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BLOOD ENEMIES: EXPLOITATION AND URBAN CITIZENSHIP IN THE NATIONALIST POLITICAL THOUGHT OF TANZANIA, 1958–75

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2006

JAMES R. BRENNAN
JAMES R. BRENNAN
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Abstract

The major concepts of nationalist political thought in Tanzania formed at the meeting point between local and international understandings of exploitation, and prescriptions for its removal. These ideas were given social form through a politics of enmity concerned with defining enemies of the nation and creating corresponding purge categories. Acquiring urban citizenship in Tanzania required the demonstrated commitment to fight exploitation for a party and state hostile to urban growth. While such ideas formed the boundaries of legitimate political debate, Africans struggling to lay claim to urban life appropriated nationalist idioms to lampoon official pieties and make sense of class differentiation in a socialist country.

Keywords

Tanzanianationalismsocialismpolitical cultureurban
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , November 2006 , pp. 389 - 413
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Andrew Burton, Frederick Cooper, Jonathon Glassman, Andy Ivaska, Richard Lepine, Leander Schneider and Luise White for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. All translations are by the author.