Author:
Abstract:
The paper explores particular features of incomplete urbanization in Dar es Salam, Tanzania. It studies the lives of people, who have just moved into the big city, as well as the lives of the second or third-generation immigrants from countryside and rural districts. In the first part of the study these features are treated using the anthropological and historical methodology; in the second part attention is paid to respondents’ perception of life in megapolis compared to those in native villages. Features of incomplete urbanization include: creation of informal settlements, formation of living community and city space by means of its inhabitants (just as in the villages); employment in the informal sectors of economy, small-scale commerce or small-scale services requiring no education or highly specialized skills (for example, growing and selling of fruits and vegetables, just as in the villages); establishment of mutual help groups (instead of relatives’ and villagers’ help, now absent); use of the social commitment power instead of legal power, importance of family and person’s own reputation; appeal to moral authority of group leaders instead of calling the police in case of conflicts; patrolling and securing the territory of informal settlements by units of people’s militia at night (in coordination with state police). It is clear that these practices have emerged in the big city hand in hand with migrants from rural regions. Incomplete urbanization and its trends can be treated as a result of insufficient state support of the poor, but in some ways it continues and even develops social relations, which existed before colonization and then were additionally enhanced during the nation-building and implementation of Julius Nyerere’s “ujamaa” concept after Tanzania gained independence.
Keywords:
Tanzania, Dar es-Salaam, urban communities, mutual help groups, incomplete urbanization, internal migration, uswahilini
DOI:
10.31132/2412-5717-2018-44-3-100-111
References:
Bondarenko D.M. Obshchinnost’: pervoosnova istoriko-kul’turnoi i sotsial’no-politicheskoi traditsii Subsakharskoi Afriki (Communality: A Foundation of Sub-Saharan African Historical, Cultural, and Socio-political Tradition). Vostok (Oriens). 2014, № 2, pp. 10–22.
Brennan J.R. Burton A. Lawi Y.Q. (eds.) Dar es Salaam: Histories from an Emerging African Metropolis. Nairobi. The British Institute in Eastern Africa, 2007, 279 p. ISBN 978-9-98744-970-5.
Dercon S., De Weerdt J., Bold T., Pankhurst A. Group-based funeral insurance in Ethiopia and Tanzania. World Development. 2006, vol. 34 (4), pp. 685–703.
Cross Ch. Community Policing in Tanzania. Experiences and Understandings of Participation. In: Conteh Ch., Huque A.S. (eds.) Public Sector Reforms in Developing Countries: Paradoxes and Practices. New York. Routledge. 2014, pp. 77–92. ISBN 978-0415858564.
Cross Ch. Ulinzi Shirikishi: Popular Experiences of Hybrid Security Governance in Tanzania. Development and Change. 2016, vol. 47(5), pp. 1102–1124.
Hyuha M., Ndanshau M.O., Kipokola J.P. Scope, structure and policy implications of informal financial markets in Tanzania. AERC research paper 18. Nairobi. African Economic Research Consortium. 1993, 38 p. ISBN 1-897621-13-2.
Ivanchenko O.V., Zelenova D.A., Popov P.A. Tanzaniya. Vzaimopomoshch’ v gorodskikh soobshchestvakh (na primere Dar-es-Salama) (Tanzania. Mutual help in urban communities. Case of Dar es Salaam). Aziya i Afrika segodnya. 2015, № 4, pp. 35–40.
Ivanchenko O.V. Zhenskie gruppy vzaimopomoshchi v sovremennykh gorodskikh soobshchestvakh Dar-es-Salama, Tanzaniya (Women’s Mutual Help Groups in Modern City Communities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). Zhenskie organizatsii v Afrike kak forma politicheskogo i sotsiokul’turnogo samovyrazheniya (Women’s Organizations in Africa as a Form of Political and Socio-Cultural Self-Expression). Institut Afriki RAN. 2017, pp. 119–131. ISBN 978-5-91298-201-9.
Ivanchenko O.V. Formal’nye i neformal’nye osnovy doveriya v gruppakh vzaimopomoshchi zhitelei Dar-es-Salama (Tanzaniya) (Formal and informal foundations of trust in mutual help groups of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) residents). Vostok (Oriens). 2017, № 1, pp. 121–130.
Ivanchenko O.V., Banshchikova A.A. Zamenyaya gosudarstvo: al’ternativnye sotsial’nye praktiki v gruppakh vzaimopomoshchi v sovremennom Dar-es-Salame (A Substitute for the Governement: Alternative Social Practices in Mutual Help Groups in Modern Dar es Salam). Conflict Studies. Nota Bene. 2017, № 4, pp. 47–55. DOI: 10.7256/2454-0617.2017.4.24637.
Moyer E.M. In the Shadow of the Sheraton: imagining localities in global spaces in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. PhD thesis. Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR). 2003.
Nissanke M., Aryeetey E. Financial integration and development: liberalization and reform in sub-Saharan Africa. London and New York. Routledge. 2005. xiv+330 p. ISBN 0203984196.
Swantz M.L., Tripp A.M. What Went Right in Tanzania: People’s Response to Directed Development. Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam University Press. 1996, 184 p. ISBN 9-9766-02-80-4.
Thomson R.J., Posel D.B. The Management of Risk by Burial Societies in South Africa. South African Actuarial Journal. 2002, vol. 2, pp. 83–128.
Yunus M., Zholi A. Sozdavaya mir bez bednosti: Sotsial’nyi biznes i budushchee kapitalizma (Creating Poverty-Free World: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism). Moscow. Al’pina Pablisher. 2009, 307 p. ISBN 978-5-9614-1190-4.
Zoetelief J. Microfinance from below: exploring rural livelihoods in Tanzania. Hotze L., Hospes O. (eds.) Livelihood and Microfinance. Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives on Savings and Debt. Delft. Eburon Academic Publishers. 2004, pp. 57–65. ISBN 978-9059720169.