Inland from Mombasa: East Africa and the Making of the Indian Ocean WorldA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Over the past few decades, scholars have traced how Indian Ocean merchants forged transregional networks into a world of global connections. East Africa's crucial role in this Indian Ocean world has primarily been understood through the influence of coastal trading centers like Mombasa. In Inland from Mombasa, David P. Bresnahan looks anew at this Swahili port city from the vantage point of the communities that lived on its rural edges. By reconstructing the deep history of these Mijikenda-speaking societies over the past two millennia, he shows how profoundly they influenced global trade even as they rejected many of the cosmopolitan practices that historians have claimed are critical to creating global connections, choosing smaller communities over urbanism, local ritual practices over Islam, and inland trade over maritime commerce. Inland from Mombasa makes the compelling case that the seemingly isolating alternative social pursuits engaged in by Mijikenda speakers were in fact key to their active role in global commerce and politics. |
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Al-Salimi and Jansen ancestors archaeological Bantu languages BLR3 Busaidi ceramics chapter Chonyi cloth coastal East Africans connections copal Culture Digo diverged Duruma early East African Coast eastern Ehret elephant evidence exchanges Fleisher forest Fort Jesus Freeman-Grenville Giryama groups healing heshima historical linguistics Ibn Battuta Indian Ocean inland communities innovations interactions Islam ivory Jesus Kagulu Kamba Kaya Kenya kore Krapf Kusimba leaders littoral loanwords mainland Malindi maritime Mazrui medicines merchants Mijikenda communities Mijikenda dialects Mijikenda speakers Mijikenda-speaking Mombasa’s interior Musungulos neighboring networks nineteenth century Northeast Coast Nurse and Hinnebusch oceanic trade Omani oral traditions Pokomo political port cities Portuguese practices proto-Sabaki Rabai records region relationships Rhapta ritual role root rungu Sabaki speakers Schoenbrun scholars second millennium Segeju settlements Shambaa social societies southern Spear subsistence Swahili and Sabaki Swahili towns Taita Hills Tanzania term textiles Thagicu town’s trade parties transregional tributes University Press urban villages vocabulary word Wynne-Jones Zanzibar Zigula