Making Identity on the Swahili Coast

Reviews / Votes

'By taking seriously the roles of spatial identity and local attachment, Fabian has pried open a new window on Swahili culture and African urban history. Understood in these new terms, Bagamoyo's political and social history becomes a story of re-conceptualizing tradition, belonging, and urban citizenship in territorial terms as a means to confront external encroachments and displacements.' James R. Brennan, University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign 'Meticulously researched and a delight to read, Fabian reminds us that studies of small places have big things to say. His ability to foreground the importance of people on the margins of scholarship to the creation of spatially grounded Swahili urban publics, is an exemplary achievement.' Laura Fair, Michigan State University 'This history of one of East Africa's most important nineteenth-century urban centers has been worth the wait. Fabian offers a nuanced study that links the emergence of the 'local' in Bagamoyo to the everyday interactions of residents and itinerants from both of its hinterlands: the Indian Ocean world and the East African interior. This is a much-needed corrective to the overburdening of 'Swahili' identity found in many previous studies of the East African coast.' Stephen Rockel, University of Toronto, Scarborough