Pastimes and politics
Subtitle: culture, community, and identity in post-abolition urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945
By: Laura Fair.
Series: Eastern African studies; Eastern African studies (London, England)
Publisher: Ohio University Press; J. Currey
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Athens; Oxford [England]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 370
Subjects: Popular culture -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Identity (Psychology) -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Group identity -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Leisure -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Ethnicity -- Tanzania -- Zanzibar; Zanzibar -- Social life and customs -- 20th century
Description: "The first decades of the twentieth century were years of dramatic change in Zanzibar, a time when the social, economic, and political lives of island residents were in an incredible flux framed by the abolition of slavery, the introduction of colonialism, and a tide of urban migration. Pastimes and Politics explores the era from the perspective of the urban poor, highlighting the numerous and varied ways that recently freed slaves and other immigrants to town struggled to improve their individual and collective lives and to create a sense of community in the new environment. In this study Laura Fair explores a range of cultural and social practices that gave expression to slaves' ideas of emancipation, and describes how such ideas and practices were gendered."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.     ) and index.