Marriage as the Means to Preserve ‘Asian-ness’: The Post-Revolutionary Experience of the Asians of Zanzibar

Abstract

The question of identity, shaped by issues of race and ethnicity, is paramount in the multi-cultural ethnic landscape of Zanzibar. This article examines how the present-day Asian community of Zanzibar, decimated by the 1964 Revolution, when an African insurgence overthrew the islands’ Arab rule and expelled the majority of Arabs and Asians, survived in Zanzibar in the years following the Revolution and how, through demarcating communal boundaries and exercising specific marriage strategies, it has managed to maintain its distinct Asian identity. The article is based on anthropological fieldwork in Zanzibar.