Wearing Illkarash: Narratives of Image, Identity and Change among Maasai Labour Migrants in Tanzania

Abstract

ABSTRACTTanzania Maasai began large‐scale urban labour migration in the mid‐1990s, impelled by livestock losses from disease, drought and land alienation. Although they were readily hired in cities as night watchmen and security guards, many urban citizens expressed condescending views of the migrants, typifying them as ‘unmodern’, and as curious young warriors who were lazy, naive, drunk and dirty. Interviews with about 200 Maasai proved these discursive characterizations to be largely incorrect. Although the State has tried over the last century to ‘develop’ and settle semi‐nomadic pastoralists, the Maasai image is widely used as part of an instrumentalist agenda, to advertise items from telephones to tourism. Lacking political or social capital, the migrants manipulate and reinforce Maasai identity by continuing to wear traditional garments (illkarash), and by engaging in practices that emphasize their difference from the ‘WaSwahili’, bolster cohesion and solidarity among themselves, and increase their chances of urban employment.