Desensitized pasts and sensational futures in Mauritius and Zanzibar

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to assert the relevance of ‘sensing’ identity in social analyses of the Southwest Indian Ocean islands. It is proposed that for some time, a broad concept of social change (specifically creolization) has been the reference point for understanding identity in the region. However, authors have tended to ignore the sensorial nature of human identity and the sensory experience of slavery and colonization. As a result, they have advanced a ‘sense’ less articulation of the islands and their inhabitants. Focusing on the senses in human identity and social experience, this article offers a sense-rich analysis of identity in the Southwest Indian Ocean region, revealing multidimensional senses of self in a diversity of social spaces. The author concludes that by fixating on historical dates, broad social processes and the interests of a largely patriarchal society, some scholars have desensitized the past, obfuscating the realities of and creativity emerging out of slavery and colonization. Sensorial analyses of identity in the Southwest Indian Ocean region open up new avenues for thinking about human/nature relations and politics, the nature of ‘culture’ and experiences of social change.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• Mauritius
• Zanzibar
• sensory ethnography
• colonization

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Rosabelle Boswell is an anthropologist, a National Research Foundation (NRF) Rated Researcher and Executive Dean of Arts at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. She is author of Le Malaise Creole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius (Oxford: Berghahn), Representing Heritage in Zanzibar and Madagascar (Addis Ababa: Eclipse); Challenges to Identifying and Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Mauritius, Zanzibar and Seychelles (Dakar: Codesria) and Postcolonial African Anthropologies (coedited with F. Nyamnjoh Pretoria: HSRC Press). She has also authored many articles on cultural identity and has done ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa, Mauritius, Zanzibar and Madagascar. Her work has been funded by the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research; the South African National Research Foundation, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa and Organisation for Social Science Research in East and Southern Africa. In 2010, she served as a research team leader for the Mauritius Truth and Justice Commission, examining the legacies of slavery.

Notes

1 The image of the men carrying the palanquin in Mauritius. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-from-voyage-autour-du-monde-entrepris-par-news-photo/90772354

2 The image of young slave men shackled. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/review-squadron-ending-the-african-slave-trade-by-john-broich-b7dssrmh7

3 The image of the young boy with the 32 pound log on his head. http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/262003.html