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Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Territorial and magical migrations in Tanzania |
Author: | Sanders, Todd |
Book title: | Mobile Africa: changing patterns of movement in Africa and beyond |
Year: | 2001 |
Pages: | 27-46 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Tanzania |
Subjects: | Ihanzu Sukuma migration witchcraft |
Abstract: | This chapter explores culturally specific idioms of movement amongst the Ihanzu and Sukuma of north-central Tanzania. Over the 20th century, these two neighbouring peoples expanded in all directions in search of more fertile farming and grazing lands. The Sukuma's numerical superiority and their preference for pastoralism have given them a decisive advantage as they increasingly encroach on Ihanzu lands. The chapter focuses on cultural imaginings amongst the Ihanzu, showing how they use witchcraft as an idiom of mobility and as an explanation for Sukuma territorial expansion. Sukuma witchcraft, claim the Ihanzu, has also led to the 'consumption' or 'disappearance' of many Ihanzu, resulting in the Ihanzu drawing crucial links between witchcraft, ethnicity and mobility. The first part of the chapter provides background information on some of the political and economic forces that have compelled the Sukuma and Ihanzu to spread across the land, while the second part delves into locally inflected understandings of these movements. The chapter is based on fieldwork carried out in Tanzania between August 1993 and May 1995, and June-September 1999. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |