communal places and the politics of multiple identities: the case of tanzanian asians, 1997

COMMUNAL PLACES AND THEPOLITICS OF MULTIPLE

IDENTITIES: THE CASE OFTANZANIAN ASIANS

Richa Nagar

Communal places, identities, and everyday politicsocial identities and places have a dynamic and mutually constitutive rela-S tionship that plays a crucial role in defining communities. People are alwaysembedded in multiple identities and social relationships, and their experiencesof these identities and relationships are rooted in their day-to-day lives and envi-ronments.2 This paper focuses on four South Asian (hereafter referred to asAsian) groups in the city of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, and explores how placesdefine multiple identities and communities based on religion, race, gender, class,and caste. This analysis is centred on communal places, that is, places organizedand run on religious, caste, sectarian, and sometimes regional lines.The relationship between identity and place has attracted the attention of

many geographers in recent years.’ Writings on this subject include Western’sexamination of questions related to ’home’, identity, and belonging amongBarbadian Londoners; the exploration of ’constructions of race, place, andnation’ in Jackson’s and Penrose’s edited work; and Anderson’s work onChinatown which highlights the complex interconnections among hegemonicpower, ’imaginative geographies’, and constructions of race and place.4 Theseworks offer valuable theoretical insights into the interrelationships among iden-tity, place, and power hierarchies. What is unfortunate, however, is that religiousidentities and places are often missing from these discussions. Geographicalinterest in religion, as Kong aptly points out, has remained largely confined tospatial patterns arising from religious influences.’ As a result, despite the cru-cial role that religious places play as embodiments of social, political, personal,and sacred meanings, they have often been overlooked in geographical litera-ture on identity. This disregard of religion limits our ability to understand socialconstructions of identity and place in those historical and geographical contexts

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where religion, along with other axes of difference such as caste and sect, playsa crucial role in shaping the everyday politics of a community.There is a rich body of literature on Swahili identity and culture, and the long

and intricate historical processes that have shaped the multi-layered construc-tions of ethnicity on the Swahili coast. Scholars such as Mirza and Strobel, Fair,and Giles have vividly portrayed the complex ways in which African, Arab, andAsian influences mingled with class, gender, and religion to mould communallife and everyday politics on the coast.’ These authors also bring to life neigh-bourhood- and locality-based communities, and the ways in which they affectedthe articulation of struggles over power, and the creation and expression ofsocial identities in precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods.

In the 1970s and 1980s, several humanistic geographers emphasized the needto understand the multiple geographies of the lifeworld and the geography ofsocial action through hermeneutics, ethnography, and logical inference.7 Whilesome of the early works within this stream of humanistic geography were criti-cized for being too voluntaristic and for ignoring the importance of social struc-tures, later works addressed these gaps by incorporating in their analyses’modern critical traditions of historical materialism and various extensions as

symbolic interactionism and structuration theory’.’ Although scholars of iden-tity have been concerned with subjectivities and their intersections with socialconstructions of space and identities, there has surprisingly been little interestin combining these concerns with approaches that integrate behavioural,humanistic, and radical perspectives in geographical analysis. An excellent exam-ple of such an approach is David Ley’s A social geography of the city, which exam-ines the geography of everyday life in the city by placing the experiences andperceptions of individuals and groups within the context of broader social andhistorical processes, political structures, and power relations.9

This paper seeks to understand the geography of everyday life by focusing oncommunal places, such as temples and clubs, where women and men from dif-ferent backgrounds regularly come together. The activities and symbolic mean-ings associated with these places help in reinforcing existing social relations andpower hierarchies, and in sustaining crucial economic and social networks. Atthe same time, identities also mould places. For example, communal places fre-quently become the most accessible sites for marginalized groups to contesthegemony by challenging the existing norms of exclusion, inclusion, control,and ownership in their communities. Such conflicts and negotiations continu-ally challenge and modify the meaning and structure of communal places.’o

However, it is not possible to discuss adequately all the multifaceted and com-plex relationships between places and identities in one paper. For this reason,my focus here is on the question of how places shape identities. More specifi-cally, I explore how processes operating in communal places define the socialworlds of Asian men and women, and selectively reinforce their identities.Communal places are the primary centres where people gather to interact witheach other, to build and sustain their multiple communities and networks, andto maintain and modify their gendered identities around religion, caste, andclass. At the same time, communal places are instrumental in reproducing exist-



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ing hierarchies of power, because these places are controlled largely by upper-and middle-class men who run community organizations. Although such indi-viduals often portray their religious and caste-based communities as harmoniousand as sharing common interests, the accounts presented here show thatinteraction in communal places is frequently characterized by dissension anddisharmony.

In analysing how places mould communal lives and identities, I combine thehumanistic tradition of cognitive mapping with recent feminist, postcolonial,and post-structuralist thought that emphasizes how identities are socially con-structed and transformed in the continuous play of history, culture, and power.] 1This integrated approach demonstrates that our understanding of the relation-ship among places, identities, and community politics can be advanced by exam-ining how women and men embedded in multiple social relationships and powerstructures experience, interpret, and represent their relationships with everydayplaces.

This study centres on four Asian religious communities: the Hindus and theKhoja Ithna-Asheri sect of Shiite Muslims, who originally came from the west-ern Indian regions of Gujarat, Kutch, and Kathiawar; the Roman Catholic Goansfrom the ex-Portuguese colony of Goa; and Sikhs, who originally came fromPunjab. The fieldwork was carried out in Dar-es-Salaam between 1991 and 1993.I collected 58 life-histories and conducted 150 shorter interviews with Goan,Sikh, Ithna-Asheri, and Hindu women and men in Gujarati, Hindi/Urdu,Punjabi and English, and carried out participant observation on a daily basis inAsian homes, communal places, and neighbourhoods. I also gathered informa-tion from community publications and newspapers.As an Indian woman who lived with members of these different communities,

spoke their languages, and participated in community gatherings as a friend oradopted family member, my own position as a researcher was laden with com-plexities. But these same complexities enabled me to gain the trust and affec-tion of my informants, and to participate in their community activities.

’Relationality’ and reflexivity were central to apprehending identity politics incommunal places.12 As I participated in social gatherings and lived in Asianhomes and neighbourhoods, I frequently wrote down my impressions about theplace-specific nature of social interactions, based on repeated observations.These impressions, ’tales of the field’, serve as snapshots or word pictures ofsocial interactions in particular places at particular times.13

Colonial racial hierarchy and social spaceThe migration of Asian communities to Tanzania began before the colonialperiod, but it was during the British rule in East Africa that the majority ofAsians settled in Tanzania. The colonial racial hierarchy favoured Asians as mer-chants, traders, and civil servants. Asians dominated commercial activity whileAfricans were discouraged from participating in commerce; the top and middlerungs of the civil service were largely occupied by European and Asian civil ser-vants ; and generally, Asians enjoyed better educational facilities than Africans.14



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This colonial social stratification was reinforced by a rigid racial segregationof residential areas. For example, the 1949 master plan of Dar-es-Salaam

strengthened the city’s prevailing physical status quo by setting apart racially dif-ferentiated residential areas through different land uses.

Low-density zones, located in salubrious seaside localities, comprised large, one-acreplots designed primarily for Europeans and enjoyed a good standard of service pro-vision ; in the adjoining medium-density zones, plots of between one-sixth to one-halfan acre were set aside for Asian residents; high-density zones reserved exclusively forAfricans were allocated limited infrastructure and few services of low standard.

Barriers between the different zones were created by open space corridors, a rolepartly fulfilled by the many creeks which interpenetrate Dar’s sites

Thus, ’the dynamic between place, racial discourse, power, and institutional prac-tice’ that Anderson has uncovered in the case of Vancouver’s Chinatown canalso be seen at work in Dar-es-Salaam - the creation of racially defined resi-dential areas inscribed racial categories and identities in institutional practiceand social spacesThe colonial racial hierarchy came under attack after Tanganyika’s indepen-

dence (1961) and the Zanzibar revolution (1964). The socialist policies ofAfricanization and nationalization in the 1960s and 1970s challenged the privi-leged status of Asians and attempted to redefine the power relations and socialboundaries between Asians and Africans. These changes, however, did little toalter the racially segregated character of Dar-es-Salaam (see Figure 1). In 1992-3,about 30 000 of Dar-es-Salaam’s estimated 35 000 Asians lived in the city centre,and the adjoining neighbourhoods of Kisutu, Upanga and Kariakoo. 17 Despitethe nationalization of private buildings in 1971, the city centre and Upangaattracted few African residents, the majority still residing away from the city cen-tre in the neighbourhoods of Magomeni, Manzese, Temeke, Ilala, Buguruni,Ubungo, Mwenge, and Kinondoni. The only two neighbourhoods that could bedescribed as racially mixed were Kariakoo and Oyster Bay, Kariakoo being aracially mixed residential area of middle- and working-class people while OysterBay, once a European area, constituted a racially mixed upper-class neighbour-hood which housed ministers, high-ranking officers and managers, and pros-perous business families.Thus the patterns of residential segregation have been clearly inscribed in

Dar-es-Salaam since colonial times. These racially segregated spaces are, in turn,characterized by separate social spheres defined by religious places, communityhalls, clubs, bars, and beaches. Figure 2 shows the concentration of Asian com-munal places in the city centre and Upanga. Since colonial times, these com-munal places have played an important role not only in maintaining the socialdivide between the Asians and Africans but also in reinforcing the separate reli-gious, caste, and sectarian identities of the various Asian communities.



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Figure 1 ~ Neighbourhoods of Dar-es-Salaam

Communal places in people’s mapsThe centrality of communal places in the lives of Asians emerged prominentlyin the sketch maps of Dar-es-Salaam drawn by some informants. The maps pre-sented here were drawn by women and men from diverse backgrounds - mid-dle and lower classes, educated and illiterate, living in both the relativelyprosperous Asian-dominated city centre and the relatively poor, racially mixedneighbourhood of Kariakoo (Figures 3-6). While these maps emphasize howpeople experience, interpret, and represent their communal places, they alsosuggest that social space is not merely personal. Individual experiences of placesare shaped by social and spatial structures rooted in existing hierarchies evenas individuals constantly enact, reproduce, challenge, and sometimes modifythese structures.The first mental map (Figure 3) was drawn by Jamila, a 46-year-old working-



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1. Ramghana Dispensary2. Ramghana Hall3. Gerezanl School

(previously Khalsa School) I4. Sikh Temple Annexe5 Sikh Temple (Gurudwara)6 Sikh Trust Building7. Mehfile Bibi Fatima8. Mehfile Sukaiyna9. Ithna Ashen Mosque/Imambara

10. Musafirkhana11. Ithna Ashen Madressa and

AI Muntezzir Junior School12 Ithna Ashen Jamaat Office13 Ithna Ashen Hospital, Dispensary,

and Beva Khana14 Mehfile Abbas15 Mehfile Zamana16 Mehfile Asghan17. Ithna Ashen Graveyard18 Ithna Ashen Union Office19 Bilal Muslim Mission Office20 Laxmi Narayan Temple and Boarding21 Hindu Mahila Mandal22. Lohana Community Centre,

Boarding and Ram Mandir (temple)

23 T.B Sheth Public Library andIndo-Tanzania Cultural Centre

24 Shishu Kun) (Children’s Centre)25 BhaUa Mahalanwadi26 Shankarashram (temple)27 Hanuman Physical Cultural Institute28 Swamy Narayan Sanstha29 Dar es Salaam Brahm Mandal30. Punjab Hindu Stree Satsang31 Shn Jain Sangh32 Khalsa Sports Club (belongs to Sikhs)33 Shn Surat Jila Samaa)34 Maratha Mandal35 Upanga Nursery School36 Patel Samaaj (Dar Brotherhood)37 Hindu Mandal Hospital38 Vanzaa Gnati Mandal39 Upanga Sports Club40 New Kumbharwada40a Technical College (Old Kumbharwada)41 Bohora Graveyard42 Dar-es-Salaam Institute43. St Joseph’s Cathedral

Figure 2 - Asian communal places in Dar-es-Salaam (only the Asian area of Dar-es-Salaam is depicted)

class Ithna-Asheri woman. Jamila has to depend on financial help from the Ithna-Asheri community to maintain her family, which includes her husband and fourchildren. She works informally as a part-time sales agent for various small-scaleIthna-Asheri importers. The centrality of the Ithna-Asheri Jamaat (the formalbody that organizes the religious, social, and economic affairs of the Ithna-Ashericommunity) and community-based networks in Jamila’s life is reflected in her

map. She lives in a subsidized apartment owned by the Jamaat, located close to



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Figure 3 - Mental map of Jamila

other Ithna-Asheri buildings such as the Bilal Muslim Mission and the Ithna-Asheri Union. Most of Jamila’s day is spent in an area comprising a few blocks,which is dominated by Ithna-Asheri communal places and businesses. On hermap, Jamila pointed out the Ithna-Asheri mosque, the Jamaat office where shefrequently goes to borrow money, the Ithna-Asheri charitable hospital where shecollects free medicines, some Ithna-Asheri-owned shops, and Mehfile Abbas,where weekly religious gatherings of Ithna-Asheri women are held. Beyond thisIthna-Asheri-dominated area, the only place that appears on Jamila’s map is

Mkunguni Street, a border between the Asian-dominated area and Kariakoo.Although Jamila gets cheap vegetables from here, she prefers to not ventureinto the interior of Kariakoo because it is ’too African’.The meaning of Kariakoo is very different from Anna, a 44-year-old middle-

class Goan woman. Anna lives in a racially mixed section of Kariakoo with herGoan husband. Kariakoo forms the centre of Anna’s life. While drawing hermap (Figure 4) she remarked:

I will start from Kariakoo because even though it is on the periphery of the town, itis my home. I love Kariakoo. Here’s my home, and here’s our colourful Kariakoomarket ... My mother lives in that building behind us. I have several friends close by.

Anna’s world is made up of people from various communities. Close to herhome live an Arab friend, two Hindu friends with whom she converses inGujarati (not Anna’s mother tongue), and a close friend, Moona, who is raciallymixed. Outside Kariakoo, the only places which appear prominently in her map,are the Roman Catholic church in the city centre where she often goes for theSunday mass, and the United Nations office where she works as a secretary.

Figure 5 was drawn by Francis, a 45-year-old working-class Goan man whomainly earns his income by driving Asian children to their schools. He also works



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Figure 4 - Mental map of Anna

Figure 5 - Mental map of Francis

as a part-time taxi driver and motor mechanic. Francis is married and has oneson. He lives in the city centre but, being a taxi driver, he feels that he knows’every bit of this city’. Francis’s map begins from his home and the streets closeby from where he picks up his school kids, and the schools to which he drivesthem. The Roman Catholic church, which Francis refers to as ’the Goan church’,is a place he visits every morning. The Goan club (Dar-es-Salaam Institute) isanother place that Francis visits frequently. Beyond the Asian-dominated city cen-ter and Upanga, Francis’s map includes the Drive-in Cinema, where he workedas a gatekeeper and ticket-seller during his schooldays.The last map (Figure 6) was drawn by Jasbeer, a 35-year-old lower-middle-class

Sikh man who migrated from Punjab twelve years ago and works as a small-scalebuilding contractor. He lives in the Sikh Trust building with his wife and twochildren. His map shows his home next to the Sikh Temple, his son’s nurseryschool nearby, the shops on India Street where he gets his building materials,



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the Daily News office where he

goes to place advertisements in thenewspaper, and the construction

sites in Upanga and Changombewhere his projects were going on atthe time he drew this map.These maps represent the activ-

ity spaces of the map-makers andthe manner in which they perceivetheir city (see ’actual’ map of thesection of Dar-es-Salaam showinggeographical locations of the life-

historians, Figure 7). These mapsalso reflect that different individu-als assign different meanings to thesame places and that there can beno one reading of any given place.The meanings and interpretationsthat people assign to social placesdepend on the social relations andstructures of power in which peo-ple are embedded. For example,the significance of communal

Figure 6 - Mental map of Jasbeer

places for middle-class women such as Anna lies primarily in the religious orspiritual meanings of these places, and in the opportunities for social interac-tion that they provide. For poor women such as Jamila, however, dependenceon communal places is a matter of survival, physically, economically, and socially.

Despite the multiplicity of interpretations, however, the common thread tyingall the maps together is the rootedness of people’s identities and sense of placein their communal places and neighbourhoods (see ’tales of the field’ 1 and 2).Communal places and neighbourhoods not only define each informant’s senseof social space, they become salient points of reference in each person’s per-ception of the city irrespective of their gender or class.At the same time, the maps are also characterized by an important gendered

difference that cuts across class and community. The maps of Jamila and Anna(Figures 3 and 4) indicate that Asian women’s perceptions of their city are asso-ciated more intimately with their homes, communities, and neighbourhoodsthan are those of men (see the maps of Francis and Jasbeer, Figures 5 and 6).Women’s maps cover a considerably smaller area than men’s. This genderedcontrast in maps results from the difference in the activity spaces as well as thephysical mobility of women and men. The gendered nature of racial, religious,caste, and class boundaries, which often imposes severe restrictions on women,plays a significant role in shaping women’s mobility and activity spaces.

Finally, these maps reflect an ’Asian-centric’ view of Dar-es-Salaam where theperceived limits of the city coincide with those of Asian residential and businessareas. Anna clearly voices this perception when she describes Kariakoo as ’the



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Figure 7 - Location of individuals who made mental maps (only the Asian area of Dar-es-Salaam is depicted)

periphery of the town’, even though it is central to her own life. African areas

and institutions are conspicuously absent, or appear only marginally in thesemaps. The marginal position of Africans in these maps represents the social andspatial distance between Asians and Africans. It also indicates the role that Asiancommunal places and residential areas indirectly play in intensifying racial seg-regation and stereotyping by circumscribing people’s social activities and livesprimarily around their religious, caste and sectarian affiliations. The rootednessof people in their communities and the racially segregated pattern of socialinteraction are also reflected in my ’tales of the field’ below:

Tales of the field (1): Social interactions and neighborhood communities (impressions recordedon 20 June 1993)People define their places at every step. I see residents of Mtendeni Street playingvolley ball and badminton with their neighbours in the courtyards of their apartmentbuildings. All the sounds which play on loudspeakers in the downtown area - Hindudevotional songs in the mornings, Hindi movie songs during the rest of the day, prayercalls from the mosques, and the sounds of satellite telecasts of Ithna-Asheri gather-ings during Moharram - give the city centre an atmosphere which not only looks andsmells ’Indian’ but is also full of Indian sounds.

Social contacts, visits, lunches and dinners are defined primarily along communal



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lines. Ithna-Asheris socialize with Ithna-Asheri friends and relatives, Hindus withHindus who are often from their own caste, Goans with Goans, and Sikhs with Sikhs.

However, this intra-communal contact is almost always with people of the same eco-nomic class. Cross-class socializing is rare. Some people also have diverse neighbour-hood communities. For example, Nargis’s friends are mostly from her Ithna-Ashericommunity, but she also has a neighbourhood community which includes a Sunnifamily and three Hindu families. Neighbourhood communities are more predomi-nant in the city centre and Kariakoo, less so in Upanga, and almost nonexistent inwealthy areas such as Mikocheni, Msasani, and Oyster Bay, where people are con-nected by phones and cars with their friends and relatives, rather than through per-sonal, random and spontaneous interaction that characterizes the neighborhoods inthe town and Kariakoo ...

Tales of the field (2): Hindu neighbourhood and communal scene (impressions recorded on 4Feb. 1993)The Hindu communal scene in Dar-es-Salaam is one dominated by middle-class, self-employed shopkeepers with their homes, shops, places of worship, and socializingclustered in a small area. Men leave their shops to their assistants or partners, andfrequently drop in and out from the temple and halls as and when they feel like it.

Middle-class housewives and old women gather with women from their age group atabout 3.30 to 4 p.m. Lower-class women from Bhoi, Rana, Vanand, and Divecha castsfrom Kumbharwada and Kariakoo escort their children to Pathshala [Hindu religiousschool] and gather every day for about two hours while their children study religionand Gujarati. Well-off Hindus normally drive with their spouses to the temple in theevenings after 6.

With the exception of African domestic servants, vendors and employees whowork in Asian shops and businesses, the majority of middle- and upper-classAsians have minimal social contact with Africans. In fact, a quick glance at theAsian communal scene can gain one the impression that the only Africans pre-sent in Asian communal places are servants who clean Asian temples, mosques,and community halls. Although it is true that the majority of Africans are mar-ginalized from the mainstream social life of Asians, racial boundaries are not asclear-cut as they might seem. Notions of racially ’pure’ communities are con-tinuously challenged and interrupted in Asian communal places by the pres-ence of groups such as African-Asian Sikhs, Seychelloise Roman Catholics, andAfrican Muslims who have embraced the Ithna-Asheri faith.

Communal places and reinforcement of religious °

identitiesHow do communal places become central in people’s lives and perceptions?What gives communal places their social meanings? How are those meaningsrelated to social identities of individuals and groups? To explore these questions,we must look at the social processes and interactions occurring inside specificplaces.

Perhaps the most crucial role in the formation of communal affiliations andidentities among the Hindus, Sikhs, Ithna-Asheris, and Goans is played by the



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two Hindu temples, the Sikh Gurudwara (temple), the Ithna-Asheri Imambara(religious place), and the Roman Catholic churches in the city centre andUpanga. These religious places play a crucial role in building and sustaining adeep sense of belonging to a particular religion, caste, or sect. Social and reli-gious gatherings held almost every day in these places enhance the centrality ofthe religious community in people’s lives. Not only do relatives, friends, andmarital partners come from this collectivity, but customers and clients also fre-quently come from the same religious group.The two Hindu temples on Kisutu Street bring together rich and poor men

and women from some 20 different castes, and become the symbols of theirHindu identity. The temples are the venue for cultural programmes and dancesduring religious festivals, and instruction of religion and Gujarati language forchildren is held in the temples every evening. This religious and linguisticinstruction is significant for reinforcing Hindu and Gujarati identities amongchildren, and also for strengthening identification with India as the ’mother-land of the Hindus’ through lessons compiled from Indian textbooks. And whilechildren learn about religion, Gujarati, and homeland, their parents sit and chatwith each other. Thus the two temples provide an opportunity for Hindu men,women, and children to combine religious activity and cultural education withsocial interaction on a daily basis.The Imambara (Ithna-Asheri religious place) plays a role similar to the Hindu

temple in bringing together approximately 7500 Ithna-Asheris from differenteconomic, regional, and linguistic backgrounds, and in reinforcing their Shiiteidentity as Azadars, or those who mourn the martyrdom of Iman Hussein. TheImambara reinforces Azadari, the central element of the faith of Shia Ithna-Asheris who regard the 12 Imams as their religious leaders:

[The] main cause of our identity and institution is Azadari. It is [the] single mostpowerful factor which has unified us and helped us maintain our traditions and cul-tural heritage ... Imambara has been our meeting-place where we discuss our prob-lems and celebrate our achievements. There we assess our needs, plan our future andset our programs. Even today, wherever we go, we take Azadari with us and strive toestablish Imambara as the first centre of our religious and social activities.’8

Every Thursday and Friday Ithna-Asheri women meet in the Imambara and inMehfile-Abbas for Majalises (religious gatherings where people listen to sermons,mourn, and pray together) and also to meet and talk to their friends and rela-tives. In addition, some women also organize weekly Mehfils (gatherings) in theirhomes independent of the Jamaat. Most Ithna-Asheri men come to the mosquefor the evening prayer, even if they cannot come to the mosque for their morn-ing or afternoon prayers. Men also assemble every Thursday in the Kabristan(graveyard). Once again, the prayer meetings also become social events wherepeople catch up with their friends, exchange the highlights of their day witheach other, and talk about business dealings, national and local politics, and thelatest exchange rates between Tanzanian shillings and US dollars.The Majalises (religious gatherings marked by sermons, mourning, and pray-

ing) held in the Imambara play a crucial role in bringing together people inthe religious fold, at the same time reinforcing and modifying gender roles/rela-



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tions in the direction desired by the community’s current leaders, throughpreachings on issues such as the compulsory nature of Hijaab (veil), the con-demnation of music, the permissibility of Mut’a (temporary marriage), and theappropriate roles for men and women. Imambara is also instrumental in mould-ing linguistic identities. For example, although almost the entire Ithna-Ashericommunity speaks Gujarati, Kutchi, or Kiswahili, Mershias (verses of mourning)are read and sermons are given in Urdu, which has been implanted as the reli-gious language in the community despite the discomfort that many communitymembers feel with it. 19The Shiite identity of the entire Ithna-Asheri community is especially bolstered

during the month of Moharram, when men and women gather separately sev-eral times during a day to mourn the death of their religious leader, ImamHussein, in the battle of Kerbala. In addition to being held in the Imambara,religious gatherings are also held in people’s homes, as well as in Mehfile Asghariand Mehfile Bibi Fatima throughout Moharram.2° The following account pro-vides a glimpse of women’s Majalises (religious gatherings) during Moharram.

Tales of the field (3): Nloharram Majalises of women (impressions recorded on 2 July 1993)During the first twelve days of Moharram, men and women met separately three timesa day for their Majalises to read Mershias and to participate in the Majalis and Matam[mourning]. At night, women watched men’s Majalises on the television monitorsinstalled in the women’s section of the Imambara. Men did not watch women’s

Majalises on TV monitors partly because it would threaten the institution of Hijaab[veiling] and partly because women preachers are not considered as important asmale preachers. I saw many more African and racially mixed Ithna-Asheri women dur-ing the afternoon Moharram Majalises than I have seen during the rest of the year.On the day of Ashura, about 4000 women gathered in the Imambara. That day

women did not have their own Majalis but participated in men’s Majalis through tele-vision monitors. On Ashura night, women mourned by beating their chests. A groupof men mourned by beating their bare chests with iron chairs which no women wereallowed to see.

As in the Sikh community, seating during each Majalis clearly took place on linesof age, race, class, and linguistic affiliations. African and racially mixed women satseparately from the Asian women; Kiswahili-speaking Zanzibari women preferred tochat with each other while Gujarati and Kutchi speaking mainlanders stuck together;young, middle-aged and old women formed their own clusters; women from’renowned’ families sat in their own group while the inconspicuous ones sat in theirs.Younger women sat upstairs and older women and women with small children satdownstairs. African women sat together in a group on the periphery of upstairs anddownstairs halls. Some of the African women present were converted to Ithna-Asheris

by the Bilal Mission, while several others were housekeepers who came to mind thechildren of their Asian employers.

The act of mourning and sharing the meals together, and of wearing blackclothes for one month, cultivates a deep sense of community across class, gen-der, race, and linguistic lines. One upper-class woman summarized the impor-tance of the event:

Moharram and Safar are the two months [in the Islamic calendar] when our religioussentiments are high. Majalises remind our community members of what they are sup-



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posed to do and how they are supposed to live. They remind them that they are notMuslims and Shias for just two months. They must practise Islam, stay away frommusic, respect the words of our religious leaders all the year round.21

It is not surprising, therefore, that the widespread adoption of the Hijaab tookplace during the Moharram Majalises a few years after the Iranian Revolution.A middle-class Ithna-Asheri woman remembered the Moharram of 1982:

In 1982 ... Zakira Hamida Abbasi preached in our Majalises about the punishmentsfrom God for not wearing the Hijaab. She explained that we are not supposed to showour hair, that we can’t talk to men unless we are fully covered. She said, ’Why do youdeprive yourselves of all the things that God promises you just by not wearing theHijaab ... ?’ She started talking about this on the fourth day of Moharram. By thesixth day, many women were in the Hijaab and soon everyone was putting it on ...[W] hen we started wearing the Hijaab - we were proud of it.2’

Haeri’s observation that ’the rules for segregation and association of the sexes[are] one of the most fundamental and pervasive rules of social organization,social relations and social control in Iran’ is equally applicable to most of theAsian communities in Tanzania. 21 Segregation of men and women is an impor-tant feature not only of Ithna-Asheri religious and social gatherings but also ofSikh and Hindu gatherings, despite the absence of Hijaab among the latter twogroups. Among the Hindus and Sikhs, men and women are often present in thesame room for the same event, but they enter from different doors, sit on dif-ferent sides of the hall, and socialize with people of the same sex. Women’s andmen’s worlds are considered complementary but separate in both the house-hold and in the community.Among Ithna-Asheris, separate gatherings of men and women acquire a

special meaning. In addition to reinforcing people’s gender identities, suchcongregations also strengthen their identities as Muslims by enhancing theirrespect for the Islamic rules concerning purdah (seclusion) and mahram

(lawful) / namahram (unlawful) relationships.24 Youngsters are taught to respectpurdah from a young age, right from the time they start receiving their

religious, Arabic, and Gujarati instruction at the Ithna-Asheri Madressa (reli-gious school).

In the Sikh community, the Gurudwara is the locus around which the dailylives of many Sikh women, men, and children revolve. More than a quarter ofDar-es-Salaam’s Sikh families are concentrated in the buildings adjacent to theSikh temple. In this small neighbourhood, Punjabi culture thrives. They speakPunjabi, cook Punjabi food, wear Punjabi clothes, and watch Punjabi videos.Every Sunday, the whole Sikh community of approximately 250 people, includ-ing three African-Asian Sikh families, assembles for a religious gathering in theGurudwara. This gathering is followed by a community brunch that is cookedby Sikh women and men in their separate groups with assistance from theirAfrican male employees. On Saturday evenings, men gather to clean the

premises and women come to do preparations for Sunday, and to take a tea andsnack break. During engagements, weddings, births, name-givings, house warm-ings, funerals, as well as annual religious festivals, the entire community gathersin the Gurudwara in the same way to pray, cook, and eat together. In addition,



17women have a gathering every Wednesday afternoon, and about ten men andwomen show up every day for morning and evening prayers.

Although Ithna-Asheri and Sikh communal places are often marked by thepresence of African Ithna-Asheris and racially mixed Sikhs, Goans are the onlyAsian group who form a numerical minority in their religious places. Goansshare their place of worship with African, Asian, Seychelloise, and EuropeanRoman Catholics even though their attendance at the English rather thanKiswahili Mass segregates most Goans from the majority of African RomanCatholics. The absence of an exclusively Goan religious place minimizes the roleof churches as instruments for constructing a Goan identity. At the same time,this absence encourages Goans to focus on their club to bring together the mem-bers of their community, in addition to organizing exclusively Goan religiousfeasts during the year in honour of various saints.

In contrast to the gender-based segregation that is so prominent in the Hindu,Ithna-Asheri, and Sikh gatherings, social interaction between women and menis of a much more open nature in the Goan community. Goan men and womenof all ages mix freely with each other within and across racial lines and Goansattribute this to their perceived ’closeness to European culture’ that has encour-aged a ’westernized outlook on male-female relationships’.25

Reinforcement of class, caste and gender identities,and maintenance of economic networksI have emphasized the role played by communal places in bolstering religious(and, in the case of Ithna-Asheris, also sectarian) identities. However, the sig-nificance of communal places is by no means confined to construction of reli-gious and sectarian affiliations and identities. Class, caste, and gender identitiesare also played upon and moulded in communal places in multiple ways. Forexample, the temple school becomes the main site of interaction between Hinduchildren from the lower and middle classes and those from the upper class, andresults in the reinforcement of caste-based identities at a very early stage of life.A lower-caste man whose children study in the temple school commented:

There has always been a discrimination against the small people by the big people.We small people are from lower castes without a lot of money. They are the big peo-ple from upper castes with money. They always like to look down upon us. Even whenour children go to Pathshala [temple school], the rich, upper-caste kids form theirown group and ask our children, ’Did you see that show?’ ’Did you go to Oyster Bay?’’Did you buy this or that?’ So, since childhood we are aware of the social and eco-nomic gulf. It never goes. I don’t like to attend anything of the [upper-caste] Hindus... [T]hey have embittered me too much. 26

Despite the presence of overarching Hindu organizations such as the two tem-ples and the children’s centre where Hindu children from all castes come andplay together, organization of weekly gatherings, wedding celebrations, andannual festivals on caste lines significantly reinforces caste identities. Caste hallsbecome important markers of caste status even for schoolchildren, and the own-



18

ership or lack of communal premises becomes one of the main elements indefining people’s class and caste-based identities.27 A lower-caste working-classwoman made the following observation about the celebrations ( Garbis) that

mark Navratri, or the festival of nine nights:You can just look at the women in the Garbis and tell whether they are rich orordinary from their clothes and ornaments ... Most women dress well when they goto the Garbis but some come in very ordinary clothes and you can tell that they arepoor. Others come all glittering, and these women are mostly from higher castes. Ifyou have to see ordinary people, go to the Garbi of Bhois and Ranas [both are lowercastes] in the two temples. If you want to see the glitter of silk and gold, go to thecaste halls of Lohanas, Bhatias, or Patels [high castes]. 21

For many Sikhs, especially Asian Sikh women who mostly work as housewives,the block consisting of the Sikh Trust Building, the Sikh Council Building, theRamgharia hall, and the Sikh temple forms the world enveloping their entirereligious, social and familial lives. 21 In this space, they share their joys and painswith each other; cook, gossip, sing, dance and celebrate together; show off theirnew clothes, or feel embarrassed at their old ones. This is where class divisionsare both felt and reinforced. Whose daughter has been betrothed in Londonand whose in India, whose son is migrating to London and whose son cannotfind a job in Dar-es-Salaam, whose children study in the expatriate school andwhose in the International School, all these topics are discussed and class- andregion-based identities and associations are strengthened. A working-classwoman who lives with her family in what used to be the Sikh girls’ dormitoryhall remarked:

Inside the main hall [of the Gurudwara], everything is religious. But outside that hall,we talk about everything. If there is a death or a birth, we plan when we should visitthem ... We talk about our families, share our problems. [We discuss who is good orbad], new designs of clothes, what looks nice on whom ... We exchange embroideryand knitting patterns, or new recipes ... Older women usually like to talk just aboutthemselves. Some men talk about business and money matters, others just pull eachothers’ legS.30Communal functions become occasions for Hindu, Sikh, Ithna-Asheri, and

Goan women to show off new dresses, shoes and jewellery. Thus, the festival ofnine nights (N~zvratri) among the Hindus, Sunday gatherings among the Sikhsand Goans, and Khushhali (birthday celebrations of various Imams) among theIthna-Asheris provide opportunities for showing off one’s wealth and status. Classdistinctions are nowhere else clearer than during these functions, where theexpensive imported possessions of the rich stand in sharp contrast to those ofthe poor. A poor Ithna-Asheri woman commented:

I enjoy listening to rich women’s conversations in the Imambara. They talk aboutclothes, jewellery, shoes, and styles. They talk about their guests, and the phone calls,letters, dress materials and perfumes that they get from their relatives overseas.

Sometimes listening to them makes me frustrated and angry. But most of the time Itry to think of it as fun. 31



19

In the context of this discussion it is important to point out that social placesof women were easily accessible to me as a woman and I could become a partof the social interactions that occurred there. However, gender segregation fre-quently rendered men’s gatherings inaccessible to me, especially in the case ofthe Ithna-Asheri, Sikh, and, to some extent, Hindu communities. This makes itharder for me to comment on similar dynamics in men’s gatherings.Nevertheless, a few men shared with me their observations about men’s gath-erings in their community. An upper class Ithna-Asheri man commented:

I don’t rush to the mosque for prayers ... Many of my friends have left the countryand in the religious congregation I can hardly relate to anyone ... [T]his is prettymuch the social atmosphere of the mosque - business and gossip. All kinds of busi-ness and container deals are made there. 32

It is clear that, although the stated objective of communal congregations is

often religious, communal events play a key role in bringing together peoplesocially, and in facilitating the creation of informal networks and communitiesamong men and women. Gender segregation plays an important part in com-munity-building and identity formation that goes beyond a mere maintenanceor reinforcement of pre-existing gender and religious identities. Women’s andmen’s gatherings provide opportunities for them to build new relationships,and to create new networks and communities based on age, class, and casteaffiliations.

Among the Hindus, women of different castes organize their own religiousand social gatherings on a weekly basis in the afternoons. While women fromprosperous castes such as Lohanas and Bhatias fulfil their upper class aspira-tions by organizing picnics, parties, fancy dress shows, and cooking and art com-petitions, many overworked women from lower castes regard their weeklygatherings as a respite from work and an opportunity to meet their friends andrelatives, to fulfil religious obligations, and to discuss family problems, businessmatters, matrimonial matches, and fashions as well as local, national, and com-munal politics. Women’s functions provide important bases for women to buildclose networks with other women from their own castes and classes. A youngDivecha woman from a working-class background commented:

[W]hile the older women sing devotional songs, young women and unmarried girlssit aside and talk. For many poor girls, weekly gatherings provide the only chanceof dressing up, ... of having fun. They talk about great bargains on sarees or

clothes, new fashions ..., and movies ... More importantly, these gatherings enableus to find out about jobs from other women through each others’ brothers or cousins.Many [seamstresses] find customers in these gatherings, especially during festivaltime.13

The economic significance of communal congregations for middle- and work-ing-class women cannot be overemphasized. Many Ithna-Asheri, Hindu, Goanand Sikh women work as small caterers to their communities by supplying pas-tries, cakes, and sweets for weekly and annual communal congregations and alsofor family celebrations during weddings, engagements, and birthdays. SeveralHindu, Sikh, and Ithna-Asheri women provide meals primarily for Asian men



20

who live alone, whose wives are away, or who have recently migrated to Dar-es-Salaam to start a new job. Because eating patterns differ substantially betweenAsian communities, people prefer to eat food prepared by women of their owncommunities. Communal congregations become the main centres where womeninvolved in informal catering businesses collect information about potentialcustomers.

In all Asian communities, it is common for women from middle- and low-income households to work as seamstresses. It is an occupation that both house-wives and unmarried women can easily accommodate in the realm of theirdomestic responsibilities, and since most of them sew for a middle-class clien-tele, they do not require any elaborate training. Communal gatherings becomeindispensable business meetings for many seamstresses. An Ithna-Asheri womanwho does good business as a seamstress observed:

My Ithna-Asheri customers bring their friends to me. And then I have my friends whorefer their friends to me. So people try you, see your work and then if they like youthey send others to you. Most of our orders come in the month of Ramazan ...Women find me during our weekly gatherings and tell me that they would like meto sew a dress for them ... After our religious gatherings, we [seamstresses] oftenshare our patterns, sometimes if we get new patterns we lend them to other friends... There’s not much sharing with seamstresses of other communities because wedon’t see them much. But we see women of our own community in our gatheringsall the time. If I have extra orders, I pass them on to my Ithna-Asheri friends whosew. s4

Several Asian women and men from all communities operate as pedlars. Thosefrom middle- and working-class backgrounds make frequent trips to Zanzibar, afree port, to import dresses, scarves, perfumes, and electronic goods. Otherswith more finances import dresses, shoes, and perfumes from India, Pakistan,the UK and Canada. Women sell these imported items in Dar-es-Salaam pri-marily through informal communal networks. In addition, some women alsogive tuition to school children, while others have started informal day-care cen-tres in their homes. Some young unmarried women who have recently finishedtheir secondary education also offer photo and video coverage of women’s com-munal events, engagements, weddings, and parties, and thrive on business con-tacts made within their communities.Thus the segregated worlds of women and men within their communities play

a crucial role in bolstering gender identities and religious and social norms.Segregated social interactions also enable women to build new communities onthe lines of age, class, and race, foster economic and social linkages with otherwomen, and give birth to new social relations in the process.

Bars and clubsIn addition to relatively formal and religious communal places, Asian commu-nities also interact informally in clubs and bars. Unlike communal places, wheresocial interaction is relatively structured due to the primarily religious nature ofthose places, clubs and bars allow opportunities for less structured and freer



21

interaction among people across gender, racial, and communal lines. However,gendered identities formed in communal places and residential neighbourhoodsaround race, religion, class, and caste continue to reproduce social groupingsthat are more or less the same as those witnessed in temples, Imambara,Gurudwara, and caste halls.

Clubs such as Upanga Sports Club and Patel Samaaj, owned by prosperousAsian communities, are expensive and attract rich Asians from all communities(see Figure 2). The less expensive ones, such as the Khalsa Sports Club and Dar-es-Salaam Institute, attract young and middle-class people. For many lower-classAsians, the favourite haunt is the Maratha Club. These sports clubs and bars aredominated by Asian men, except for Dar-es-Salaam Institute (DI), owned by theGoans, which encourages mixed gatherings of Goan men and women and alsohas several Seychelloise and African members. Among the Goans the bordersbetween genders and races are least visible, although communal borders arestrong due to a strong sense of Goan identity. The following provides a glimpseof gatherings held at the DI.

Tales of the field (4): Friday evening at the Dar Institute (impressions recorded on 23 July 1993)Just like other Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons, the DI is bursting with activ-ity, sounds, and smell of spicy food tonight. The scene is the usual one ... Men areplaying cards and billiards, and some men and women are playing badminton in thehall. Most of the people are Goans but there are some non-Goans as well. Childrenare playing downstairs. A Goan couple runs a cafeteria downstairs and their food ispopular. Women, men and children start coming to the club at around 7:30 pm andstay until about midnight. The bar remains the domain of men. People form littlegroups consisting mainly of close friends and relatives. I see several African men andwomen here. Seychelloise make their own, quite multicoloured and multilingualgroup.

In all clubs and bars interaction takes place primarily on communal lines,although there is some mixing across religions, sects and castes. Most Muslimgroups do not have their own bars, and so quite a few Muslim men come tobars owned by the Hindu, Sikh, and Goan communities. Clubs are also placeswhere Hindu men from upper castes who cannot eat meat in their homes areable to break the law of vegetarianism.

In the case of Hindus, Sikhs and Ithna-Asheris there is no strong communalidentification with clubs or bars. However, for Goans, who take pride in beinga community of fun-lovers, musicians, and party people, the Dar-es-SalaamInstitute is an important symbol of community identity, as is reflected in the fol-lowing lines written by a Goan woman in her community souvenir: ’Goans! that’swhat we are, One place to find us is surely the bar.’35

Furthermore, since Goans share their churches with African and EuropeanRoman Catholics, the club becomes the nucleus that draws the entire commu-nity together. This sense of community that the club symbolizes is reflected inthe following sentiment expressed by a Goan man:

[Goans] never forgot Goa ... [They] established institutions and clubs ... which inessence ... were little Goas where many of them met every evening and practically allof them gathered at the special functions held there to mark the feast of St Francis



22

Xavier or Christmas or New Year’s Day, during which they tried to recapture the Goanatmosphere and aroma with Goan folk music and food.*&dquo;

Like temples, mosques, religious schools, and caste halls, clubs and barsbecome important centres for socialization and for creation of social networksbased on religion, class, and gender. The relatively informal and less structurednature of activities held in clubs and bars might cause one to expect greatersocial interaction among men and women across class, race, religious, and lin-guistic lines. Although one does see more cross-racial and cross-gender mixingamong the Goans, for the most part the identities created and reinforced in the

religious places and caste halls continue to predominate, and to reproduce thesocial distances among the different religious, caste, and linguistic groups;among men and women; among upper, middle, and lower classes; and amongAfricans, Asians, and racially mixed people. The words of a half-Seychelloise,half-Goan woman capture the manner in which power, difference, and defianceare expressed in social spaces such as the Dar-es-Salaam Institute:

Cliques are strong in everything Goans do. You will see the same Goan faces and fam-ilies in the limelight during every event. So we Seychelloises also stick together. Wesit together in our big group and we talk in Kiswahili. And in this way, we tell theGoans: ’Here we are. We are racially mixed. We don’t speak your language [Konkani] .We don’t share your homeland. But we are still as Goan as you are.’ I can choosewhether or not I want to be a part of the Goan community, but no Goan can tell methat I don’t belong here. 37

ConclusionAsian communal places in Dar-es-Salaam are organized and run on religious,caste, and sectarian lines, and are central to the maintenance and modificationof social relations and gendered identities based on race, religion, sect, caste,class, and language. A close look at the activities and complex social interactionsin temples, mosques, churches, caste halls, clubs, and bars reveals the ways inwhich these places define the social, religious, and economic worlds of Asianmen and women. On the one hand, these places reinforce the existing patternsof social relationships and power hierarchies by serving as nodes where peoplegather to sustain their gender-, class-, and caste-based social networks within theirreligious groups. On the other hand, these places allow marginalized peoplefrom the lower castes and racially mixed groups to express their discontentthrough criticism, separation, or non-participation.The exploration of the complex links among identity, space, place, and poli-

tics in recent years has underscored the intricate and mutually constitutive rela-tionship between social relations and places. However, few works have examinedin depth the empirical connections between identities and social processesoccurring in specific places. Furthermore, much of the discussion on identityhas been limited to identity politics surrounding gender, sexuality, race and class.Consequently, other crucial axes of difference, for example, religion, sect, caste,and language, that define and complicate the politics of multiple identities have



23

been overlooked. It is perhaps due to this neglect that religious places havereceived little attention in the literature on identity, in spite of their criticalimportance as embodiments of deep sociopolitical, sacred, and personal mean-ings, and as social spaces that play a key role in shaping and reinforcing multi-ple social relations and hierarchies. The above analysis suggests that

contextuality is central to understanding which identities become salient in agiven spatio-temporal setting, and the manner in which people enact or repro-duce these identities in social spaces. If identity theory is to be of greater socialrelevance, it must be expanded and modified according to the specific geo-graphical and historical context.38 Our consideration of the social multiplicitiesthat shape people’s experiences, and of the places where different social inter-ests and structures reinforce, reproduce, and modify those multiplicities, mustbe rooted in contextual realities.

AcknowledgementsThis research was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (SES-9205409) and from the Department of Geography, the MacArthur Program andthe Graduate School at the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to David Faust,Helga Leitner, Don Mitchell, and my referees for their valuable comments onearlier drafts of this paper, and to Mui Le and Jim Robb for their assistance withthe figures.

Department of GeographyUniversity of ColoradoBoulder

Notes

1 See D. Massey, ’A place called home?’, New Formations 17 (1992), pp. 3-15; ’The polit-ical place of locality studies’, Environment and Planning A 23 (1991), pp. 267-81.

2 See M. Somers, ’Narrativity, narrative identity and social action: rethinking Englishworking-class formation’, Social Science History 16 (1992), pp. 591-630.3 See D. Bell et al., ’All hyped up and no place to go’, Gender, Place and Culture 1 (1994),

pp. 31-47; M. Keith and S. Pile, ’Introduction, part 1: the politics of place’, in M.Keith and S. Pile, eds, Place and the politics of identity (New York, Routledge, 1993), pp.1-21; G. Pratt and S. Hanson, ’Geography and the construction of difference’, Gender,Place and Culture 1 (1994), pp. 5-29.

4 J. Western, A passage to England: Barbadian Londoners speak of home (Minneapolis,University of Minnesota Press, 1992); P. Jackson and J. Penrose, Construction of race,place and nation (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 13; K. J.Anderson, Vancouver’s Chinatown: racial discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal,McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991).

5 L. Kong, ’Ideological hegemony and the political symbolism of religious buildings inSingapore’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 11 (1993), pp. 23-45.Examples of such geographical works on religion are L. Biswas, ’Evolution of Hindutemples in Calcutta’, Journal of Cultural Geography 4 (1984), pp. 73-85; J. R. Curtis,’Miami’s Little Havana: yard shrines, cult religion, and landscape’, Journal of CulturalGeography 1 (1980), pp. 1-15; H. B. Johnson, ’The location of Christian missions in



24

Africa’, Geographical Review 57 (1967), pp. 168-202.6 S. Mirza and M. Strobel, Three Swahili women: life histories from Mombasa, Kenya

(Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989); L. Fair, ’Pastimes and politics: a socialhistory of Zanzibar’s Ng’ambo community, 1890-1950’ (PhD dissertation, Universityof Minnesota, 1994); L. L. Giles, ’Spirit possession on the Swahili coast: peripheralcults or primary texts? (PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1989).

7 A. Buttimer, ’Grasping the dynamism of the lifeworld’, Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 66 (1976), pp. 277-92; P. Jackson, ’Urban ethnography’, Progressin Human Geography 9 (1985), pp. 157-76; D. Ley, ’Social geography and social action’,in D. Ley and M. S. Samuels, eds, Humanistic geography: prospects and problems (London,Croom Helm, 1978), pp. 41-57; S. Smith, ’Practicing humanistic geography’, Annalsof the Association of American Geographers 74 (1984), pp. 353-74.

8 R. J. Johnston, D. Gregory, and D.M. Smith, eds, The dictionary of human geography(Oxford, Blackwell, 1986), p. 208, 209, 259.

9 D. Ley, A social geography of the city (New York, Harper & Row, 1983).10 For more details, see R. Nagar, ’Making and breaking boundaries: identity politicsamong South Asian in postcolonial Dar-es-Salaam’ (PhD dissertation, University ofMinnesota, 1995); R. Nagar and H. Leitner, ’Contesting social relations in communalplaces’, in R. Fincher and J. Jacobs, eds, Cities of difference (New York, Guilford Press,forthcoming).

11 Examples of such feminist, postcolonial, and post-structuralist writings include: G.Anzaldua, Borderlands/la frontera: the new mestiza (San Francisco, Aunt lute Books,1987); S. Hall, ’Minimal selves’, ICA Document on Identity 6 (1987), pp. 44-6; P. Jha,’Writing the nation: Hindi and the politics of cultural identity in colonial India’ (MS,1991); L. Lowe, ’Heterogeneity, hybridity, multiplicity: marking Asian American dif-ferences’, Diaspora 1 (1991), pp. 24-44; R. Rosaldo, Culture and truth: the remaking ofsocial analysis (Boston, Beacon Press, 1989); J. Scott, ’Gender: a useful category of his-torical analysis’, American Historical Review 91 (1986), pp. 1053-75; M. Watts, ’Spacefor everything (a commentary)’, Cultural Anthropology 7 (1992), pp. 115-30.

12 For a detailed discussion of personal situatedness as a researcher, see R. Nagar,’Exploring methodological borderlands through oral narratives’, in J. P. Jones, H. Nastand S. Roberts, eds, Thresholds in Feminist Geography (Lanham, MD, Rowman &

Littlefield, forthcoming).13 The phrase comes from J. Van Maanen, Tales of the field (Chicago, University of Chicago

Press, 1988).14 For a detailed discussion, see Nagar, ’Making and breaking boundaries’; A. Coulson,

Tanzania: a political economy (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 61; J. Nyerere, Freedomand development (Dar-es-Salaam, Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 269; I. Shivji, Classstruggles in Tanzania (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1976), p. 69.

15 A. A. Armstrong, ’Master plans for Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania: the shaping of an Africancity’, Habitat International 11 (1987), p. 136.16 K. J. Anderson, ’The idea of Chinatown: the power of place and institutional practice

in the making of a racial category’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77(1987), p. 580.

17 Since all racial categories were removed from national statistical tables, abstracts, andcensuses after the Arusha Declaration of 1967, no ’official’ figures are available toshow the present racial composition of Dar-es-salaam or its neighbourhoods. TheAsian population for 1993 has been estimated on the basis of the following commu-nity publications and interviews: Shree Hindu Mandal, Hindu link (Dar-es-Salaam,Shree Hindu Mandal, 1991); Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, Biennial report, 1988-89



25

(Dar-es-Salaam, Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, 1992); interviews with the President of the Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, Dar-es-Salaam (28 Nov. 1992); the Treasurer of St Xavier’s Society, Dar-es-Salaam (16 Aug. 1993), and the Manager of the Sikh Temple, Dar-es-Salaam (11 July 1993).The racial composition of the various neighbourhoods of Dar-es-Salaam has been

roughly estimated on the basis of: The United Republic of Tanzania, ’Table 3:

Population in the regions by district and ward,’ in Tanzania sensa 1988, population cen-sus : preliminary report (Dar-es-Salaam, Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Finance,Economic Affairs and Planning, 1990), p. 80. These figures reveal that in 1988 approx-imately 80% of the Asian population lived in the wards of Kisutu, Upanga East,Upanga West, Kariakoo, Jangwani, Gerezani, Mchikichini, and Kivukoni.18 Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, Dar-es-Salaam, Biennial report 1988-89, p. 1.19 Interviews: 23 Sept. and 21 Nov. 1992; 15 Jan. and 30 July 1993.20 Mehfile Asghari and Mehfile Bibi Fatima refer to the buildings in which Mehfils or

religious gatherings by tht name are held. These Mehfils take place on different daysof the week, and are named after various heros and heroines who participated in thereligious battle of Kerbala.

21 Interview, 21 July 1993.22 Interview, 11 Nov. 1992.23 S. Haeri, Law of desire: temporary marriage in Shi’i Iran (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University

Press, 1989), p. 76.24 According to Haeri (ibid., p. 76), Islamic law conceives of gender relationships within

the two categories of lawful (mahram) and unlawful (namahram). Men and womenmust not associate freely with each other unless their relationship is prescribed eitherby blood or by marriage. A mahram relationship is formed either through birth ormarriage. Consanguineously, it involves ego’s immediate family, paternal ancestors,maternal and paternal siblings, and siblings’ children. Outside this limited circle, theonly legitimate medium for establishing cross-sex relationships is marriage. Affinally,a mahram relationship includes parents, paternal ancestors of ego’s spouse (s), spousesof children, and their children. In these categories, veiling is not required for women,and men need not keep their distance. Any gender relationships outside of these twomahram categories are unlawful, namahram: women have to veil and rules of segrega-tion apply.

25 Interviews, 26 Sept. 1992, 25, 31 Oct. 1992, 30 July 1993.26 Interview, 15 July 1993.27 To investigate whether there was any significant relationship between neighbourhood,

caste, and class, I visited the religious classes in the temple school and asked thechildren their caste and the place where they lived. Some children of grades 1 and

2 did not know their castes, and their classmates told me their caste based on the

caste halls where they went for festivities. Some older children who did not know theircastes, deduced it from the caste halls or temples where they played Garbis duringNavratri.

28 Interview, 30 Jan. 1993.29 In Dar-es-Salaam there are several families of African-Asian Sikhs who come from poor,

working-class backgrounds. It is important to distinguish between them and AsianSikhs, especially in the case of women, because it is more common for African-AsianSikh women to work outside their homes than it is for Asian Sikh women.

30 Interview, 16 Feb. 1993.31 Interview, 30 July 1993.32 Interview, 16 Feb. 1993.



26

33 Interview, 30 Jan. 1993.34 Interview, 11 Nov. 199235 M. D’Souza, ’Goans’, in St Xavier’s Society, Dar-es-Salaam, The Goan community of

Tanzania: 100 years souvenir (1992), p. 63.36 L. Mascarenhas, ’Goa and Africa’, in ibid., p. 27.37 Interview, 3 Aug. 1993.38 R. Nagar, ’Exploring methodological borderlands through oral narratives’, in Jones

et al., Thresholds in feminist geography.



communal places and the politics of multiple identities: the case of tanzanian asians, 1997

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