Drawing on a wide range of oral and written sources, this book tells the story of Tanzania's socialist experiment: the ujamaa villagization initiative of 1967-75. Inaugurated shortly after independence, ujamaa ('familyhood' in Swahili) both invoked established socialist themes and departed from the existing global repertoire of development policy, seeking to reorganize the Tanzanian countryside into communal villages to achieve national development. Priya Lal investigates how Tanzanian leaders and rural people creatively envisioned ujamaa and documents how villagization unfolded on the ground, without affixing the project to a trajectory of inevitable failure. By forging an empirically rich and conceptually nuanced account of ujamaa, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania restores a sense of possibility and process to the early years of African independence, refines prevailing theories of nation building and development, and expands our understanding of the 1960s and 70s world.

This study developed from a keen interest in the politics of contemporary Africa, especially in regard to the seemingly intractable problem of political dependence with its economic correlate of underdevelopment. The most interesting contemporary work on African political economy explores the link between economic underdevelopment and political dependence. Development and independence are seen as moving in the same direction in the long run, even if in the short run there appear to be inherent contradictions in their immediate needs in a concrete situation. The focus of this work emphasizes the internal contradictions’ (such as exist between the bureaucracy and the political leadership) within Tanzania rather than the external linkages.

A riveting account of the first decade of the work of a retired Professor of Medical Statistics. Filled with a variety of eye-opening episodes, it covers lecturing at the University of Dar es Salaam, the life of a political exile in a remote rural area and the challenges of setting up from scratch a one-of-a-kind educational institute in Africa.

A history of postcolonial state power, the cultural politics of youth and gender, and global visions of modern style in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the 1960s and early 1970s.

What makes a periphery? The south-eastern corner of Tanzania is officially one of the poorest corners of the world and is always presented as a peripheral area. This volume presents a lively discussion on the making of a periphery. The contributors show the interaction between the perceptions of outsiders, the views of local people, and the actual development efforts. The authors perceive development as a negotiated and contested field. Culture is not considered a factor constraining development but is seen rather as an engine which, due to the plurality of local and outsider cultures, sets the parameters for the battle.