Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the relationship between the expansion of commercial cinema after World War Two and the cultural and economic forces of national integration.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyzes the relationship between the expansion of commercial cinema after World War Two and the cultural and economic forces of national integration. Prior to the 1940s, mass-moviegoing was largely a coastal phenomenon and its epicenter was located in Zanzibar. There were a few regional cinemas in the rural hinterland of what would become Tanzania, but theaters were small and African moviegoing rare. The excitement generated by engagement with global visual media and entrance into a Picture Palace were among the many economic and cultural divides that distanced coastal urban residents from their rural, up-country cousins. But during and after The War the cinematic cartography of the nation rapidly changed. By the mid-1950s going to the movies and debating films and stars generated feelings of commonality that not only linked people across Tanzania, but helped to distinguish them from regional neighbors. National unity was not simply a political project, it was fostered by commercial networks and enhanced through cultural consumption.

This paper examines the historical processes of this movement towards national integration, analyzing how the expansion of commercial cinema fostered bonds of rural-urban connection. It also examines how feelings of unity expressed in the 1950s by regional moviegoers quickly changed into voices of awe and resentment in the 1960s as the economic, political and cultural power of the capital city Dar es Salaam grew in the first decade after independence.