DestroyingMumiani

Cause, Context, and Violence in Late Colonial Dar es Salaam

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2182138
AutoresJames R Brennan (0000-0003-4382-212X, University of London, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume2
Fascículo1
Páginas95-111
Data de publicação2008-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Eastern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1753-1055 • E-ISSN: 1753-1063
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17531050701847276
OpenAlexW2029202813
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas20

This article examines and contextualizes a riot that occurred in Dar es Salaam in 1959, in the peri-urban neighbourhood of Buguruni. The riot involved accusations that security guards and police were abducting neighbourhood residents and killing them in order to use their blood for the preparation of magical medicines. Those who abducted Africans for this purpose were popularly termed mumiani. Their rumoured existence is examined in the wider context of Dar es Salaam's rapid urbanization, its peri-urban politics and land conflicts, and its systems of law and knowledge. The article also explores the many possible interpretations of this riot. Drawing on interviews with local residents, court testimonies, official correspondence, newspaper accounts, and colonial memoirs, the article constructs a historical account of the riot's location, Buguruni, as well as a narrative of the riot itself and the subsequent legal actions. Such a violent event raises questions about the relationship between historical evidence and causality, as well as questions about contextualizing major events that fit awkwardly into prevailing historical narratives

Archaeology · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Economic growth · Narrative · Neighbourhood (mathematics · Newspaper · Political science · Sociology · Urbanization · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law