Contested Urbanities: Negotiating Belonging and Identity in Colonial Dar es Salaam, ca. 1920s –1960

Maximilian Julius Chuhila; Saleh Yasin

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Title (eng)

Contested Urbanities: Negotiating Belonging and Identity in Colonial Dar es Salaam, ca. 1920s –1960

Author

Maximilian Julius Chuhila

Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam

Saleh Yasin

Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam

Description (eng)

This article analyses the interplay between planned and everyday experiences of urban housing by focusing on colonial Dar es Salaam between the 1920s and 1960. Despite the emphasis on urban planning and formal settlements during this period, informality emerged as an indicator of the incompatibility between bureaucratic imaginations and people’s desires to belong to the city. We argue that what came to be regarded as informal housing was primarily a feature of the struggles to maintain a sense of belonging to a contested urban space for the majority of people. Planned housing and settlements benefited only a few residents with financial resources and excluded the majority who were on low incomes. Using historical methods, this article shows how local actors can sometimes go beyond official regulations and define their own ways of surviving within and outside the existing framework.

Keywords

colonial housingurban historycolonial Dar es Salaamurban transformationinformal housingurban planningTanzania

Subject (eng)

ÖFOS 2012 -- 602001 -- African studies

Type (eng)

journal article

Language

[eng]

Persistent identifier

https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:2092774

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