ABSTRACT
White limestone houses overlooking the Indian Ocean, older men sipping Arabic coffee on public benches, veiled women making their way through labyrinths of narrow alleyways; Swahili towns located alongside the eastern African coast have long captured the imagination of (European) travellers and explorers. While for colonial officials the stone mansions and Arab influences, among others, distinguished these cosmopolitan towns from the ‘African’ hinterland (for example, Khalid 1977; Spear 2000; Middleton 2004), contemporary tourists often view the seemingly authentic charm of towns like Zanzibar and Lamu as illustrating the timelessness of the Swahili coast: that here time actually stands still. This supposed immutability of Swahili coastal towns contrasts sharply, however, with the dynamic and disruptive changes these towns have experienced throughout their history (Meier, Sheriff, this volume). In the last century, such changes and correlated debates often pertain to the relationship of the Swahili coast to modern nation states (for example, Mazrui and Mazrui 1995; Brennan 2008, 2012; Glassman 2011; Prestholdt 2014). This chapter contemplates these discussions and takes a closer look at life in contemporary Swahili towns by examining questions of identity and belonging among the inhabitants of Kenya’s Swahili town of Lamu.
