Paper short abstract:

The paper examines how prominence of Heshima (respect) negotiates power relations and strangeness between Indian Zanzibaris and other locals by offering modes of resistance to challenges the hegemony of the other while simultaneously mediating tension for maintaining social harmony in the society.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past century, Indians have become an integral part of societies across East Africa. Yet, they continue to be often regarded by indigenous Africans as, what Simmel identified as "Strangers". Questions of their racial/ethnic origins, religious segregation, endogamous practices, and intermingling remain at the forefront in marking their nearness and strangeness within these societies, and often leavs them susceptible to different forms of marginalization and potential violence resulting from local struggles for resources and power. This paper, based on over 15 years of ethnographic research in Zanzibar, analyzes how both, Indians of Zanzibari origin and indigenous Zanzibaris negotiate their interaction with each other through the local social ideal of Heshima (honor/respect) to mediate their strangeness across different social spaces in their effort to create modes of resistance against the socio-economic, political hegemony of the other. The paper explores how the local norm of maintaining heshima is employed differently as a mode of resistance in urban and rural contexts by individuals, on the basis of their social status, for asserting their power to negotiate various tensions shaping the social discourse between these different individuals and groups. The paper further highlights how maintenance of heshima, as a form of power exercised through action, simultaneously offers Zanzibaris a mechanism for negotiating their racial/ethnic differences and promoting degrees of social cohesion in the making and reshaping of local urban and rural spaces and places of belonging, in turn reducing levels of strangeness between them and promoting a sense of pluralism within the society.