Remembering the Revolution in Zanzibar

Edited by William Cunningham Bissell and Marie-Aude Fouéré. This volume focuses on the cultural memory and mediation of the 1964 Zanzibar revolution, analysing its continuing reverberations in everyday life. The revolution constructed new conceptions of community and identity, race and cultural belonging, as well as instituting different ideals of nationhood, citizenship, and sovereignty. As the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary revealed, the official versions of events have shifted significantly over time, and the legacy of the uprising is still deeply contested. The question of Zanzibari identity remains very much at stake: who exactly belongs in the islands, and what historical processes brought them there? The authors do not seek to simply define the revolution but to explore its continuing echoes in diverse memories, media, and monuments. Drawing on anthropology, history, cultural studies, and geography, the essays foreground long silenced questions, submerged doubts, rumours, and secrets. William Cunningham Bissell is Professor at Lafayette College; Marie-Aude Fouéré also edited Remembering Nyerere (Row 198).