Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T04:22:18.083Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Digital Ukumbi: New Terrains in Swahili Identity and Poetic Dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Meg Arenberg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this essay I address the remediation of the centuries-old East African practice of poetic dialogue in the twenty-first-century digital social network of Facebook. Focusing on an online duel between two young poets from Mombasa, I demonstrate how East Africa's new media are transforming traditional poetic conventions in Swahili. Even sites that endeavor to preserve authentic literary Swahili have become in practice controversial crossroads of language, culture, and identity. By bringing voices of Swahili cultural authority, which draw from the East, into sustained contact with voices of the contemporary urban youth culture, which draws from the West, these new media are ultimately opening new terrains for literary production and debate.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 131 , Issue 5: Special Topic: Literature in the World , October 2016 , pp. 1344 - 1360
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Askew, Kelly. “Tanzanian Newspaper Poetry: Political Commentary in Verse.” Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2014, pp. 515–37. Taylor and Francis Online, doi: 10.1080/17531055.2014.918312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biersteker, Ann J. Kujibizana: Questions of Language and Power in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Poetry in Kiswahili. Michigan State UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Biersteker, Ann, and Shariff, Ibrahim. Mashairi Ya Vita Vya Kuduhu: War Poetry in Kiswahili Exchanged at the Time of the Battle of Kuduhu. Michigan State UP, 1995.Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. “The Impact of State Ideology on Language: Ujamaa and Swahili Literature in Tanzania.” Human Contact through Language and Linguistics, edited by Smieja, Birgit and Tasch, Meike, Peter Lang, 1997, pp. 253–70.Google Scholar
Bolter, Jay David, and Grusin, Richard. Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT P, 2000.Google Scholar
Bradley, Adam. Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop. Basic Civitas, 2009.Google Scholar
Caplan, David. Rhyme's Challenge: Hip Hop, Poetry, and Contemporary Rhyming Culture. Oxford UP, 2014.Google Scholar
Communications Authority of Kenya. Communications Statistics Report Second Quarter 2008/09. Statistics, www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/STATISTICS/Sector%20Statistics%20Report%20Q2%202008.pdf.Google Scholar
Communications Authority of Kenya. Fourth Quarter Sector Statistics Report for the Financial Year 2014/2015. Statistics, Sept. 2015, www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/STATISTICS/Sector%20Statistics%20Report%20Q4%-202014-2015.pdf.Google Scholar
Gershon, Ilana. The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. Cornell UP, 2011.Google Scholar
Harries, Lyndon. “Poetry and Politics in Tanzania.” Ba Shiru, vol. 4, no. 3, 1972, pp. 52–54. Kimani wa Mbogo.Google Scholar
Ligaga, Dina. “Kwani? Exploring New Literary Spaces in Kenya.” Africa Insight, vol. 35, no. 2, 2005, pp. 46–52.Google Scholar
Ligaga, Dina. “‘Virtual Expressions’: Alternative Performance Spaces and the Staging of Kenyan Cultures Online.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 1–16. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/490230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madumulla, J., Bertoncini, E., and Blommaert, J. “Politics, Ideology and Poetic Form: The Literary Debate in Tanzania.” Language Ideological Debates, edited by Blommaert, Jan, Mouton de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 307–42.Google Scholar
Marjan, Omar Babu. Facebook message. Received by Meg Arenberg, 21 Apr. 2012.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Alamin. Swahili beyond the Boundaries: Literature, Language, and Identity. Ohio UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Alamin, and Shariff, Ibrahim Noor. The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People. Africa World Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Miehe, Gudrun, et al., editors. Liyongo Songs: Poems Attributed to Fumo Liyongo. Köppe, 2004. Archiv afrikanistischer Manuskripte 7.Google Scholar
Mulokozi, M. M., and Sengo, T. S. Y. History of Kiswahili Poetry, A.D. 1000-2000: A Report. Institute of Kiswahili Research, U of Dar-es-Salaam, 1994.Google Scholar
Mwangi, Evan. “Queer Agency in Kenya's Digital Media.” African Studies Review, vol. 57, no. 2, 2014, pp. 93–113. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/553293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mwangi, Evan. “Sex, Music, and the City in a Globalized East Africa.” PMLA, vol. 122, no. 1, 2007, pp. 321–24. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25501696?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.Google Scholar
Nabahany, Ahmed. “Uketo wa Tungo za Kiswahili.” Lugha, vol. 4, 1990, pp. 10–16.Google Scholar
Njogu, Kimani. Reading Poetry as Dialogue. Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, 2004.Google Scholar
Ntarangwi, Mwenda. “Malumbano or Matukano: Competition, Confrontation, and (De)Construction of Masculinity in the Taarab of Maulidi and Bhalo.” Mashindano! Competitive Music Performance in East Africa, Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, 2000, pp. 55–66.Google Scholar
Reuster-Jahn, Uta, and Kiessling, Roland. “Lugha Ya Mitaani in Tanzania: The Poetics and Sociology of a Young Urban Style of Speaking with a Dictionary Comprising 1100 Words and Phrases.” Swahili Forum, vol. 13, 2006, pp. 1–196. DocPlayer, docplayer.net/1356494-Lugha-ya-mitaani-in-tanzania-the-poetics-and-sociology-of-a-young-urban-style-of-speaking.html.Google Scholar
Shariff, Ibrahim Noor. “The Function of Dialogue Poetry in Swahili Society.” Rutgers U, 1983. Dissertation.Google Scholar
Shariff, Ibrahim Noor. Tungo Zetu: Msingi Wa Mashairi Na Tungo Nyinginezo. Red Sea Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Strauhs, Doreen. African Literary NGOs: Power, Politics, and Participation. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vierke, Clarissa. “Comparing the Incomparable? On the Poetic Use of Language in Swahili Hip-Hop and ‘Classical’ Swahili Poetry.” Habari ya English? What about Kiswahili? East Africa as a Literary and Linguistic Contact Zone, edited by Diegner, Lutz and Schulze-Engler, Frank, Brill, 2015, pp. 81–112.Google Scholar
Vierke, Clarissa. On the Poetics of the Utendi: A Critical Edition of the Nineteenth-Century Swahili Poem “Utendi wa Haudaji” together with a Stylistic Analysis. LIT Verlag, 2011.Google Scholar