The Art of the Zaramo

Fadhili Safieli Mshana’s study of Zaramo figurative wood sculpture and its transformations in the face of modernisation and social change. Set against the background of the carving’s beginnings at Konde in Kisarawe District, Tanzania, which attest to the crucial ties between Zaramo social practices and the carved objects that form an integral part of Zaramo life, the book presents the transformations and reinvention of Zaramo wood sculpture. To understand how Zaramo figurative sculpture was transformed, Mshana considers Zaramo multiple ethnic heritage, social norms and cultural patterns including Swahili interactions, the strategic proximity of the Zaramo to Dar es Salaam, influences of Islam and Christian missionaries, colonial history, and the socio-economic transformation of post-independence Tanzania. He examines how art acts as a vehicle for the formation of individual and group identity and how these two entities negotiate each other in social and cultural change. Mshana is Professor of Art History at Georgia College and State University.