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Paper short abstract:

In Stonetown Zanzibar, a UNESCO world heritage and major tourism site, the return of diaspora members while investments on old buildings increase, contributes to produce narratives and claims on the city that helps understanding the sens of urban heritage for citizens and the shaping of citadinité

Paper long abstract:

Zanzibar has become a major urban tourism destination in Eastern Africa especially since Stonetown, its oldest part, was designated as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2000. Recently, the acceleration of foreign investment by the international hotel industry, the multiplication of souvenirs boutiques hold by non zanzibari tanzanians and the transformation of houses into Air B and B flats, lead gradually to important changes like depopulation and sometimes gentrification but also a feeling of dispossession. Meanwhile, Zanzibar diaspora members returned to the city for short or longer stays during the 2010 decade. Since then, returnees together with residents, have been contributing to the production of narratives on the city history, the remaking of places memories and the formation of claims on buildings that were ceaded to investors or neglected by authorities. Some of them appeared to be crucial elements for defining families, individuals, places and areas stories and thinking the future of Stonetown by the community. This turn is an interesting moment in the history of Stonetown to observe and analyse what makes sens today in the making of heritage for citizens, what (re)reshape zanzibaris citadinité, what is the role of places in the belonging process and how people look at the future of their city in a context of neoliberal tourism development. The presentation will examine the links between heritage, tourism, memory of places and citadinité in a context of diaspora return. It will be based on a study of recent buildings claims and Zanzibar diaspora returns in Stonetown.