Fair Laura - Pastimes and Politics

Culture, Community, and Identity
in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar,
18901945

Laura Fair

Ohio University Press
Athens

James Currey
Oxford

Ohio University Press
Scott Quadrangle
Athens, Ohio 45701

James Currey Ltd
73 Botley Road
Oxford
OX2 0BS

2001 by Ohio University Press
First published 2001

10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3 2 1

Published in the United States of America by Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fair, Laura.

Pastimes and politics : culture, community, and identity in post-abolition urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945 / Laura Fair.

p. cm. (Eastern African studies)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-8214-1383-X (Ohio University Press : alk. paper) ISBN 0-8214-1384-8 (Ohio University Press : pbk. : alk. paper)

1. ZanzibarSocial life and customs20th century. 2. Popular cultureTanzaniaZanzibar. 3. Identity (Psychology)TanzaniaZanzibar. 4. Group identityTanzaniaZanzibar.

5. LeisureTanzaniaZanzibar. 6. EthnicityTanzaniaZanzibar. I. Title. II. Eastern African studies (London, England)

DT499.Z28 F35 2001
967.8'103dc21

00-067756

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fair, Laura

Pastimes and politics : culture, community, and identity in post-abolition urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945.(Eastern African studies)

1. Sociology, UrbanZanzibar 2. ZanzibarSocial life and customs 3. ZanzibarSocial conditionsTo 1964

I. Title

306'.096781'09041

ISBN 0-85255-795-7 (paper)
ISBN 0-85255-796-5 (cloth)

Chapter 2 appeared in an earlier version as Dressing Up: Clothing, Class and Gender in Post-Abolition Zanzibar in the Journal of African History 39(1). Copyright 1998 by Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 5 appeared in an earlier version as Kickin It: Leisure, Politics and Football in Colonial Zanzibar, 1900s-1950s in Africa 67(2). Copyright 1997 by the International African Institute.

In memory of
my grandparents,
Margaret and Richard Gall,
and my great-aunt and uncle,
Frances and Howard Gustafson,
whose fascinating and never-ending stories about the
old days inspired my study of the past and gave me an
appreciation for the value of oral history.

Figures

Maps

Drawn by the author

The research for this work was generously funded by grants from the Joint Committee on African Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Program and the University of Minnesotas Frances E. Andrews-Hunt Bequest. Subsequent research was made possible by the University of Oregons Summer Research Award, the Junior Professor Development Grant, and a fellowship awarded by the department of history, which was generously funded by one of our former history graduates, Spencer Brush. I thank the University of Oregons Humanities Center for a fellowship which gave me time to think and write about this project during the early stages of revision, and Jim Mohr and Quintard Taylor, chairs of the department of history, who graciously agreed to reduce my teaching load slightly after the births of my children, thus providing me with critical time to concentrate on writing while my babies slept. I have been lucky to have spent the last several years surrounded by a group of warm and encouraging colleagues at the University of Oregon. They have offered not only intellectual support but friendship and many pleasant diversions.

My warmest thanks goes out to the numerous people in Zanzibar who made the research and writing of this book possible. I would especially like to thank the women and men who agreed to be interviewed for this project for their generous willingness to share their thoughts and memories of the past. Mwalim Idd, Mzee Bingwa, and Nasra Mohammed Hilal deserve to be commended for their efforts to maintain personal archival collections and for their interest in sharing their knowledge of Zanzibars history. I wish to thank the staff at the Zanzibar National Archives for their skillful and efficient efforts in collecting, preserving, and organizing material and for their enthusiastic support and encouragement of foreign researchers. Working in the Zanzibar archives and with the archival staff has always been a rewarding and pleasurable experience.