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"Nathaniel Mathews is able to tell a different kind of history—one that centers the narratives by these communities, and by their own political thinking. Rather than reading the history of this diaspora from the outside in (which would be tempting to do, given the kind of material we normally use), he is able to tell it from the inside out: as an emic history of diasporic political consciousness in the postcolonial moment."—Fahad Ahmad Bishara, author of A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950
"Zanzibar Was a Country draws on extensive archival and oral historical research to trace the ethnic sorting and diasporic politics of Arab exiles from Zanzibar. It is a major contribution to scholarship on the messy processes of decolonization, citizenship, and nation-building in Africa and the Middle East."—Mandana Limbert, author of In the Time of Oil: Piety, Memory, and Social Life in an Omani Town
List of contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Diaspora, Development, and National Citizenship in the Indian Ocean
PART ONE
BELONGING IN ZANIBAR
1 • Immigration, Exogenous Origins, and the Politics of Citizenship in Zanzibar, 1957–1963
2 • Violence and Emigration in the Zanzibar Revolution, 1964–1965
PART TWO
BELONGING IN DIASPORA
3 • “On Behalf of Zanzibaris Abroad”: The Zanzibar Organization and Postcolonial Tanzanian Politics, 1964–1985
4 • Zanzibari Diaspora Communities in the Arabian Gulf, 1964–1977
PART THREE
BELONGING IN OMAN
5 • Return Migration from East Africa and the Politics of Citizenship in Oman, 1970–2020
6 • Transregional Relations, Omani Heritage, and a Vernacular Historiography of Zanzibar, 1990–2020
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Nathaniel Mathews is a historian of East Africa and the Indian Ocean. He received his PhD from Northwestern University and is currently Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at SUNY Binghamton.
