Tanzania: writing a historical biography

This project concerns the socio-historical biography of a Tanzanian man from Mafia Island, whom I knew from his childhood in the 1960s to his untimely death on 2002. The data for the book was culled from existing material gathered over nearly four decades of fieldwork and from further interviews in Tanzania conducted in the summer of 2010.  The book seeks to convey both the historical trajectories through which his life was lived and the geographical spaces which he inhabited. The main themes which have impinged on his life and which will be addressed include changing Islam in Tanzania, the morality of kinship, the rise of neo-liberalism, and political change, including the growth of a civil society sector. This project has been supported by the British Academy.