- Department of History, 0104
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr.
La Jolla, CA. 92093 USA
Jeremy Prestholdt
University of California, San Diego, History, Faculty Member
- History, Globalization, Consumer Culture, Indian Ocean World, African Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and 24 moreAnthropology of political participation, Cultural History, Consumption and Material Culture, Indian Ocean, Transnational and World History, Security isses in Horn of Africa, Anthropology Of Consumption, Youth Subcultures, Indian Ocean History, Western Indian Ocean, African History, Conceptual History, Kenyan Politics, Kenyan History, Indian Ocean Trade, Transnational History, Conflict, Violence, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Culture, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Peacebuilding, and Zanzibar Historyedit
- My work is concerned with Africa’s global interfaces and their socioeconomic consequences over the past two centuries... moreMy work is concerned with Africa’s global interfaces and their socioeconomic consequences over the past two centuries. My fields of specialization are African, Indian Ocean, and global history with emphases on consumer culture and politics. In my first book, Domesticating the World: African Consumerism and the Genealogies of Globalization (University of California Press, 2008), I explored the intersections of culture and economy on the Swahili Coast and across the wider East African region. Through the lens of Zanzibar and other port cities, the book focused on African demands for imported goods from South Asia, Europe, and North America as well as how such consumer demand shaped global exchanges in the second half of the nineteenth century--an era of sweeping social and economic change.
My second book, Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac, and Bin Laden (Oxford University Press, 2019), develops a global history of the modern icon. Specifically, the book explores popular interest in four of the world’s most recognizable anti-establishment figures: Che Guevara, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, and Osama bin Laden. In surveying the symbolic appeal of very different and otherwise unrelated figures, Icons of Dissent explains why audiences around the world have embraced particular anti-systemic figures and how perceptions of them have changed—in some cases dramatically—over time. Through the circulation of iconic imagery the book traces the development of shared global symbols, the mutability of common references, and the commodification of political sentiment since the 1960s.
My current research addresses politics, spatial identity, and claims of autochthony--or 'original' habitation--on the twentieth century Swahili Coast. More precisely, I outline a history of the tensions between the transregional currents of the Indian Ocean littoral and the political dictates of late colonial and postcolonial Kenya.edit
Why do certain individuals become martyrs, heroes, villains, and commercialized symbols? What meanings do transnational icons have for diverse audiences? What can the popular attraction to these figures tell us about both the global past... more
Why do certain individuals become martyrs, heroes, villains, and commercialized symbols? What meanings do transnational icons have for diverse audiences? What can the popular attraction to these figures tell us about both the global past and contemporary cultural politics? This book seeks to answer these questions by studying the history of popular attraction to iconic figures over the past fifty years, a period of significant global integration. It explores the transformation of individuals into idealized symbols and the circulation of those larger-than-life icons in mass culture.
In the first instance this is a story of symbolic communication in a media age. In the second instance this is a book about the larger contexts of iconic resonance and the people that embrace icons. More precisely, it is an inquiry into why so many people are drawn to iconic figures, how such figures condense larger ideals and desires, mirror and affect popular sentiments, and gain or lose meaning. By considering the resonances of four very different figures across the globe over several decades, Icons of Dissent seeks to shed new light on the transnational factors and historical contingencies that define icons.
In the first instance this is a story of symbolic communication in a media age. In the second instance this is a book about the larger contexts of iconic resonance and the people that embrace icons. More precisely, it is an inquiry into why so many people are drawn to iconic figures, how such figures condense larger ideals and desires, mirror and affect popular sentiments, and gain or lose meaning. By considering the resonances of four very different figures across the globe over several decades, Icons of Dissent seeks to shed new light on the transnational factors and historical contingencies that define icons.
Research Interests: Semiotics, History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, African Studies, and 15 moreLatin American Studies, Anthropology, Communication, Iconography, Visual Anthropology, Media Studies, Social Sciences, Political Science, Politics, Consumer Behavior, Consumer Culture, Social History, Iconology, Che Guevara, and Tupac Shakur
Research Interests: History, Sociology, African Studies, Music, Anthropology, and 15 moreMedia Studies, Humanities, Social Sciences, Globalization, Transnational and World History, Transnationalism, African History, Global Studies, Transnational History, Global History, Hip-Hop/Rap, Social History, Hip-Hop Studies, Tupac Shakur, and Hip hop
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, African Studies, and 15 moreAnthropology, Iconography, Social Sciences, Globalization, Transnational and World History, Postcolonial Studies, African History, World History, Global Studies, Transnational History, Global History, Social History, Che Guevara, Iconography and Iconology, and Tupac Shakur
This book boldly unsettles the idea of globalization as a recent phenomenon—and one driven solely by Western interests—by offering a compelling new perspective on global interconnectivity in the nineteenth century. Jeremy Prestholdt... more
This book boldly unsettles the idea of globalization as a recent phenomenon—and one driven solely by Western interests—by offering a compelling new perspective on global interconnectivity in the nineteenth century. Jeremy Prestholdt examines East African consumers' changing desires for material goods from around the world in an era of sweeping social and economic change. Exploring complex webs of local consumer demands that affected patterns of exchange and production as far away as India and the United States, the book challenges presumptions that Africa's global relationships have always been dictated by outsiders. Full of rich and often-surprising vignettes that outline forgotten trajectories of global trade and consumption, it powerfully demonstrates how contemporary globalization is foreshadowed in deep histories of intersecting and reciprocal relationships across vast distances.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: African Studies, Anthropology, Material Culture Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, African History, and 18 moreImperial History, Indian Ocean History, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, East Africa, British Empire, Indian Ocean (British Empire), British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Anthropology Of Consumption, Anthropology of Madagascar, Cultural Anthropology, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Indian Ocean Ports, Material Culture, Indian Ocean, Western Indian Ocean, Madagascar, and Comoros
Research Interests:
The Indian Ocean region is a continuum of social, economic, and cultural engagements. It is also a remarkably elastic matrix of human relations that has profoundly influenced and been influenced by global engagements. These interregional... more
The Indian Ocean region is a continuum of social, economic, and cultural engagements. It is also a remarkably elastic matrix of human relations that has profoundly influenced and been influenced by global engagements. These interregional engagements raise questions of how to frame global circularities within Indian Ocean pasts. How have imbrications with other world regions affected the networks and boundaries of the Indian Ocean region? And how have Indian Ocean societies affected the wider world? To answer these questions this article traces Indian Ocean histories within global contexts between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries. It offers a stereoscopic history of Indian Ocean Africa that appreciates Indian Ocean linkages alongside the region's global entanglements, which in turn demonstrates how Africa's Indian Ocean rim has affected and been affected by wider global relationships. The article suggests that imbrications of regional and extraregional networks do not negate the Indian Ocean's coherence or the central importance of regional linkages. Rather, it argues that such imbrications prompt alternative ways of perceiving Indian Ocean worlds: namely, as layered matrices shaped by the dual articulation of Indian Ocean rim societies.
Research Interests: History, African Studies, Globalization, African History, World History, and 15 moreIndian Ocean History, East Africa, East Africa (History), Global History, Tanzanian Studies, Kenya, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean, South Africa, Madagascar, Zanzibar, History of Mozambique, Transatlantic Slave Trade, and Indian Ocean Studies
This essay addresses the great range of forces that prompted movement within and beyond Indian Ocean Africa in the early modern era, from environmental factors and conflict to enslavement, social pressures, and economic opportunities.... more
This essay addresses the great range of forces that prompted movement within and beyond Indian Ocean Africa in the early modern era, from environmental factors and conflict to enslavement, social pressures, and economic opportunities. This movement was multidirectional in its broad trends and individual experiences. To elucidate the ways in which these forces transformed the social, political, and economic matrices of Indian Ocean Africa, the first section of the essay reflects on displacement and emigration resulting from conflict, economic opportunities, and new political dispensations. The second section shifts attention to patterns of enslavement, demand for coerced labor, and the slave trade within Indian Ocean Africa and across both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans while likewise considering other forms of forced migration.
Research Interests: History, African Studies, African History, Migration, Portuguese Colonialism and Decolonizaton, and 15 moreHistory of Slavery, Indian Ocean History, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, Mozambique, Slave Trade, Southern Africa, Migration Studies, Indian Ocean World, South African history, Indian Ocean, South Africa, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Southern African History, and History of Mozambique
The biography of the Sultanate of Oman-Zanzibar’s merchant ship Sultana offers a unique opportunity to explore the peripatetic life of an Indian Ocean vessel. Indeed, more information is available about the Sultana than any other... more
The biography of the Sultanate of Oman-Zanzibar’s merchant ship Sultana offers a unique opportunity to explore the peripatetic life of an Indian Ocean vessel. Indeed, more information is available about the Sultana than any other nineteenth century Omani-Zanzibari ship. Using the Sultana as a lens, this chapter examines some of the ways in which the Sultanate of Oman-Zanzibar, at the peak of its influence, explored the possibilities of multidirectional global trade by shipping African, Arabian, and Asian products to distant ports and delivering South Asian, East Asian, European, and North American goods to Zanzibar and Muscat. By financing myriad commercial ventures, the Sultanate aimed to shape emergent and well-established transoceanic linkages. Perhaps more than any vessel of the era, the Sultana exemplifies the Sultanate’s initiatives and investments in charting its own economic course in a time of increasing global interdependence, transregional capitalism, and imperial expansion. The Sultana thus offers a window into the consumer demands, diplomacy, and technologies of an Indian Ocean maritime state and an important example of the multidirectionality of global relationships in the early nineteenth century.
Research Interests: History, Economic History, African Studies, Middle East Studies, Maritime History, and 15 moreAfrican History, Indian Ocean History, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, East Africa, East Africa (History), Arabian Gulf, Social History, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Maritime and Oceanic History, Indian Ocean, Zanzibar, Arabian/Persian Gulf Studies, Sultanate of Oman, and Indian Ocean Studies
This essay explores a largely unacknowledged dimension of Indian Ocean interface with distant world regions before European colonial rule: the Sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar’s commercial ventures to Atlantic ports. In the early nineteenth... more
This essay explores a largely unacknowledged dimension of Indian Ocean interface with distant world regions before European colonial rule: the Sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar’s commercial ventures to Atlantic ports. In the early nineteenth century, the Sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar operated a small fleet of interoceanic trading vessels that traversed the globe and projected the sultanate’s interests as far as London and New York as well as Istanbul, Bombay, and Canton. In this essay, I outline the rationales and strategies that undergirded Omani-Zanzibari commercial voyages. Specifically, the essay offers a case study of the sultanate’s economic mission to New York City in 1840, one of the most remarkable of such ventures. The Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar, Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sultān, not only sought to develop new economic links with America but also impress upon New Yorkers the diversity and quality of goods available in his East African, southern Arabian, and Persian Gulf domains. As a result of these and other ventures, the sultanate was able to affect trade relationships with the Atlantic in numerous ways. While the long-term dividends of the sultanate’s efforts were minimal, its outward projection through its many commercial ventures to the Atlantic reveals an important history of multidirectional global relationships in an age of increasing Western dominance. Thus, Omani-Zanzibari commercial ventures highlight global economic networks shaped not only by the actions and interests of European empires and other powerful states but also by the interests and enterprise of much smaller, less powerful actors.
Research Interests: Economic History, African Studies, Middle East Studies, Middle East History, Maritime History, and 15 moreAfrican History, The Persian Gulf, World History, Indian Ocean History, Modern Middle East History, Global History, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Indian Ocean, Zanzibar, Sultanate of Oman, New York, Indian Ocean Studies, and Indian Ocean Region
The social worlds and littoral affinities of the Indian Ocean region have been amorphous, ever changing, and influenced by broader global currents. Indeed, the region has been defined by its elasticity and porosity. This mutability raises... more
The social worlds and littoral affinities of the Indian Ocean region have been amorphous, ever changing, and influenced by broader global currents. Indeed, the region has been defined by its elasticity and porosity. This mutability raises important questions about the spatial boundaries and perceptions of the Indian Ocean as a region: how have the effective boundaries of the region changed over time? How have interfaces with other world regions shaped Indian Ocean rela-tions? How have perceptions of Indian Ocean space changed in consequence of shifting interactions along and beyond regional shores? More precisely, how have these interfaces contributed to the idea of the Indian Ocean as an integrated whole?
To address these questions this chapter traces transoceanic interfaces and changing cognitive maps over several centuries. Referencing Indian Ocean Africa, I consider the disintegrative as well as integrative forces that have defined the region since the early modern era. One conclusion we can draw from this history is that the Indian Ocean’s effective boundaries have been remarkably pliant. The region has incorporated other actors into its networks and external forces have played integral roles in shaping Indian Ocean societies. In this context of multidimensional linkage, boundaries of relation have shifted dramatically. To varying degrees, each point along the Indian Ocean’s rim has been integrated with a greater diversity of regional and global relations and the Indian Ocean basin has shaped an ever-increasing number of societies along other shores.
To address these questions this chapter traces transoceanic interfaces and changing cognitive maps over several centuries. Referencing Indian Ocean Africa, I consider the disintegrative as well as integrative forces that have defined the region since the early modern era. One conclusion we can draw from this history is that the Indian Ocean’s effective boundaries have been remarkably pliant. The region has incorporated other actors into its networks and external forces have played integral roles in shaping Indian Ocean societies. In this context of multidimensional linkage, boundaries of relation have shifted dramatically. To varying degrees, each point along the Indian Ocean’s rim has been integrated with a greater diversity of regional and global relations and the Indian Ocean basin has shaped an ever-increasing number of societies along other shores.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Globalization, and 15 moreAfrican History, Africa, Global Studies, Indian Ocean History, East Africa, Global History, Swahili, Social History, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, South African history, Indian Ocean, South Africa, and Maritime Studies
This chapter explores changing cumulative interpretations of subcultural icons. In a broad sense, it is an analysis of how the perception and historical memory of iconic figures shifts as a result of the confluence of numerous factors,... more
This chapter explores changing cumulative interpretations of subcultural icons. In a broad sense, it is an analysis of how the perception and historical memory of iconic figures shifts as a result of the confluence of numerous factors, including their embrace by diverse social movements, their circulation in mass culture, patterns of interpretive consensus, and mass marketing. More precisely, by tracing interpretations of the reggae artist Robert Nesta ‘Bob’ Marley over time, this chapter demonstrates how the analysis of iconic resonance can offer a window on myth-making processes across marketing strategies and multiple social boundaries. The chapter also highlights the trajectory of a figure whose popularity would dramatically eclipse his early subcultural audiences. More precisely, in this chapter I ask how Bob Marley, a figure that represented a relatively obscure Caribbean subculture and a fledgling musical genre at the beginning of the 1970s, became a globally recognized voice for liberation politics at the end of the decade and ultimately a suprareligious lodestar with a myth-like aura and more ambiguous connotations.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, African Studies, Music, and 14 moreMusic History, Communication, Media Studies, Social Sciences, Globalization, Postcolonial Studies, Cold War, Politics, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Consumer Culture, Social History, Iconology, Iconography and Iconology, and Reggae
This chapter traces the development of counterterrorism policy in Kenya and its consequences since the end of the 1990s. Specifically, it outlines how domestic priorities and international pressure to pursue a robust counterterrorism... more
This chapter traces the development of counterterrorism policy in Kenya and its consequences since the end of the 1990s. Specifically, it outlines how domestic priorities and international pressure to pursue a robust counterterrorism agenda have exacerbated communal tensions and dramatically increased the sense of alienation within Kenya’s Muslim minority communities. To appreciate the complexity of contemporary circumstances, two periods are identified in the history of counterterrorism in Kenya: 1998–2010 and 2011–present. These periods are typified by differing terrorist threats and have therefore occasioned contrasting state responses. The first period, which began with the US embassy bombing in Nairobi, was largely defined by the response to al Qaeda attacks against prominent foreign targets in Kenya. Initially during this period, the Kenyan government did not perceive counterterrorism to be a national priority. However, significant external pressure, notably from the United States, encouraged greater commitment to a counterterrorism agenda. The second period, beginning in 2011, has been defined by a dramatic increase in terrorist activity, a greater interdependence among events in Somalia and Kenya, and the recruitment of Kenyans by al Shabaab and its affiliates to carry out attacks on Kenyan soil. Al Shabaab’s campaign of terror in Kenya has prompted domestic demands for increased security. This, along with other political calculi, resulted in a new counterterrorism impetus that entailed overlapping internal and external dimensions. Al Shabaab’s Kenyan campaign and the radicalization of young Kenyan Muslims now pose a multidimensional challenge to Kenyan security, one that has domestic, regional, and global as well as potentially long-term reverberations.
Research Interests: African Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Social Sciences, Foreign Policy Analysis, Terrorism, and 14 moreAfrican History, Political Science, Africa, Political Violence and Terrorism, Politics, History of Terrorism, East Africa, Political Violence, Counterterrorism (CT), Kenya, Somalia, Counter terrorism, Critical Terrorism Studies, and Terrorism and Counterterrorism
For much of the nineteenth century the island of Zanzibar (Unguja) was the primary node of linkage among eastern African, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic basin economic systems. More precisely, the seat of the sultanate of Zanzibar and Oman... more
For much of the nineteenth century the island of Zanzibar (Unguja) was the primary node of linkage among eastern African, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic basin economic systems. More precisely, the seat of the sultanate of Zanzibar and Oman was a nexus, a critical point of economic and social interrelation that reflected diverse interests and broadcasted shifting sociocultural trends. This chapter examines the articulation of African socioeconomic trends with broader global currents as evident in Zanzibar between the 1830s and the 1880s. In this era, which represented the height of Zanzibar’s influence, the city’s polyglot residents, slave and free, attempted to capture wealth from global exchanges and translate it into social position, among other things. To illuminate this confluence of economic and social interests, I focus on the metabolic processes of the nexus, or how Zanzibaris attempted to convert imported people and things into the productive instruments of labor and local social relations. One of the most revealing dimensions of the Zanzibar nexus was the island’s indulgent, competitive, and often oppressive consumer culture. Zanzibar’s rapidly evolving consumer culture evidenced the deployment of global symbols in the service of local image-making practices. By focusing on how demands for commodities and labor shaped an important node of global interface during a period of hastening global integration, we can better appreciate the particular socioeconomic logics of the nexus.
Research Interests: African Studies, Globalization, African History, Slavery, Consumption, and 15 moreHistory of Slavery, Consumerism, World History, Indian Ocean History, Consumption Studies, East Africa, Global History, Consumer Culture, Indian Ocean World, Consumption and Material Culture, Zanzibar, Swahili Coast, Sultanate of Oman, Consumption Culture, and East African history
In 1840 the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar’s flagship, the Sultana, sailed for New York City. Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sultān Āl Busa‘īdī sought to capitalize on new commercial networks beyond the Indian Ocean and so dispatched a trusted agent,... more
In 1840 the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar’s flagship, the Sultana, sailed for New York City. Sayyid Sa‘īd bin Sultān Āl Busa‘īdī sought to capitalize on new commercial networks beyond the Indian Ocean and so dispatched a trusted agent, Ahmad bin Na’aman al Kaabi, to the United States with iconic regional products: Zanzibari cloves, East African ivory, Muscati dates, Yemeni coffee, and Persian carpets. From the proceeds of their sale Na’aman purchased a cargo of American cotton cloth, already a commercial staple in East Africa. Na’aman was fêted in New York, and the Sultana’s African, Persian, and Indian crew captured headlines across the nation. The Sultana’s sojourn was of such great interest to New Yorkers that the city council commissioned a lush portrait of Na’aman for City Hall.
This essay offers context to the Na’aman painting through a reconsideration of the Sultana’s voyage, a journey that encapsulated the ambitions of the Omani-Zanzibari state. More precisely, the Sultana was a richly symbolic vessel that represented the new material and political interests binding Zanzibar to distant world regions. Indeed, the ship, its mission, cargo, and crew were each emblematic of the emergent cultural economy of the Swahili Coast as well as the wider economic trends that were remaking the nineteenth century world. The portrait of Ahmad bin Na’aman thus offers an extraordinary window on the interface of the Indian Ocean and Atlantic basins, and it stands as a testament to the role of Zanzibaris in shaping emergent global relationships.
This essay offers context to the Na’aman painting through a reconsideration of the Sultana’s voyage, a journey that encapsulated the ambitions of the Omani-Zanzibari state. More precisely, the Sultana was a richly symbolic vessel that represented the new material and political interests binding Zanzibar to distant world regions. Indeed, the ship, its mission, cargo, and crew were each emblematic of the emergent cultural economy of the Swahili Coast as well as the wider economic trends that were remaking the nineteenth century world. The portrait of Ahmad bin Na’aman thus offers an extraordinary window on the interface of the Indian Ocean and Atlantic basins, and it stands as a testament to the role of Zanzibaris in shaping emergent global relationships.
Research Interests: African Studies, Maritime History, Africa, New York history, Indian Ocean History, and 15 moreSwahili, Tanzanian Studies, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Maritime and Oceanic History, Indian Ocean, Maritime, Zanzibar, New York City, Swahili Coast, Sultanate of Oman, History of New York City, New York, Indian Ocean Maritime Trade, and Indian Ocean Studies
This essay reflects on the importance of cloth as a medium of transregional economic and social engagement. Additionally, it highlights the ways in which complementary processes of alteration in multiple locales have augmented cloth’s... more
This essay reflects on the importance of cloth as a medium of transregional economic and social engagement. Additionally, it highlights the ways in which complementary processes of alteration in multiple locales have augmented cloth’s socioeconomic value. Specifically, the history of textiles in the Indian Ocean region evidences the vitality of cloth as an object imagined, fabricated, and creatively adapted. A holistic view of cloth as an economic object reveals the intertwined processes not only of weaving, circulation, exchange, and adornment but also alteration, unraveling, reweaving, and other forms of reassembly. By recognizing cloth as a highly dynamic socioeconomic object we gain insight into the creation and augmentation of value as well as how the process of adding value connects producers and consumers, often through circuitous transregional routes. Ultimately, cloth is an apt metaphor for the changing Indian Ocean world: diverse threads of social and economic relation woven together to form a discernible fabric, while this fabric has been altered, elaborated, and reimagined for new social and economic demands. In the present as in the past, cloth expresses the Indian Ocean as a matrix of inter-societal relationships and a dynamic idea.
Research Interests: Globalization, Textiles, Transnational and World History, Transnationalism, International Trade, and 40 moreIndian studies, Indonesian Studies, History of Textiles, Consumerism, World History, Indian Ocean History, Transnational History, Woven Textiles, Indonesia, East Africa, East Africa (History), Textiles Design, Global History, Consumer Culture, Modern Indian History, Consumer Culture Theory, Consumer Research, Indian Ocean World, Ancient Textiles, Fibres and textiles, Indian Ocean Trade, Trade, Clothing Culture, Textile Technology, Indian Ocean, Consumer Goods, Indian Ocean Archaeology, Madagascar, Indian History, Zanzibar, Clothing, Fashion,textile and clothing, Archaeological textiles and clothing, History of clothing and fashion, Indian economy, Clothes, Medieval Textiles and Clothing, Historical Clothing and Textiles, Indian Ocean Studies, and Indian Ocean Region
The networks of human relation that define the Indian Ocean region have undergone significant reconfiguration in the last half-century. More precisely, the economic insularity of the region has diminished while the postcolonial nation has... more
The networks of human relation that define the Indian Ocean region have undergone significant reconfiguration in the last half-century. More precisely, the economic insularity of the region has diminished while the postcolonial nation has both restricted movement and reoriented the political imaginations of people along the rim. At the same time, the Indian Ocean has been revivified as a unit of social exchange and analysis, particularly since the end of the Cold War. This article explores the meaning of Indian Ocean Africa in the context of a multipolar world by focusing on how the dictates of nations have transformed the region and how the petroleum economy as well as shifting means of social engagement have engendered new linkages. The essay argues that although the postcolonial era affected the closure of certain historical routes of connectivity, relationships structured by contemporary nations and air travel, among other things, have encouraged perceptions of regional coherence. What we might term 'basin consciousness' has begun to reverse the introverted politics of the early postcolonial era and animate the Indian Ocean as an idea.
Research Interests: Foreign Policy Analysis, Cold War, The Persian Gulf, Anthropology of space, Security Studies, and 26 moreIndian Ocean History, East Africa, Swahili, Post Cold War Era, Indian Ocean (British Empire), Kenya, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Indian Ocean Ports, Cold War history, Indian Ocean, Western Indian Ocean, Eastern Africa, Decolonization, Islam in the Indian Ocean World, Zanzibar, Arabian/Persian Gulf Studies, Postcoloniality and decolonization, Swahili Coast, Indian Ocean Maritime Trade, Mombasa, Piracy, Indian Ocean, Maritime Security, Indian Ocean Studies, The Northern Indian Ocean Rim, Indian Ocean Region, and Nationalism and Decolonization
Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette eds., The Swahili World. New York: Routledge, 2018 This chapter explores the socioeconomic and political reconfiguration of the Swahili world from the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian... more
Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette eds., The Swahili World. New York: Routledge, 2018
This chapter explores the socioeconomic and political reconfiguration of the Swahili world from the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean until the relocation of the Sultan of Oman-Zanzibar’s capital to eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. The early modern period was one of upheaval and transition for Swahili-speakers. Swahili polities experienced sustained violence and most lost both economic and political autonomy. External powers aggressively pursued their interests in the Swahili world, which exacerbated local frictions and drew polities into multiple imperial spheres of interaction. Yet, Swahili-speakers to a degree shaped the social and economic networks of the era. New or expanded networks linked Swahili polities to other eastern African societies, regions well beyond the Indian Ocean basin and global intellectual currents. These, in turn, contributed to a Swahili cultural renaissance and altered social hierarchies in ways that would reverberate into the twentieth century.
This chapter explores the socioeconomic and political reconfiguration of the Swahili world from the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean until the relocation of the Sultan of Oman-Zanzibar’s capital to eastern Africa in the nineteenth century. The early modern period was one of upheaval and transition for Swahili-speakers. Swahili polities experienced sustained violence and most lost both economic and political autonomy. External powers aggressively pursued their interests in the Swahili world, which exacerbated local frictions and drew polities into multiple imperial spheres of interaction. Yet, Swahili-speakers to a degree shaped the social and economic networks of the era. New or expanded networks linked Swahili polities to other eastern African societies, regions well beyond the Indian Ocean basin and global intellectual currents. These, in turn, contributed to a Swahili cultural renaissance and altered social hierarchies in ways that would reverberate into the twentieth century.
Research Interests: African Studies, Early Modern History, Portuguese Studies, Transnational and World History, Portuguese History, and 24 moreAfrican History, World History, Indian Ocean History, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, East Africa, East Africa (History), Global History, Swahili, Early modern Ottoman History, Early Modern economic and social history, History of the Portuguese Empire, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Indian Ocean Ports, Maritime and Oceanic History, Indian Ocean, Oman, Zanzibar, Swahili Coast, Sultanate of Oman, Indian Ocean Maritime Trade, Mombasa, Indian Ocean Studies, and Indian Ocean Region
This chapter highlights the mechanics and consequences of Zanzibar’s position as a hub at the height of its prosperity and regional influence. Nineteenth-century Zanzibar was situated at the interface of East African, Indian Ocean,... more
This chapter highlights the mechanics and consequences of Zanzibar’s position as a hub at the height of its prosperity and regional influence. Nineteenth-century Zanzibar was situated at the interface of East African, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and Atlantic systems. As a result, Zanzibar Town acted as a condensed, integrative space through which goods, people and ideas from very different societies circulated and East African socioeconomic trends articulated with transoceanic currents. This chapter outlines these articulations and related socioeconomic phenomena in urban Zanzibar from the mid-nineteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century. During this period, Zanzibar Town dominated East Africa’s interface with the maritime world. Zanzibar Town channeled goods and ideas, amplified social frictions, broadcast shifting sociocultural trends across and beyond the Swahili coast and displayed an unusual cultural vibrancy. Thus, Zanzibar was more than a commercial center; it was a nexus of global exchange, human mobility, exploitation and changing social relations.
Research Interests: History, African Studies, Globalization, Nineteenth Century Studies, African History, and 15 moreIndian Ocean History, East Africa, Global History, Consumer Culture, Islamic History, Islam, Nineteenth Century, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, Indian Ocean, Material Culture and Consumerism, Zanzibar, Indian Ocean Studies, Zanzibar History, and Indian Ocean Region
This article examines the perceived interdependence of territorial rights and social identity in colonial Kenya. In the early 1960s, attempts to win full autonomy for a narrow strip of Indian Ocean coastline – the Protectorate of Kenya –... more
This article examines the perceived interdependence of territorial rights and social identity in colonial Kenya. In the early 1960s, attempts to win full autonomy for a narrow strip of Indian Ocean coastline – the Protectorate of Kenya – encouraged an exclusivist discourse of autochthony. To establish their historical ownership of the coast, both political thinkers who supported and decried coastal separatism emphasized the correlation of race, ethnicity, religion, and physical space. Through competing claims to ‘the soil’, all parties articulated a dually integrative and divisive language of citizenship. As a result, autochthony discourse exacerbated tensions within coastal society, fortified divergent visions of the postcolonial nation, and highlighted reductive definitions of the coast as either maritime or continental in orientation.
Research Interests:
This essay explores concepts of space and relation at the turn of the twentieth century. Specifically, I concentrate on globalism in Zanzibari public discourse and the cognitive maps of individual perception. I focus closely on the... more
This essay explores concepts of space and relation at the turn of the twentieth century. Specifically, I concentrate on globalism in Zanzibari public discourse and the cognitive maps of individual perception. I focus closely on the voluminous writings of the first Zanzibari, indeed the first Arab woman, to publish her memoirs: Emily Ruete, born Sayyida Salme bint Said, a daughter of the sultan of Zanzibar. Ruete’s autobiography, Memoiren einer arabischen Prinzessin (Memoirs of an Arabian princess; 1886), narrates a series of seeming contradictions. Ruete eloped with a German merchant and converted to Christianity, but she became a fierce defender of Islam; she was an East African woman of Omani, Persian, and Georgian descent who assimilated into bourgeois German society but found cultural solace only in Beirut. Her writings, which also include a great many letters and a treatise on Syria, are among the most detailed reflections on cosmopolitanism and global interconnectivity composed by a Zanzibari. Ruete’s body of work thus provides a unique window on self-definition, the imagination of supranational space, and the constitution of a worldview in the Age of Steam and Print.
Research Interests: History, Women's Studies, Women's History, Women's Literature, Indian Ocean History, and 18 moreHistory of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, East Africa, East Africa (History), Women and Gender Issues in Islam, Gender and religion (Women s Studies), Indian Ocean World, Islam and women, Women and Culture, Indian Ocean, Women and Gender Studies, Oman, Western Indian Ocean, Zanzibar, Swahili Coast, Sultanate of Oman, Indian Ocean Studies, Zanzibar History, and Indian Ocean Region
This essay examines U.S. security aid to Kenya, the experiences of those affected by counterterrorism initiatives, and the ways in which Kenya’s internal sociopolitical dynamics shape America’s counterterrorism agenda. U.S.... more
This essay examines U.S. security aid to Kenya, the experiences of those affected by counterterrorism initiatives, and the ways in which Kenya’s internal sociopolitical dynamics shape America’s counterterrorism agenda. U.S. counterterrorism strategy on the African continent entails the coordination of diplomatic pressures and aid-related incentives. In response to multiple terrorist attacks and American stimulus, Kenyan authorities have expanded their efforts to apprehend violent extremists, yet these efforts have led to a variety of human rights abuses while exacerbating historical frictions between the Kenyan government and minority Muslim communities. Evidence from Kenya suggests that unless U.S. policymakers and their African allies address the social tensions upon which counterterrorism is being grafted, security aid may produce few results beyond the alienation of Muslim communities and the empowerment of domestic security forces with greater martial resources.
Research Interests: African Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, Terrorism, International Terrorism, Security, and 16 moreAfrica, Security Studies, Political Violence and Terrorism, American Foreign Policy, East Africa, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency(COIN), Counterterrorism Law, Foreign Aid, African Politics, Counterterrorism (CT), Kenya, Counterterrorism policing, Counter terrorism, War on Terror, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Terrorism and Counterterrorism
This paper traces the intersecting trajectories of policy and projection since September 11, 2001. It explores America’s engagement in eastern Africa, the actions of regional allies, and media coverage of terrorism in the region as... more
This paper traces the intersecting trajectories of policy and projection since September 11, 2001. It explores America’s engagement in eastern Africa, the actions of regional allies, and media coverage of terrorism in the region as examples of the confluence of counterterrorism policies, inter-state relations, and mythologies of al Qaeda. The search for Fazul Abdullah Muhammad and his closest associates provides a unique vehicle to track evolving U.S. counterterrorism strategies in Africa, including security aid, extraordinary rendition, and military intervention. At the same time, speculation about Fazul offers a window on popular perceptions of a war without boundaries, perceptions that have encouraged a disproportionate response to al Qaeda. To contextualize the multiple uses of Fazul I begin with a reflection on two tropes—one official, one popular—that have framed American counterterrorist initiatives in and beyond East Africa: war and specters. I then address the development of the Fazul mythos and its convergence with American foreign policy as well as partner nations’ counterterrorism efforts. More precisely, I explore perceptions of Fazul as a ‘master-terrorist’, attempts to capture or kill him, and his rhetorical utility as a primary face of terrorism in the region. I conclude by considering the circumstances of Fazul’s death and its lessons for American counterterrorism in eastern Africa.
Research Interests: International Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies, Terrorism, International Terrorism, Human Rights, and 31 moreInternational Security, Security, Security Studies, Discourse, Political Violence and Terrorism, American Foreign Policy, East Africa, Just War Theory, Counterterrorism (CT), Kenya, Somalia, Counter terrorism, International Relations and Human Rights, War on Terror, Jihad, Piracy, Counterterrorism, Eastern Africa, Terrorism and Counter-terrorism, al-Qaeda, East African Politics, Somalia Civil War, Covert, 20th century East African History, Caliphate, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Al Qaida, Somalia Covert, Clandestine, Fazul, and international security
The popularity of slain American hip-hop star Tupac Shakur has become a global barometer of youth malaise. Taking a multidisciplinary approach that weaves social history, cultural studies and globalization studies, this paper highlights... more
The popularity of slain American hip-hop star Tupac Shakur has become a global barometer of youth malaise. Taking a multidisciplinary approach that weaves social history, cultural studies and globalization studies, this paper highlights the convergence of socioeconomic alienation and media proliferation since the early 1990s. I argue that this confluence has given rise to new global heroes such as Tupac, icons that have become components of a planetary symbolic lingua franca that has yet to gain significant analytical attention. I outline the transnational import of Tupac by considering combatants’ evocations of him during the Sierra Leone civil war (1991–2002). Militant factions’ attraction to Tupac – their use of Tupac T-shirts as fatigues and incorporation of his discourse into their worldviews – offers insight on how young people have sought broader relevance for their particular experiences through the imagery of global popular culture. Tupac references allow for a powerful stereoscopy; they reveal mediated communities of sentiment as well as the psychological traumas of violence and social alienation. The symbolic discourse of Tupac imagery during the Sierra Leone war thus expands the relevance of a civil war to broader patterns of alienation while revealing planetary sentiments in the minutia of Sierra Leone’s devastation.
Research Interests: Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Sociology of Conflict, African Studies, Anthropology, and 24 moreCultural Sociology, Anthropology of Music, Popular Music Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Popular Music, Popular Culture, Social and Cultural Anthropology, War Studies, African History, History of West Africa, Africa, West Africa, Culture, Youth Culture, Sociology of War, Armed Conflict, Sierra Leone, Hip-Hop/Rap, Cultural Anthropology, War and violence, Special Court for Sierra Leone, Tupac Shakur, JERMAINE TURBO VAN WYK, and Revolutionary United Front
This essay addresses myths about al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Muhammad and their implications for American foreign policy. The essay demonstrates how Fazul's legend mirrors broader genealogies of information that shape contemporary... more
This essay addresses myths about al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Muhammad and their implications for American foreign policy. The essay demonstrates how Fazul's legend mirrors broader genealogies of information that shape contemporary perceptions of terrorism. Fazul orchestrated two major al Qaeda attacks in Kenya, including the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy, but he has also become the object of fantastic speculation—the product of a psychology of fear combined with a popular imagination saturated with the layered syntax of the entertainment industry's imagery. Fazul's myth reveals how, in declaring war on terrorism, we have likewise waged a shadow war against the projections of collective paranoia.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Terrorism, International Terrorism, Popular Culture, Visual Culture, and 20 moreDiscourse, Political Violence and Terrorism, Culture, History of Terrorism, Moral Panic, Just War Theory, Somalia, Counter terrorism, War on Terror, U.S. Foreign Policy, Jihad, Piracy, al-Qaeda, Covert, Caliphate, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, Al Qaida, Somalia Covert, Clandestine, and Fazul
This article explores the symbolic appeal of Che Guevara within radical Left circles of the 1960s and 1970s. Che’s importance as a shared political reference offers a unique window on aspirational symbols and the desire for meaningful... more
This article explores the symbolic appeal of Che Guevara within radical Left circles of the 1960s and 1970s. Che’s importance as a shared political reference offers a unique window on aspirational symbols and the desire for meaningful transnational solidarity. By tracing Che’s resonance in Latin America, western Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, the article brings into conversation the study of post-war radicalism, political iconography, and the cognitive dimensions of interconnectivity. As a means of understanding Che’s appeal to both protest movements and guerrilla organizations, the article develops the notion of a ‘transnational imagination’, or mode of perception that frames local circumstances in a world historical trajectory and thereby affects collective aspirations and actions.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Latin American Studies, Ethics, and 51 moreVisual Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Cultural Sociology, Feminist Theory, Latin American and Caribbean History, Marxism, Transnational and World History, Transnationalism, Popular Culture, Visual Culture, Cuban Studies, Feminist Philosophy, Cultural Theory, Sexuality, Political Extremism/Radicalism/Populism, Socialisms, World History, Gender, Communism, Transnational History, Sigmund Freud, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency(COIN), Michel Foucault, Global History, Transnational Social Movements, Latin American History, Social History, Alternative Media, American Popular Culture, New Left, Socialism, Social and Political Philosophy, Intellectual Disability, Solidarity Economy, Radicalism and the Left in the United States, New Left and the 1960s, Counterculture, Insurgency, Che Guevara, 1960s, Anti-War, Construction of Heroes, Icons, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1961-1975, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Sixties, Theories of Socialism, Antiglobalization Social Movements, Left Wing Parties, Student Protest, and Latin American feminisms
This essay is an attempt to account for the popularity of Osama bin Laden imagery and its relation to deeper social and political frustrations. It traces both how Osama bin Laden became one of the most celebrated folk heroes in recent... more
This essay is an attempt to account for the popularity of Osama bin Laden imagery and its relation to deeper social and political frustrations. It traces both how Osama bin Laden became one of the most celebrated folk heroes in recent history and, just as important, how his symbolic manifestations became references for a great variety of grievances, ones often incommensurate with his agenda.
Osama became a powerful icon because of the symbolic exchange of 9/11 and because people interpolated the imagery of his actions into a diversity of national and transnational rhetorics of discontent. His image has appeared on everything from protest posters in Surabaya to mobile-phone screens in Amsterdam and graffiti in Rio de Janeiro. Osama T-shirts in Cape Town were captioned, 'Long Live'. In Peshawar and Niamey similar T-shirts labeled Osama, 'World Head' and 'My Hero'. In Caracas, a popular shirt bearing Osama’s image simply read, 'The Best'. This objectification of Osama suggests that in many parts of the world bin Laden imagery is far less contingent on his message than his mutability as an icon, or the ease with which his symbolic acts wrought an iconography that can be integrated into individual worldviews, local political discourses, and consumer desire.
Osama became a powerful icon because of the symbolic exchange of 9/11 and because people interpolated the imagery of his actions into a diversity of national and transnational rhetorics of discontent. His image has appeared on everything from protest posters in Surabaya to mobile-phone screens in Amsterdam and graffiti in Rio de Janeiro. Osama T-shirts in Cape Town were captioned, 'Long Live'. In Peshawar and Niamey similar T-shirts labeled Osama, 'World Head' and 'My Hero'. In Caracas, a popular shirt bearing Osama’s image simply read, 'The Best'. This objectification of Osama suggests that in many parts of the world bin Laden imagery is far less contingent on his message than his mutability as an icon, or the ease with which his symbolic acts wrought an iconography that can be integrated into individual worldviews, local political discourses, and consumer desire.
Research Interests: Cultural History, African Studies, Globalization, International Terrorism, Transnational and World History, and 11 morePostcolonial Studies, African History, Political Violence and Terrorism, Indian Ocean History, Youth Subcultures, Kenya, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden icon, and Mombasa
Reflection on African consumer interests promises to enrich our understanding of Africa’s position within emerging global hierarchies. Specifically, attention to African cultures of consumption before colonial rule can sharpen our... more
Reflection on African consumer interests promises to enrich our understanding of Africa’s position within emerging global hierarchies. Specifically, attention to African cultures of consumption before colonial rule can sharpen our understanding of why--by what social and cultural rationales--Africans engaged in regional and global exchanges that sowed social strife, adversely affected local ecologies, and gave rise to slave-plantation complexes in East and West Africa. While Africa’s global trade relationships created few opportunities for long-term capital accumulation on the continent, the consumer goods acquired through them were vital to position, belonging, and authority in most African societies. At the same time, the consumer demands of Africans shaped global economic relationships well into the colonial era, sometimes in ways that colonial administrations could not easily control.
Research Interests: Economic History, Anthropology, Globalization, Transnational and World History, Material Culture Studies, and 20 moreAfrican History, Economic Anthropology, Consumerism, World History, Indian Ocean History, East Africa, East Africa (History), Consumer Behavior, Global History, Consumer Culture, Tanzanian Studies, Anthropology Of Consumption, Kenya, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Consumption and Material Culture, Indian Ocean Trade, Material Culture, Zanzibar, and Kenyan History
This essay develops an image of nineteenth century Zanzibari consumer sensibilities by demonstrating how goods from and new engagements with distant locales affected the sociocultural landscape of Zanzibar. The East African port’s... more
This essay develops an image of nineteenth century Zanzibari consumer
sensibilities by demonstrating how goods from and new engagements with distant locales affected the sociocultural landscape of Zanzibar. The East African port’s particular cosmopolitanism represents one form of social reconstitution stimulated by global integration. It also represents a material vision of global relations that was discounted by nineteenth century theories of modernity. By focusing on the rise of a new materiality in Zanzibar, I excavate precolonial visions of global relations and cultural assimilations of global symbols. I argue that East African desires for goods produced all over the globe represented not simply a Westernization, Indicization, or Arabization of Zanzibar, but also a reconfiguration of a standardized set of global materials in an attempt to bring Zanzibari cultural forms into conversation with broader global trends.
sensibilities by demonstrating how goods from and new engagements with distant locales affected the sociocultural landscape of Zanzibar. The East African port’s particular cosmopolitanism represents one form of social reconstitution stimulated by global integration. It also represents a material vision of global relations that was discounted by nineteenth century theories of modernity. By focusing on the rise of a new materiality in Zanzibar, I excavate precolonial visions of global relations and cultural assimilations of global symbols. I argue that East African desires for goods produced all over the globe represented not simply a Westernization, Indicization, or Arabization of Zanzibar, but also a reconfiguration of a standardized set of global materials in an attempt to bring Zanzibari cultural forms into conversation with broader global trends.
Research Interests: African Studies, Material Culture Studies, African History, Social science: Tanzania, Consumerism, and 14 moreCosmopolitanism, Indian Ocean History, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, Consumer Behavior, Tanzanian Studies, Anthropology Of Consumption, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Consumption and Material Culture, Indian Ocean Trade, Material Culture, Indian Ocean, Zanzibar, and Zanzibar, Pemba, Tanzania
Analysts of global integration have been rightfully concerned with elucidating global inequalities. But increasing interconnectivity has also created possibilities for seemingly marginal people to affect larger patterns of interrelation.... more
Analysts of global integration have been rightfully concerned with elucidating global inequalities. But increasing interconnectivity has also created possibilities for seemingly marginal people to affect larger patterns of interrelation. By concentrating on how economic power is deployed by dominant global actors, analysts of globalizing processes have largely overlooked the ways in which quotidian acts such as consumer demand across the globe influence economic relations, however asymmetrical those relationships may be. Highlighting instances of direct reciprocity in global networks, this essay recovers some of the ways that East African consumers shaped the global economy during the nineteenth century. By tracing courses of global integration through the complexities of global circulation and negotiated transaction, this essay contributes to an alternative genealogy of globalization inclusive of the local contingencies of intercontinental relationships and the interests of historically under-considered populations.
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This essay is an inquiry into the cultural domestication of globally circulating objects and symbols before colonialism. It seeks to reveal the efficacy of cross-societal performances of similarity—a strategy of appeal that I call... more
This essay is an inquiry into the cultural domestication of globally circulating objects and symbols before colonialism. It seeks to reveal the efficacy of cross-societal performances of similarity—a strategy of appeal that I call 'similitude'—by demonstrating how the strategic uses of imported consumer goods and cultural symbols by the people of Mutsamudu in the Comoros Islands affected British relationships to Mutsamuduans. Islanders adopted the materiality and social discourses of English gentility and through these claimed a moral proximity to the English, which they in turn used to leverage appeals for economic and military assistance. By exploring the case of Mutsamuduan strategies of Englishness we can better appreciate how cultural appropriations in even seemingly marginal locales have historically affected global interrelation.
Research Interests: Cultural History, International Trade, History of Sub-Saharan East Africa, History of the Western Indian Ocean XV-XIX Century, Modern British History, and 10 moreEighteenth-Century British History and Culture, East Africa, East Africa (History), British Empire, Indian Ocean (British Empire), British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Social History, Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean Trade, and Indian Ocean
This article demonstrates some of the conceptual limitations of the Other in the analysis of cross-cultural encounters by interrogating early modern Portuguese ideas about Swahili-speakers. Portuguese authors imagined Muslims of the East... more
This article demonstrates some of the conceptual limitations of the Other in the analysis of cross-cultural encounters by interrogating early modern Portuguese ideas about Swahili-speakers. Portuguese authors imagined Muslims of the East African coast as "after our fashion," and the intimate, though conflicted relationships that developed between these two groups illustrate the legacies of such perceptions. The essay challenges the notion that Luso-Swahili relations were entirely antagonistic and suggests instead that Portuguese interpretations of Swahili-speakers as familiar allowed some East Africans to maintain, and even further, their commercial and political interests. Since Portuguese administrators in East Africa became dependent on the Swahili as a result of the conceptual categories they employed, we should more closely scrutinize the role and legacies of preconceptions in cross-cultural interaction.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Transnational and World History, World History, Colonialism, Indian Ocean History, and 20 moreThe Lusophone World, Luso-African Studies, East Africa, East Africa (History), Mozambique, Global History, Swahili, Tanzanian Studies, History of the Islamic World, Kenya, Tanzania, Indian Ocean World, Colonial Discourse, Colonial History, Swahili Coast, Colonial Studies, History of Mozambique, Kenyan History, Lusophone Africa, and Colonialism and Imperialism
Frank Trentmann’s Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First is a monumental work that deserves a wide audience. It is both a highly engaging global history of consumer culture and... more
Frank Trentmann’s Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First is a monumental work that deserves a wide audience. It is both a highly engaging global history of consumer culture and a masterful synthesis of a vast body of literature on consumption ranging from history to sociology, economics, anthropology, and a host of other disciplines. Yet Trentmann does more than summarize. He expands on and sometimes challenges this literature, in the process offering new ways of thinking about consumer practices and their reverberations since the fifteenth century.
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Dorothy L. Hodgson and Judith A. Byfield’s edited volume, Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century, is a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on Africa’s global interfaces. Indeed, few surveys of African engagements... more
Dorothy L. Hodgson and Judith A. Byfield’s edited volume, Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century, is a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on Africa’s global interfaces. Indeed, few surveys of African engagements with transnational currents offer the breadth, depth, and nuance of Global Africa.
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Research Interests: South African Politics and Society, Indian Ocean History, South Africa (History), Diaspora Studies, Indian Ocean World, and 9 moreDiaspora and transnationalism, South African history, Indian Ocean, South Africa, Gandhian Thought, Gandhian Studies, Durban, Indian Ocean Studies, and Indian Ocean Region
UC San Diego Department of History professor Jeremy Prestholdt explains the contemporary significance of Bob Marley as a world-wide icon. Marley was born on Feb. 6, 1945 — 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of his birth.
Research Interests: Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Music, Music History, Iconography, and 15 moreMedia and Cultural Studies, Popular Music Studies, Latin American and Caribbean History, Popular Music, Popular Culture, Global Studies, Caribbean History, Caribbean Studies, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Social History, Art and Aesthetics of the Cold War, Iconography and Iconology, Icons, Reggae, and Reggae and Rastafari studies
UC San Diego Department of History professor Jeremy Prestholdt explains the contemporary significance of Che Guevara as a world-wide icon. Prestholdt's latest book, "Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac and Bin... more
UC San Diego Department of History professor Jeremy Prestholdt explains the contemporary significance of Che Guevara as a world-wide icon. Prestholdt's latest book, "Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac and Bin Laden" was published by Oxford University Press in July 2019.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Social Psychology, Iconography, and 15 moreSocial Sciences, Globalization, Transnationalism, Popular Culture, Postcolonial Studies, Cold War and Culture, World History, Global Studies, Globalization And Postcolonial Studies, Global History, Consumer Culture, Post Cold War Era, Social movements and revolution, Che Guevara, and Cultural Globalization
UC San Diego Department of History professor Jeremy Prestholdt explains the contemporary significance of Tupac Shakur as an international icon.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Music History, and 13 moreCommunication, Iconography, Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Popular Music Studies, Social Sciences, Popular Music, Popular Culture, Social and Cultural Anthropology, History of Popular Music, Hip-Hop/Rap, Iconology, and Tupac Shakur
From Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur to Che Guevara and Osama bin Laden, history professor Jeremy Prestholdt explains the importance—and changing faces—of global figures.
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Jeremy Prestholdt discusses his latest book “Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac, and Bin Laden” in this Q&A. By Anthony King, March 14, 2019
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The remarkably similar myth-like representations of these very different men is one of the takeaways from Prestholdt’s research, published this spring in the book Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac, and Bin... more
The remarkably similar myth-like representations of these very different men is one of the takeaways from Prestholdt’s research, published this spring in the book Icons of Dissent: The Global Resonance of Che, Marley, Tupac, and Bin Laden. Prestholdt discovers that what each icon symbolizes in society’s collective memory depends exactly on that: the “collective memory” of need and desire, where historical facts are not always relevant. What’s more, the meaning of each icon changes over time.
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"In her memoirs, Salme confronted the rationale that colonization was a humanitarian act of civilizing the peoples of Africa and the Middle East. She questioned the right of Europeans to view others as 'unenlightened' and wrote that her... more
"In her memoirs, Salme confronted the rationale that colonization was a humanitarian act of civilizing the peoples of Africa and the Middle East. She questioned the right of Europeans to view others as 'unenlightened' and wrote that her intention was to remove 'many misconceptions and distortions current about the East.' For an Arab woman to criticize the European powers was unheard of at the time. 'Even in this century of railroads and rapid communication, so much ignorance still exists among European nations of the customs and institutions of their own immediate neighbors,' she wrote. 'She was extremely courageous, taking the risk to project her story to the world and criticizing imperialism and representations of Africa and the Middle East. That was in a way revolutionary,' Prestholdt says."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykqYZVh415E
Interview following the lecture, "Che Guevara: The Global Icon between Politics and Consumerism," at ORIAS Berkeley, July 2016.
Interview following the lecture, "Che Guevara: The Global Icon between Politics and Consumerism," at ORIAS Berkeley, July 2016.
Research Interests: Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Iconography, Cultural Sociology, Popular Culture, and 15 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Consumerism, Cultural Politics, Popular Culture and Religious Studies, Consumer Culture, Social History, Consumer Culture Theory, Cultural Anthropology, Iconology, Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara, Iconography and Iconology, Icons, Iconicity, and Iconic Images
http://afripod.aodl.org/tag/jeremy-prestholdt/ Jeremy Prestholdt (U. California, San Diego) discusses East African commodities, culture, and the “transnational imagination,” featuring his forthcoming book, Icons of Dissent (on Che,... more
http://afripod.aodl.org/tag/jeremy-prestholdt/
Jeremy Prestholdt (U. California, San Diego) discusses East African commodities, culture, and the “transnational imagination,” featuring his forthcoming book, Icons of Dissent (on Che, Marley, Tupac, Bin Laden). He also discusses changing meanings of Indian Ocean Africa and how technologies impact global circulation of ideas, people, and commodities. With guest host, Laura Fair.
Jeremy Prestholdt (U. California, San Diego) discusses East African commodities, culture, and the “transnational imagination,” featuring his forthcoming book, Icons of Dissent (on Che, Marley, Tupac, Bin Laden). He also discusses changing meanings of Indian Ocean Africa and how technologies impact global circulation of ideas, people, and commodities. With guest host, Laura Fair.
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“Tupac has become more and more a mythlike figure since his death," says Jeremy Prestholdt, whose upcoming book looks at the rapper's legacy.
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Bob Marley may have died in 1981, but decades later he is one of the world’s most revered icons. On Feb. 6 — what would have been his 75th birthday — his music and image are far more widespread than during his life. As a historian of... more
Bob Marley may have died in 1981, but decades later he is one of the world’s most revered icons. On Feb. 6 — what would have been his 75th birthday — his music and image are far more widespread than during his life. As a historian of cultural icons, my research shows Marley’s phenomenal popularity isn’t just because we continue to listen to his music. It also reveals a secret of enduring celebrity: Marley remains relevant because the ways in which he resonates — what audiences see in his music and image — have changed.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Music, and 15 moreMusic History, Popular Music Studies, Latin American and Caribbean History, Popular Music, Popular Culture, Global Studies, Caribbean History, Caribbean Studies, Global History, Black Popular Culture, Social History, Iconography and Iconology, Celebrity Studies, Reggae, and Reggae and Rastafari studies
For decades, Kenyan Muslims have felt economically marginalized and socially alienated. Recent excesses by security forces, including ethnic profiling, mass detention and extraordinary rendition, have compounded frustrations. These... more
For decades, Kenyan Muslims have felt economically marginalized and socially alienated. Recent excesses by security forces, including ethnic profiling, mass detention and extraordinary rendition, have compounded frustrations. These excesses, along with reports of extrajudicial executions, have also increased the allure of radical messages, and thus deepened divisions within the Muslim community. Kenya now faces the difficult task of developing a security program that both protects its citizens and diminishes the appeal of extremism. Most Kenyans recognize the perils of the current culture of impunity, and this may provide an opening for reform. The success of counterterrorism will likely be determined by Kenya’s willingness to honor human rights, end impunity and engage Muslim citizens as partners.