Paper short abstract:

In this paper I explore the politics of Swahili materiality and how exotic imports, such as porcelain dishes and bowls, took on sacred meanings in the port cities of the Swahili coast.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I explore the politics of Swahili materiality and how objects of maritime trade, such as porcelain dishes and bowls, represent a complex encounter between African and European systems of signification. Archeological, written, and oral evidence suggests that already by the fourteenth century residents of such east African port cities as Lamu and Mombasa (and later Zanzibar) actively collected porcelain dishes, vases and objet d'art from all over the world. These seemingly mundane objects of trade not only carried commercial value, however. Porcelain bowls embellished the walls of sacred spaces, such as mosques and tombs, and local east African patricians collected hundreds of ceramic objects as icons of family pedigree and religious purity. In local worldviews the true significance of china lies in its connection to the oceanic networks of Islam—it surface ornament evoked the calligraphic abstraction of Islamic visual culture in the eyes of east Africans. Yet European derided the desire for these objects, presenting it as a strange misuse of things that did not "belong" to Africa. It was dismissed as a form of superficial "fetishism" and an example of the African inability to understand the use-value of utilitarian things. Ultimately I want to suggest that Swahilis were very much aware of European perspectives, and that by inserting such "exotic" objects into the most important spaces of daily life they intentionally created a symbolic landscape that did not "make sense" to outsiders.