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DANCEHALL POLITICS: MOBILITY, SEXUALITY, AND SPECTACLES OF RACIAL RESPECTABILITY IN LATE COLONIAL TANGANYIKA, 1930s–1961*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2012

EMILY CALLACI
EMILY CALLACI*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
*
Author's email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the relationship between understandings of youth sexuality and mobility, and racial nationalism in late colonial Tanganyika through a history of dansi: a dance mode first popularized by Tanganyikan youth in the 1930s. Dansi's heterosocial choreography and cosmopolitan connotations provoked widespread anxieties among rural elders and urban elites over the mobility, economic autonomy, and sexual agency of youth. In urban commercial dancehalls in the 1950s, dansi staged emerging cultural solidarities among migrant youth, while also making visible social divisions based on class and gender. At the same time, nationalist intellectuals attempted to reform dansi according to an emerging political rhetoric of racial respectability.

Keywords

Tanzanialeisurepopular culturegendersexualityracenationalism
Type
The Political and Moral Economy of Leisure
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , November 2011 , pp. 365 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

I thank Jonathon Glassman, James Brennan, Andreana Prichard, and the anonymous reviewers for the Journal of African History for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Excerpts of this material were presented at the 2010 Michigan State University African Studies Conference and at the 2010 meeting of the African Studies Association, and I thank the discussants and participants for their feedback. Research for this article was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad fellowship.

References

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3 J. Malnig, ‘Apaches, tangos and other indecencies: women, dance and New York nightlife in the 1910s’, in J. Malnig (ed.), Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake, (Urbana, 2009), 85. For a particularly compelling analysis of dance as a site for contestations over race, labor, and the female body in post-abolition Atlanta, Georgia, see chap. 8 of Hunter, T., To ‘Joy my Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar.

4 Ranger, T. O., Dance and Society in Eastern Africa: The Beni Ngoma (Berkeley, 1975), 5–7Google Scholar.

5 Ranger, Dance and Society, 9–44; see also Mitchell, J. C., The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia, (Manchester, 1956)Google Scholar.

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7 In addition to suggesting why dansi would have been controversial, this also raises the question: what kinds of knowledge or authority might have been rendered invisible with the rise of dansi as a youth spectacle? On this issue of kinesthetic knowledge, see S. Feierman, ‘Colonizers, scholars and the creation of invisible histories’, in L. Hunt (ed.), Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Berkeley, 1999), 194–6.

8 See G. T. Burgess and A. Burton, ‘Introduction’, in A. Burton and H. Charton-Bigot (eds.), Generations Past: Youth in East African History (Athens, OH, 2010), 6–13. For an analysis of struggles of elder men to maintain control over male youth, see Willis, J., Potent Brews: A Social History of Alcohol in East Africa 1850–1999 (Oxford, 2002), 50–60Google Scholar.

9 Askew, Performing the Nation, 92. For a similar argument regarding Angola, see Moorman, Marissa, Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola from 1945 to Recent Times (Athens, OH, 2008), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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14 These different dancehall locations are derived from various reports in the ‘Habari za Miji’ section of Mambo Leo in the 1930s through the 1950s, as well as from reports on dance permits in Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salam (TNA) 26/57/3; TNA 61/782/1; TNA 26/228/11; and TNA 54/39/28. See also the Zanzibar National Archives, Zanzibar (ZNA) AK 14/10. For dancing on sisal plantations, interview with Hassan Ngoma, Tanga, 9 Apr. 2009.

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20 North Mara Dancing Rules, 1957.

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25 Examples of names of dancing clubs can be found in the regular feature ‘Habari za Miji’, in Mambo Leo, especially in 1940.

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31 TNA 61/701/1, Secretary of Tanganyika Muslim Jazz Band Club to Provincial Commissioner, Eastern Province, 3 Apr. 1940.

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38 Gower, R. H., ‘Swahili Slang’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, 51 (Dec. 1958), 250–4Google Scholar; Leslie, J. A. K., ‘Dick Whittington Comes to Dar es Salaam’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, 55 (Sept. 1960), 215–18Google Scholar; Reynolds, F. A., ‘Lavu Huzungusha Dunia’, Tanganyika Notes and Records, 58 (Sept. 962), 203–6Google Scholar.

39 While audio recordings demonstrate a clear influence of Cuban rumba on Tanganyikan dance band music, a lack of video sources make it difficult to analyze the extent to which the way that Tanganyikans danced ‘the rumba’ resembled the way the rumba was danced elsewhere in the world. When I asked how they learned to dance the rumba, people cited a number of sources, including dance lessons offered by ‘foreigners’, Congolese stage dancers, sailors who came to the portside nightclubs, and films.

40 On the Cuban music HMV GV series, see W. Graebner, ‘The Ngoma impulse: from club to nightclub in Dar es Salaam’, in J. Brennan, Y. Lawi and A. Burton (eds.), Dar es Salaam: Histories from an Emerging African Metropolis (Dar es Salaam, 2007), 183.

41 Interview with Sagaya Hussein, Dar es Salaam, 19 Oct. 2008.

42 W. Graebner, ‘The Ngoma Impulse’, 83. For a discussion of a town where rival bands were aligned with rival football teams, see Lienhardt's, P.The Medicine Man: Swifa ya Nguvumali (Oxford, 1968), 16–18Google Scholar.

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45 Also part of this tradition was competitive poetry performance between rival poets. This tradition of competitive performance informed rivalries between dance bands, whose singers sometimes performed songs praising their band and putting down their rivals. On competitive dance and poetry traditions in East Africa, see (eds.), G. Barz and Gunderson (eds.), Mashindano! Competitive Music Performance in East Africa (Dar es Salaam, 2000), especially the chapter by W. Graebner, ‘Ngoma ya Ukae: Competitive Social Structure in Tanzanian Dance Music Songs’.

46 For example, interviews with Muhiddin Gurumo, Dar es Salaam, 11 Nov. 2008; and with Steven Hiza, Tanga, 25 Jan. 2009. For criticism of the dansi practice of performing songs insulting specific women in attendance at least by 1945, see J. E. Mhina, ‘Kuimbana Dansini Hakufai’, Mambo Leo, Sept. 1945.

47 Salum Abdallah, ‘Unavunja Utu’, Ngoma Iko Huku: Vintage Tanzanian Dance Music, 1955–65, Dizim Records 4701. Mohamed Said assisted with this translation.

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51 Interview with Bakari Majengo, Dar es Salaam, 11 Feb. 2009. A further example of this contemporary meaning is the term uswahilini or ‘the place of the Swahili people’, referring to the parts of town where poor and working class Africans live. Because Majengo was using the term waswahili to draw a contrast with the clientele of upscale European hotels, I interpret his usage to refer to this meaning, rather than an alternative usage of waswahili, as an ethnonym referring to the population indigenous to the East African coastal region.

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54 Michael West identifies a similar middle-class political dynamic in his book The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898–1965 (Bloomington, 2002)Google Scholar.

55 Inter-Territorial Language Committee for the East African Dependencies, A Standard Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1939). For a more in-depth discussion of the term's use and etymology, see Burton, A., African Underclass: Urbanisation, Crime and Colonial Order in Dar es Salaam (Oxford, 2005), 4–6Google Scholar.

56 P. P. Kasembe, ‘Mavazi Kwenye Ngoma Zetu za Dansi’, Mambo Leo, Aug. 1961.

57 An example of fears about the deleterious effects of dancing on female virtue is a poem by Ally, C., ‘Dansi ni Ngoma Duni, Wajuao Kufikiri’, Mambo Leo, Apr. 1953Google Scholar.

58 For example, Milani, A., ‘Wanawake madansini’, Mwangaza, 7 Jan. 1957Google Scholar; ‘Mambo Kangaja: Mwajuma Ajifunza Kucheza Dansi’, Mapenzi ya Mungu, Oct. 1953Google Scholar. The latter article argues that dansi is contrary to Islamic morality.

59 Machame, L., ‘Kuwa Nawe ni Kuwa Peponi’, Mbiu, Aug. 1955Google Scholar.

60 Interviews with Fatuma Mdoe, Tanga, 27 Mar. 2009; and Ally Sykes, Dar es Salaam, 12 Feb. 2009. Also see advertisement ‘Learn dancing the modern way at John's tango school of dancing’, Tanganyika Standard, 4 Jan. 1962Google Scholar.

61 ‘Dada Tucheze Dansi’, Mambo Leo, June 1961Google Scholar.

62 On urban dances held in the streets in colonial Tanganyika, see Ranger, Dance and Society; Tsuruta, ‘Popular Music’; Askew, Performing the Nation; and Graebner, ‘Ngoma Impulse’.

63 L. Machame, ‘Kuwa Nawe’; Salum, I., ‘Aliacha Anasa Baada ya Kuona Anaangamia’, Mambo Leo, Feb. 1957Google Scholar. For a discussion of romantic love as a source of generational difference, see L. Thomas and J. Cole, ‘Introduction: thinking through love in Africa’, in J. Cole and L. Thomas (eds.), Love in Africa (Chicago, 2009), 1–30.

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66 For the most detailed discussion of this, see Fair, , Pastimes and Politics, 85–96Google Scholar.

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72 For a study of the efforts of the TANU Youth League to enforce a dress code in Dar es Salaam, see Ivaska, Cultured States, 86–123.