Paper short abstract:

The cosmopolitan residents of the Kariakoo neighborhood in colonial Dar es Salaam formed meaningful communities around corner shops. Members of these corner communities were held together by intersecting relations of credit and debt which were constitutive of urban communities and the urban economy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the intersection of credit, morality, and community in the Kariakoo neighborhood in the city of Dar es Salaam in the colonial period. Government officials planned Kariakoo as the "African section" of the city with a grid-like structure of orthogonally intersecting streets and neatly separated from the Asian and European sections by a cordon sanitaire. Despite the anonymity inherent in the monotonous and repetitive street layout, the cosmopolitan residents of the neighborhood, who were of African, Asian, and Arab descent, formed meaningful local communities, usually around corner shops. Members of these "corner communities" were held together by myriad intersecting relations of credit and debt, which in turn were regulated by moral codes embedded in these communities. Membership was defined by a member's ability to lend or borrow money or goods to another member, according to one's status and wealth. The existence and effectiveness of moral corner communities also enabled members to buy goods on credit from the nearby shop. For shopkeepers, the practice of selling goods on credit was a crucial way of asserting membership in Kariakoo. Trust, shame, and respectability were shared notions among members irrespective of their racial and class backgrounds. This understanding of neighborhood sub-communities challenges colonial views of Asian-African relations in Dar es Salaam as oppositional and benefitting only Asians. Furthermore, it exemplifies how Africans were able to create meaningful spaces of belonging in the city. Credit and debt relations were constitutive of urban communities and the urban economy.