Tourism and Social Change in Post-Socialist Zanzibar

Struggles for Identity, Movement, and Civilization

By (author) Akbar Keshodkar

Publication date:

22 October 2013

Length of book:

202 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

233x160mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739175439

Notions of ustaarabu, a word expressing “civilization,” and questions of identities in Zanzibar have historically been shaped by the development of Islam and association with littoral societies around the Indian Ocean. The 1964 Revolution marked a break in that history and imposed new notions of African civilization and belonging in Zanzibar. The revolutionary state subsequently introduced tourism and the market economy to maintain its hegemony over Zanzibar. In light of these developments, and with locals facing growing socio-economic marginalization and political uncertainty, Tourism and Social Change in Post-Socialist Zanzibar: Struggles for Identity, Movement, and Civilization examines how Zanzibaris are struggling to move through the local landscape in the post-socialist era and articulate their ideas of belonging in Zanzibar. This book further investigates how movements of Zanzibaris within the emerging and contending social discourses are reconstituting meanings for conceptualizing ustaarabu to define their roots in Zanzibar.

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Movement and Identity in Zanzibar

2 Historical Articulations of Being Zanzibari: Negotiating Religion, Ethnicity, Race and Civilization

3 Movements in Post-Socialist Zanzibar: Identity Politics in the Era of Tourism

4 Moving Through the Tourism Landscape: The Struggle for Work and Pursuit of Prosperity

5 Contesting Models of Modernity: New Landscapes of Consumption, Mobility and Islam

6 Movement of Haya and Heshima: Emerging Discourses of Gender, Dress and Intimacy

7 The Role of Kinship: Movement in Family Relations and Marriage Strategies

8 Conclusion: The Struggle for Civilization

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Keshodkar (Zayed Univ., Dubai) delivers a wonderful anthropological volume highlighting Zanzibaris' struggle for identity as the country embraces change in a postsocialist government and economy. Since the 1980s, Zanzibar has focused its economic development efforts on establishing tourism, which has resulted in unsustainable numbers of tourists and migrants flooding in from Tanzania, Kenya, and other mainland African countries. Through case study analyses and numerous narratives among stakeholders, Keshodkar points out that with a diverse population in Zanzibar, the local landscape has been modified and has impacted local constructions of belonging, whereby residents feel a sense of strangeness. Topics include movement, Islamic religion, politics, work and prosperity, consumption, mobility, gender, dress, family relations, and marriage. Needless to say, this text touches on many social aspects of community, and would be most appropriate for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level collections focusing on the impacts of tourism, tourism planning, community tourism, and the anthropology of tourism. Readers will not be disappointed, especially as they read the eye-opening stories of struggle and courage among the Zanzibari people. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.