ṗani Afrika Mašariki) lakini maana hii imevunjwa na maana ya kiṭamaḍuni k̇a sababu ni awamu katika šerehe ya ṭohara, piya ni awamu katika šerehe ya harusi ya kiSwahili haswahaswa wakati wa ḃanaharusi k̇ingiya nrani kuwonana na biharusi kimwili. Kimila ya waSwahili neno hili ni ṁiko wa daraja ya juu—lahusu ngono—hivo hwanika ungonočoro linapotumika pasipo. Lengo la uṭafiṭi huu ni kušauri ifikiriwe ṭena maana ya neno hongera katika makamusi ya kileo. Uṭafiṭi huu una naṭija k̇a wanaleksikografiya kufanya uṭafiṭi zaiḍi wanapotengeza makamusi. Piya uṭawafaa wanaiḍara ya uṭamaḍuni katika mamlaka kujuwa asili na mila za watumiyaji wa luǧa hii ya kiSwahili na nyenginezo ṇčini.
W artykule została przedstawiona kwestia istnienia związków cywilizacji Suahili z interiorem wschodnioafrykańskim. W szczególności omówiona została zmiana poglądów, która dokonała się w literaturze przedmiotu na temat tych związków, ich zakresu i intensywności. Zostały również przedstawione kontakty handlowe pomiędzy wybrzeżem wschodnioafrykańskim a interiorem.
This Element discusses a medieval African urban society as a product of interactions among African communities who inhabited the region between 100 BCE and 500 CE. It deviates from standard approaches that credit urbanism and state in Africa to non-African agents. East Africa, then and now, was part of the broader world of the Indian Ocean. Globalism coincided with the political and economic transformations that occurred during the Tang-Sung-Yuan-Ming and Islamic Dynastic times, 600-1500 CE. Positioned as the gateway into and out of eastern Africa, the Swahili coast became a site through which people, inventions, and innovations bi-directionally migrated, were adopted, and evolved. Swahili peoples' agency and unique characteristics cannot be seen only through Islam's prism. Instead, their unique character is a consequence of social and economic interactions of actors along the coast, inland, and beyond the Indian Ocean.
Spanning c. 1050–1500 CE, a burgeoning Swahili community called Chwaka built a sequence of four mortared coral mosques in their town of wattle-and-daub houses on Pemba Island, Tanzania. The mosques’ placement, construction, and use played an active role in creating and strengthening an Islamic community and help us define changes in social practice within the town and the larger polity in which it existed. It is argued that the construction of each mosque was an act of assembling, drawing people, other-than-human things and affective social practices together in ways that help tell an urban story. This research provides insights into the residents’ socioeconomic and cultural priorities and the town’s changing relationship with villagers from the surrounding region, contributing to understandings of Swahili urbanism and urban practice.
This paper seeks to investigate the occupational lineage of the African seamen who were engaged by the British Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean between 1841 and 1941. The chronology is paralleled by the Royal navy's dominance in the Indian Ocean and its association with the abolition of slavery in the region. The investigation centres on the use of British census returns and provides an added insight into the development of Black and Muslim communities in Britain and in areas under British influence.
Within the Swahili worlds, the island societies of the Comoros have retained, despite the adoption of Islam, a matrilocal marital residence rule and even, for two of them, matrilineal filiation groups. This is not the case in Anjouan where filiation is undifferentiated. On this island, the regular integration into the dominant families of literate merchants, members of the maritime trade networks of the Indian Ocean, in particular Bā ʿAlawī sharifs, has contributed to the formation of a specific urban category, the makabaila. The stone house, emblematic of Swahili urban culture, played a central role in the processes of distinction of the makabaila in Anjouan. Its evolution can be traced through European sources dating back to the seventeenth century, crossed with oral history and ethnography. The transformations of the house shed light on the historicity of the work of hierarchical construction, one of the instruments of which was the increasing enclosure of women. As a concrete form of the conjugal relationship, the house belongs to the woman but the husband is its master. It reveals the articulation of two alternative perspectives on social organisation: a cognatic native conception centered on descent group, versus a patrilineal network conception. It thus appears to be the site of the joint production of status and gender in Anjouan.
During the XIX century, on the Zanzibar Island, a gradual process of osmosis occurred through the first publications that often-linked magical practices with the precepts of the Quran, resulting in a social and political interpretation of the Omani power on the Eastern African island that reflected a multiplicity of cultural roots. The vast network of international trade links, and the presence of numerous mercantile communities were progressively consolidated, stretching from Africa, Arabia, the Gulf, and India as far as Southeast Asia, Indonesia and even China with Zanzibar as a polarizing new capital and centre. Modernity brought by the international presences in Zanzibar involved numerous complex reflections in order not to losing the traditional society values and the main Ibadi precepts inside the new-coming progresses. Ibadi press on Zanzibar Island was in fact representing one of these social and political objects: re-globalizing the ancient communication flows between Oman and East Africa.
https://journals.openedition.org/cy/8213?fbclid=IwAR1sccg0rBpdKOGzM0JcN_qcdn8dlrv7ix8lBV0QxfHFSoFA37Sb34U-hyQ
Scholars can elevate African voices as they recycle evidence from abandoned lines of research. This article discusses how to apply the confirmation and recycling methods of interdisciplinary research to engage with African historiologies. After reviewing contentious debates about Shungwaya from ca. 1955–2000, it draws on Mijikenda elder Thomas Govi’s descriptions of uganga and clanship (in a published collection of oral traditions) as a historiological theory for reimagining cross-linguistic collaborations, the formation of “stone towns,” and Islamic conversion in the settlement history of littoral East Africa.
Pottery from archaeological sites on the Swahili coast of East Africa has enabled scholars to establish the social, political and economic dynamics of their inhabitants and helped them to determine forms of interaction between coastal communities and other societies within and outside Africa. This paper examines Plain Ware pottery (Plain Ware Phase) from the site of Nunge in Bagamoyo (Tanzania) to discover the reasons behind its production. Findings indicate that the elements associated with Plain Ware pottery were markers of the socio-economic (i.e. salt-making) and political contexts that the Swahili experienced during the Plain Ware Phase (tenth to thirteenth centuries AD). It is suggested that the use of pottery to make salt for exchange with people in the East African interior created wealth and socio-economic stratification and may have been one of the key elements that contributed to the development of the Swahili coastal states. Comparative data from other regions suggest that salt-making was an important component in socioeconomic interactions among communities and provided an opportunity for surplus production and the establishment of ties among polities.
The last two to three decades have witnessed significant transformation in West Africa's relations to the Arabian Gulf and Asia. While ties to countries such as Saudi Arabia are historic, economic liberalization since the 1980s has introduced new trading partners and some unexpected developments. The outcome of these recent developments can be startling: so in Ghana, for example, India and China have overtaken the United Kingdom, the former colonial power, in investments and the number of operating companies. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranks third in the cumulative value of foreign direct investments in Ghana since 1994. This paper is an historian's attempt to provide context, some perspective and to probe the implications of these emerging patterns for the political economy of West Africa. It uses Ghana under the Kufuor regime (2000-2008) as a case study of how one West African government engaged the new economic opportunities and the growing importance of Arab and Asian trading partners and investors in the climate of South-South cooperation.
For a global history of development, Swahili poems from the German colonial period are valuable sources as they help to question the diffusionist view of development discourses as colonial import. This article analyses how concepts of development (maendeleo) and civilisation (ustaarabu) figured in poems written by Swahili authors between 1888 and 1907. Going beyond a reading of these texts as pro- or anti-colonial, it shows the importance poets attached to urban infrastructural improvement. Poems were also informed by the self-image of the superior, urban, Muslim strata of coastal society (waungwana) in contrast to inferior non-Muslim inland societies (washenzi). Several poets suggested that inland societies should be disciplined, yet differences to coastal Swahili society were usually not couched in terms of temporality nor in terms of a civilising mission. Poets had to come to terms, however, with new power relations as a result of German conquest. While some authors openly criticised colonial violence, others also embraced colonial interventions in infrastructural and economic aspects – but still expressed nostalgia for the past. In sum, the poems constitute a transitional space in Swahili discourses on development, showing that these were not merely colonial imports but grew from multiple roots.
In this article, I engage the “language as heritage” trope to critically examine a popular belief that underlies it: the idea that a shared language primordially connects an individual to a group of people, a homogenous culture and a particular territory—the notion of the ethnolinguistic group. Judith T. Irvine has long urged linguistic anthropologists to problematize the linguistic side of these classifications, to recognize the ideologies that shape both scholarly language descriptions and speakers’ own interactional practices (often in response to those official depictions). Here, I take on this challenge by considering both the contrived colonial standardization process of East Africa’s Swahili language, and contemporary Swahili speakers’ creative resistances to scholarly descriptions of “their” linguistic heritage. Orthographic and interactional practices from speakers of KiAmu, a Swahili vernacular spoken in coastal Kenya, illustrate how speakers creatively attempt to make their vernacular more “like itself.” Rejecting (post)colonial perspectives of Swahili as a distinctly “African” language, they are reimagining their linguistic heritage and its associated belongings to appeal to alternative identities and histories, that have hybridity and transoceanic interconnectivity at their core.
This article explores how Giriama elders represent their ‘traditional religion’ ( dini ya jadi ) through ‘interfaith’ cooperation with Christians and Muslims in the coastal Kenyan town of Malindi. Based on extensive ethnographic research, the article analyses how Giriama Traditionalism relates, in complex and ambivalent ways, to normative assumptions and ideals with regard to what religion entails, and in turn how Giriama elders seek recognition as representatives of a religion in this setting. Such claims are made in a context where Christians, Muslims, and state actors sometimes doubt whether Giriama Traditionalism is worthy of being called a ‘religion’ at all. The article demonstrates that although in the context of interfaith cooperation Christianity, Islam, and ‘Traditionalism’ are formally recognized as equal religions, this does not necessarily create a level playing field. Instead, it requires Giriama elders to appropriate terms, norms, and ideals that are not necessarily of their own making in order for Giriama Traditionalism to be recognized as a religion. Through this analysis, the article aims to contribute to theoretical debates about religious diversity in African contexts by demonstrating how negotiations about what properly counts as (good) religion in coastal Kenya are deeply informed by the copresence of Christianity, Islam, and indigenous African religiosity in one religious field.
A movement of ethnic separatism in the Kenya Coast region (Mombasa Republican Council), which was formed in the beginning of the current century, is analyzed in ethnopolitical, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts. The movement antagonises traditional citizens of the Kenyan Coast (Mijikenda, Swahili, and Arabs) and recent migrants from the inner parts of the country (Kikuyu etc.), the latter having taken leading positions in the local business and social development. Among the most difficult issues that jeopardize relations between Kenyan citizens are contested title deeds on the land and availability of gains for all. Ethnopolitical categories used and reified for the management of conflicts provide the key for exploring the nature of ethnic separatism. For political elites, there is always a room to “construct” ethnicity but this occurs as part of more fundamental ethnic processes.
В монографии предлагается нетрадиционный подход к изучению образовательной политики на основе сопоставления альтернативных данных из достаточно различных областей научного знания: истории, политологии, антропологии, кросс-культурной психологии, а также эконометрических исследований. Вынесение на первый план наиболее острых проблем позволяет избежать излишней дробности представленного материала, а контекстный и сравнительно-исторический методы анализа – не сбрасывать со счетов африканскую в целом и региональную (в отношении конкретных стран) специфику образовательной политики. При изучении ее контекста акцент делается на образовательных экспериментах, исламо-христианских отношениях, влиянии этнических и внешнеполитических факторов, становлении и трудном преодолении расовой сегрегации, реальной ситуации в классной комнате, проекте развития независимого школьного образования и политической борьбе.
For almost a century there have been varied interpretations of folios 19V-20V of the Mao Kwun map. This has made it difficult for historians of the Ming voyages as well as those of African history to use the Mao and corresponding descriptions by Fei Xin of the places that were visited or known as reliable sources for historical study. The interdisciplinary investigation conducted here examines recent discoveries in East African archaeology, incorporating information from medieval Islamic and Portuguese cartography, as well as East African oral history, folklore and linguistics. It is hoped that the cross-correlation of this information with the African portion of the Mao Kwun map will enhance our knowledge of East African history. this study is the culmination of three decades of work in London, Muscat and Mombasa.
European imperialism forced Western cultural concepts onto colonised societies which had no choice but to somehow cope with the new living conditions. After independence, not even the fiercest struggle for decolonisation could undo history. Furthermore, in times of postcolonial globalisation, Western cultural patterns are ever more influential. In this regard, names and naming offer a prime opportunity to study the complex, but also dynamic interplay between Western and non-Western cultural practices. With a focus on Tanzanian personal and street naming, this chapter explores the ways in which local and Western ideas interact in shaping naming practices.
From the second millennium BC, East Africa has been connected with oceanic exchange networks and has been included within an Afro-Eurasian world-system, where it formed a periphery from the beginning of the first millennium of the Christian Era, then a semi-periphery from the 10th century onward. As the various articles of this issue of the Journal Afriques show, although the East African coast has been oddly neglected by authors such as K. Chaudhuri (1975) and J. Abu-Lughod (1989), it did play an active role in the world-system, even after the arrival of the Portuguese during the 16th century.
This article investigates the ways in which the gender relations of matrilineal culture in inland northern Mozambique have influenced the culture of the coast, an area profoundly marked by Sufi Islam. The findings demonstrate that Islam has adapted to matrilineal culture in significant ways, in terms of male/female leadership of Sufi tariqas and norms associated with sexuality and marriage. Islamic tradition is respected in so far as the bride’s virginity at first marriage is considered important. However, in line with the matrilineal culture of the hinterland, marriage is often a transitory arrangement, and divorce is easy. Extra-marital sex is accepted, or at least condoned – provided that norms of discretion are properly maintained. Drawing on data from cities farther north on the Swahili coast, the findings suggest that norms regarding female sexual autonomy, which have roots in the matrilineal culture brought to the coast by female slaves from the interior, have also had an impact on women’s lives in Mafia Island, Zanzibar, and Mombasa. Women seem to have been first movers in the post-abolition erosion of class hierarchies and general change of culture.
The urbanization and globalization being experienced in Africa in this early 21st century have deep foundations in the continent’s history. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, theories on the origin of urbanization have developed through the 20th century from an external origin emphasis. There was little recognition of the greater part played by the local people. The producers of these cultures engaged in activities shaped by the environment and sociocultural, political, and economic connections. For instance, in Eastern Africa, Iron Age people became united by language and religion, and exploited the coast and sea during the medieval period (from the end of the early Iron Age c. 500 CE to the arrival of the Portuguese at the end of the 15th and to the early 16th century). Iron Age people traded with inland Africa, East and Southern Asia, and Europe, producing what has become popularly known as the “Swahili civilization.” This civilization along the coast of Eastern Africa is marked by material culture of iron working, cloth production, pottery, beads, and glass as well as monumental constructions that range from stone-built mosques, tombs, and palaces. A maritime trade assisted by seasonally reversing monsoon winds exported gold, slaves, animal skins, ivory, and mangrove poles from Eastern Africa and imported beads, porcelain, and silks. The evidence that marks the Swahili civilization is spread over an area that extends along the coast of Eastern Africa about 3,000 km from Mogadishu (Somalia) in the north to Inhambane (Mozambique) in the south. The Swahili civilization locale also includes the islands of Unguja (Zanzibar), Pemba, Mafia, Comoros, and northern Madagascar. Some remnants marking the Swahili civilization include UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Lamu Old Town, Zanzibar Stone Town, Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara, and Ilha de Mozambique. The civilization continues in this early 21st century with its oral traditions and maritime technology that are testimony of coastal Swahili culture continuing through Eastern Africa’s social and economic challenges.
This volume brings together a number of the foremost scholars - anthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and historians - studying schizophrenia, its subjective dimensions, and the cultural processes through which these are experienced. Based on research undertaken in Australia, Bangladesh, Borneo, Canada, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the United States and Zanzibar, it also incorporates a critical analysis of World Health Organization cross-cultural findings. Contributors share an interest in subjective and interpretive aspects of illness, but all work with a concept of schizophrenia that addresses its biological dimensions. The volume is of interest to scholars in the social and human sciences for the theoretical attention given to the relationship between culture and subjectivity. Multidisciplinary in design, it is written in a style accessible to a diverse readership, including undergraduate students. It is of practical relevance not only to psychiatrists, but also to all mental health professionals.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.