"When the Kalmyks saw me, they thought I was their black devil": Inverting Centres and Peripheries in Colonial Travelogues Written by East Africans
Travelogues are a rich medium through which to explore observations of everyday culture and rituals, perceptions of the world order, and narrative strategies of othering. In this paper, I turn my attention to travelogues written by East Africans (coastal Swahili Muslims, diasporic Shi’i and Parsi So...
| Auteur principal: | |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publié: |
2021
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| Dans: |
Entangled Religions
Année: 2021, Volume: 12, Numéro: 1 |
| Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés: | B
Ostafrika
/ Africain
/ Récit de voyages
/ Technique narrative
/ Religion
/ Image du monde
/ Histoire 1800-1920
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociologie des religions AF Géographie religieuse AX Dialogue interreligieux BB Religions traditionnelles ou tribales BJ Islam CA Christianisme KBN Afrique subsaharienne TJ Époque moderne ZG Sociologie des médias; médias numériques; Sciences de l'information et de la communication |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Travel
B Narrative B Europe B Colonialism B Religious framing B East Africa |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Résumé: | Travelogues are a rich medium through which to explore observations of everyday culture and rituals, perceptions of the world order, and narrative strategies of othering. In this paper, I turn my attention to travelogues written by East Africans (coastal Swahili Muslims, diasporic Shi’i and Parsi South Asians, and Christian Ugandans) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the authors come from different religious groupings, cultural-linguistic backgrounds and socio-economic milieus, they travel the same routes within East Africa and, occasionally, also to Europe or even as far as Siberia. I argue that the texts (including journals, retrospectives, and ethnographies) must be read as documents of East African cosmopolitanism. Mobility enables the authors to subvert the imperial world order by re-framing it narratively according to their own religious identity. This gives rise to reflections on humanity, equality and the beauty of knowledge, but not to the exclusion of racial and religious bigotry within and between the non-European communities in East Africa. In my analysis, I tease out narrative patterns, observational styles, and literary tropes present in the texts across religious boundaries. As all the texts were either commissioned by Europeans or edited by their translators before publication they do not document naively ‘authentic’ perspectives of East Africans, but reflect the complexities of communication within strict racial hierarchies. In concluding, I discuss the potential of religion to invert colonial centres and peripheries: European metropoles become places of exotic fascination while the familiar practices of co-religionists can turn the ‘hinterland’ into centres of learning. |
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| ISSN: | 2363-6696 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.46586/er.12.2021.9286 |