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Article published In: Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.99–136

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With and without Zanzibar

Liminal diaspora voices and the memory of the revolution

 | University of Sussex
Published online: 2 July 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18038.pia
Abstract
This paper explores discursive narratives as inextricably linked to the construction of identity, place and history by a number of interviewed individuals. From an interactional sociolinguistics (cf. (2012). Analyzing narratives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) perspective, the study explores the context of the East African diaspora (Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, identity and the media: diasporic transnationalism and mediated spatialities. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Manger, L., & Assal, M. A. M. (Eds.). (2006). Diasporas within and without Africa: Dynamism, heterogeneity, variation. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar among many others) as the interviewed participants are all Zanzibar-born individuals for whom the relationship with the island and its history is crucial to their construction of selfhood. The study analyses the narrative voices (De Fina, A., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Analysing narratives as practice. Qualitative Research, 8(3), 379–387. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) of those individuals who decided to leave Zanzibar at the time of the 1964 violent political upheaval never to return and those who, on the contrary, decided to go back after a lengthy period abroad. However, more than establishing a division between these two groups, the paper highlights how these individuals take a different positioning (Bamberg, M. (1997). Positioning between structure and performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1–4), 335–342. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) towards Zanzibar and its history and construct a range of identities in the context of the interview.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The geo-historical context
  • Diaspora and liminal identities
  • Methodology
  • The narratives
    • Hegemonic identities as Zanzibar historians
    • Identities of historians challenging hegemony
    • Zanzibar as a search for identity
    • Disappointed and cynical identities: Zanzibar’s betrayal
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (67)
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