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Periodical article Periodical article
Title:Women, Slaves, and Foreigners: African cultural influences and group processes in the formation of northern Swahili coastal society
Author:Eastman, C.M.
Year:1988
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:21
Pages:1-20
Geographic term:Kenya
Discipline:Anthropology & Ethnology
Subjects:Slavery
Swahili - culture
Gender
Pokomo - ethnic group
Social Organisation
Abstract:Certain processes on the northern Swahili coast, especially in the area north of Mombasa up to and including the Lamu archipelago (Kenya), worked together to yield a gender-based dual culture derived from an underlying economically based system polarized along the basis of merchant/client, slave owner/slave, rural/urban. Two lines of argument are developed: 1) that the fusion of African and Arab cultural influences in northern Swahili society represents the differential and dichotomous influence of men and women in the society such that male:female :: waungwana:wanawake :: Arab:African; and 2) that assimilation on the northern coast could have proceeded to some extent from slave to free, as opposed the argument that the south coast went from free to slave. An Arab elite culture gave rise to the culture of the world of the 'waungwana', or 'Swahili gentlemen', while an African foreign slave culture gave rise to the world of the 'wanawake', or 'Swahili women'. (Source: ASC Documentation).
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