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Article published In:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 29:1 (2019) ► pp.99–136

With and without Zanzibar

Liminal diaspora voices and the memory of the revolution

| University of Sussex

This paper explores discursive narratives as inextricably linked to the construction of identity, place and history by a number of interviewed individuals. From an interactional sociolinguistics (cf. De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012) perspective, the study explores the context of the East African diaspora (Georgiou, 2006; Manger & Assal, 2006 among many others) as the interviewed participants are all Zanzibar-born individuals for whom the relationship with the island and its history is crucial to their construction of selfhood. The study analyses the narrative voices (De Fina & Georgakopolou, 2008) of those individuals who decided to leave Zanzibar at the time of the 1964 violent political upheaval never to return and those who, on the contrary, decided to go back after a lengthy period abroad. However, more than establishing a division between these two groups, the paper highlights how these individuals take a different positioning (Bamberg, 1997) towards Zanzibar and its history and construct a range of identities in the context of the interview.

Keywords: identity, diaspora, liminality, hegemonic, narrative
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The geo-historical context
  • Diaspora and liminal identities
  • Methodology
  • The narratives
    • Hegemonic identities as Zanzibar historians
    • Identities of historians challenging hegemony
    • Zanzibar as a search for identity
    • Disappointed and cynical identities: Zanzibar’s betrayal
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18038.pia
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