Paper short abstract:

This paper will explore the ways in which different communities living by the coast in Cabo Delgado try to create, position and represent themselves within contemporary Mozambican history.

Paper long abstract:

The history of the northernmost districts of Mozambique has for long been shaped by different kinds of movement and encounter: between the coast and the hinterland, and between Mozambique and Tanzania. These encounters have often been violent. Drawing on ethnographic research with Makonde and Mwani in coastal Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, this paper addresses different experiences of violence (past and present), and its legacies. It considers the historical construction of difference in a volatile political environment: the impact of colonial and post-colonial memory and forgetting, framed by local, vernacular interpretations of history that reinforce or counter official historical narratives. It will focus on the fragmented nature of history and memory, and the way it is refashioned and projected onto current social and political relationships. It will further highlight the temporality of storytelling, and the ways in which divergent memories are part of current struggles for recognition and political authority. This paper will explore the ways in which different communities try to create, position and represent themselves within contemporary Mozambican history.