No description available.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1973.

The literary utopia is often accused of being an outmoded genre, a graveyard for failed social movements. However, utopian literature is a surprisingly resilient genre, evolving from the static, descriptive anatomies of the Renaissance utopias to the novelized utopian romances of the late nineteenth century and the self-reflexive critical utopias of the 1970s. The literary utopia adapts to the needs of the moment: what form(s) best represent the fears and desires of our current historical period? In this dissertation I perform a close reading of three exemplary texts: John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1968), Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home (1985), and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004). While I address topics specific to each text, my main focus is on the texts’ depictions of utopia and their spatialized narrative forms. In Stand on Zanzibar Brunner locates the utopian impulse in three registers—the political/bureaucratic, the technical/scientific, and the human(e)—and explores how their interplay constitutes the utopian space. In Always Coming Home Le Guin renovates the classical literary utopia, problematizing its uncritical advocacy of the “Judaeo-Christian-Rationalist-West” but preserving much of the older utopia’s form. In Cloud Atlas the networked narrative structure reflects and enables the heterogeneous, non-hierarchical, and processual utopian communities depicted in the novel. In these science fictional works the spatialized techniques of juxtaposition, discontinuity, and collage —commonly associated with a loss of historical depth and difference—are used to create utopian spaces founded on contingency and human choice. I contend that science fiction is a historical genre, one that is invested in representing societies as contingent historical totalities. Science fiction’s generic tendencies modify the context that a spatialized narrative form functions in, and in changing the context changes its effects. By utilizing a spatialized narrative form to embody a contingent practice, Brunner, Le Guin, and Mitchell cast the future—and the present—as historical, as something that can be acted upon and changed: they have provided us with strategies for envisioning better futures and, potentially, for mobilizing our visions of the future for positive change in the present.

Herbivorous reef fish are a key functional group for the ecological resilience of coral reefs. Asthey feed on algae, a major resource competitor of coral polyps, they can prevent and reversecoral-macroalgal phase shifts. The resilience of the reefs against such phase shifts is given bythe ability of herbivores to keep the system in a cropped state from filamentous algae or bytheir capacity to feed on macroalgae. Most of the management plans that aim to protect coralreefs have been focusing on the establishment of marine protected areas or no-take areas wherefishing activities are strictly restricted or prohibited. In low-income countries, such managedareas can be difficult to accept from a fisher´s perspective and lack of money also tends to leadto limited surveillance capabilities and lowered compliance. These challenges are important toaddress when managing small-scale fisheries and where fish are considered as both, amarketable commodity and a subsistence good.A perhaps less contentious strategy for fishers is gear-based management, where the use offishing gears that are detrimental to coral reef resilience are restricted and at the same timegears that do not compromise resilience are promoted. This study aims to investigate how ninedifferent fishing gears (i.e. different lines, traps, nets and spears) used in the coral reef fisheriesof Zanzibar (Tanzania) capture herbivorous reef fish that can prevent (preventers) or reverse(reversers) coral-macroalgal phase shifts. Two interesting findings emerged from the study.First, different fishing gears had different impacts on these two functional groups where lines,large traps and seine nets fisheries had most impacts. Second, there were monsoonaldifferences in the catch of preventers and reversers. These findings are discussed in relation toi) similar studies conducted in different reef environments and ii) the feasibility of gear-basedmanagement in Zanzibar.

Taarab in contemporary Zanzibar currently experiences great changes since the Nineties with the emerging and growing success of modern taarab. This has shocked the fans of the traditional style (taarab asilia) with musical and instrumental innovations, including powerful amplifiers and more danceable rhythms, but also textual innovations, using in their songs, commonly called mipasho, a sort of language and poetical imagery very open and non-disguised (Khamis 2002: 200). The perception of a split between the two musical and poetical styles is widely shared among the artists and fans of traditional taarab, but it actually tends to simplify the dynamics of continuity and change of this art deeply rooted within the social and political life of Zanzibar islands.

Indian Influence in Swahili architecture. The goal of this article is to establish a synthesis of current knowledge on the contribution of the Indian world in Swahili architecture, from the islamisation to the sultanate of Zanzibar. By Indian world, we designate Pakistan and modern India, more precisely coastal regions of Sind, Gujerat and Deccan. Indians have participated at the creation of Swahili urbanism since the eighth century and have acted on the evolution of this architecture. To apprehend the role of India in the Swahili architecture, we will divide our comment in three areas: religious, civilian and military. With an historical introduction to the relationships between Africa and India.

No description available.

This minor field study is an explorative analysis of the promotion/protection of human rights in the context of corporate social responsibility by two hotels in Zanzibar. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the motivations of the CSR practices of two hotels in Zanzibar and if the CSR practices can be used to promote/protect stakeholders human rights. The theory used to support the analysis is the stakeholder theory to demonstrate the responsibilities corporations have towards their stakeholders. The primary data is collected through interviews with one manager from each hotel to examine the motivations for the CSR, and with one stakeholder related to each hotel to examine the effects in terms of human rights. The findings indicate that the CSR practices are mostly motivated through altruistic/philanthropic reasons within the social/environmental category and that the three human rights examined have successfully been promoted and protected using the hotels CSR practices.

This thesis explores the role of place names, specifically the names of daladala (minibus) stops in urban Zanzibar, through a non-representational and assemblage-based lens. Unlike official toponyms, which are decided upon by an institutionalized authority, daladala stop names are mostly non-indexed; they are neither found on signboards nor in official registers. They are, however, intimately linked to situated everyday practices, emotions, and histories. Drawing from urban studies, human geography, posthumanism, and new materialism, the thesis highlights the entanglements of language, space, bodies, and daily practices. It moves beyond traditional approaches in toponymy studies that view place names as mere representations of identity, history, or culture and, instead, emphasizes the relational and performative role of these names within the broader context of urban life and Zanzibari transportation systems. Through ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis explores the stories and (in)visible entities that co-constitute both the name and the place of the daladala stop. These may include material objects, plants, spirits, memories, moral and political discourses, dreams and imaginaries, noises, or bodily performances. By moving beyond symbolic or representational readings, the thesis argues that place names are not static markers but active participants within the urban fabric. Through this approach, the study opens new avenues for understanding place-making practices and the complexities of urban life.

Tracked and inscribed across the centuries by traders, pilgrims and imperial competitors, the Indian Ocean is written into literature in English by Joseph Conrad, and later by selected novelists from the region. As this thesis suggests, the Indian Ocean is imagined as a space of littoral interconnections, nomadic cosmopolitanisms, ancient networks of trade and contemporary networks of cooperation and crime. This thesis considers selected fiction written in English from or about the Indian Ocean—from the particular culture around its shores, and about the interconnections among its port cities. It focuses on Conrad, alongside Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Lindsey Collen, whose work in many ways captures the geographical scope of the Indian Ocean: India, East Africa and a mid-point, Mauritius. Conrad’s work is examined as a foundational text for writing of the space, while the later writers, in turn, proleptically suggest a rereading of Conrad’s oeuvre through an oceanic lens. Alongside their diverse interests and emphases, the authors considered in this thesis write the Indian Ocean as a space in and through which to represent and interrogate historical gaps, the ethics and aesthetics of heterogeneity, and alternative geographies. The Indian Ocean allows the authors to write with empire at a distance, to subvert Eurocentric narratives and to explore the space as paradigmatic of widely connected human relations. In turn, they provide a longer imaginative history and an alternative cognitive map to imposed imperial and national boundaries. The fiction in this way brings the Indian Ocean into being, not only its borders and networks, but also its vivid, sensuous, storied world. The authors considered invoke and evoke the Indian Ocean as a representational space—producing imaginative depth that feeds into and shapes wider cultural, including historical, figurations.