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‘Chief village in a nation of villages’: history, race and authority in Tanzania's Dodoma plan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2015

EMILY CALLACI
EMILY CALLACI*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Wisconsin Madison, 455 N Park St, Madison WI 53706, USA
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Abstract

This article explores how notions of African authenticity informed urban planning in post-colonial Africa. It examines an attempt by Tanzania's ruling party to build a new national capital in the sparsely populated region of Dodoma. Paradoxically, Dodoma's planners sought to build a modern African city based on the social principles of the traditional African village. This vision of African village authenticity legitimized Tanzania's ruling party by linking its authority to a purely African, rather than colonial, past. At the same time, it allowed politicians to criminalize urban poverty by attributing it to racial betrayal rather than broader structural failures.

Type
Dyos Prize winner 2014
Information
Urban History , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 96 - 116
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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