History, Space & Place: Exploring Politics, Development and Identity in Contemporary West - Central Tanzania

Abstract

This is a study of politics, development and identity, set in Tabora region, west-central Tanzania. It focuses on the issue ofidentity, asking how processes of economic liberalisation and political democratisation have impacted on local identities in an area of the country where development remains slow. Its aim is to show how people have assimilated the political, economic and social change that has gone on around them, how they have coped with it and sought to change it, and how this has impacted upon their own everyday lives. This thesis contends that identity in contemporary Tabora can be represented as a 'moral matrix', based on three central premises. Each of these premises are themselves grounded in fundamental tensions - between 'continuity and conflict', between feeling 'connected yet distant', and between perceptions of 'collectivity and competition'. These three interrelated premises combine to fonn an 'implicit and cognitive template' that provides the basis for constructions oflocal identity. It is distinctly regional in its fonnulation, yet reflective of the changing relationship between Tabora and the wider Tanzanian nation. The thesis sits within a literature concerned with the politics of transition in Tanzaniatracing the effects of liberalisation within economic, political and developmental spheres. It argues that particular local histories and local understandings are key to the way that such refonn is played out, and that in Tabora, such understandings reflect a perception of unequal engagement within the nation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo