Where are the Women When the Tourists Arrive?: Bodies, Space, and Islamic Femininity in Rural Zanzibar

Since the 1980s, tourism has risen to become the most important source of foreign income for the islands of Zanzibar. This case study of a previously subsistence village that now hosts transnational tourists reveals how intersecting ideas about gender and ethnicity influence work choices made by ind...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Demovic, Angela R. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: The Pennsylvania State University Press [2016]
In: Journal of Africana religions
Year: 2016, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-27
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Zanzibar / Tourism / Woman / Vocational choice / Islam / Separation by sex
RelBib Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AG Religious life; material religion
BJ Islam
KBN Sub-Saharan Africa
NCB Personal ethics
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Since the 1980s, tourism has risen to become the most important source of foreign income for the islands of Zanzibar. This case study of a previously subsistence village that now hosts transnational tourists reveals how intersecting ideas about gender and ethnicity influence work choices made by individual women. Labor choices are a balance between production and identity, and most women's work choices maintain spatial boundaries between local people and tourists. Women's work thus serves as a site of resistance against cultural imperialism by mainland Tanzanian elites and the West. Women's bodies are sites of contestation between local and outsider identities. The discursive role of women's bodies in response to potential cultural domination results in significant limits on women's economic participation in tourism.
ISSN:2165-5413
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Africana religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5325/jafrireli.4.1.0001