Title: Women, Métissage and the Illusion of Race : The Histories of Zanzibar and île de La Réunion
PhD Supervisor: Davide Rodogno
PhD CO Supervisor: Aidan Russell
Expected completion date: 2024
Aminata Buganzi Kinana's dissertation is titled Women, Métissage and the Illusion of Race : The Histories of Zanzibar and île de La Réunion. This doctoral project provides the first comparative study of the role of Zanzibari and Réunionnais women in the history of colonial nationalisms and the evolution of cultures of hybridity in these islands. Hybridity is a key aspect of this work as once it is acknowledged to exist in a given locale, it complicates the idea of nationalities as inherent, and effectively reveals how identities are constructed, and the motivations behind these configurations. Zanzibar and Réunion collectively house populations of African, Arab, Asian and European ancestries, proving to be ideal locations to explore the rhizome nature of identities. A study that centres on hybridity destabilises accepted binaries. This work investigates the relationship between women's gendered roles in Zanzibar and Réunion and the creation, development, and recognition of nationalist identities throughout the twentieth century. By examining the role of women through considering sex, virginity, marriage, religion, and politics, strands that connect the personal realm with the political are revealed. Questions centre on to what extent and how did Zanzibari and Réunionnais women play a major role in the creation of nationalist identities through living in accordance to, as well as against established gender norms during the colonial and nationalist periods.The history of both islands is rooted in processes of hybridity as they took place through trade and commerce, warfare and conquest, education, marriage, as well as other forms of social interaction. This project investigates the different interpretations of the meaning of the nation, nationalist identities, nationalism, and how the construction of mixed race identities complicates these notions. Biological and cultural considerations concerning nationality automatically put women at the centre of politics, even if they are not always granted the freedom to act as organisers and chief decision makers.
In addition to the use of archival materials and oral history interviews, the cultures of hybridity expressed in this research project are examined through considering the evolution of racial and national identities and the cultural objects, such as art, artefacts, literature, film and music, that accompany them. This doctoral project adds to academic discussions on coloniality, but it is also importantly an opportunity to write in the central role women have played in the history of the African coast of the Indian Ocean.
Aminata Buganzi Kinana is from Dar es Salaam and has a Bachelor of Arts in Euro-Africana Studies from Grinnell College (in the jewel of the prairie!) and a Master of Philosophy in African Studies from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Philomathia Africa Scholar. She is fluent in Swahili, English and French and has an advanced and intermediate level understanding of Portuguese and German respectively, in addition to currently learning Spanish and Arabic.