Developing Automobile Culture in Tanzania

Abstract

the ‘tendencies, orientations and virtualities’ involved in the production of urban space. For him, the move toward ‘urban society’ is a postindustrial, universal process of human life becoming more complex with dense ‘interrelated networks’ of relationships wherein the urban space produces a constant tension between homogenizing and differentiating forces. It would take far more space than this book review allows for me to explore, but as I read Making Identity I pondered how Lefebvre’s concept would, or would not, apply to Bagamoyo as it became an urban society, with tensions pulling toward localization and globalization at the same time. Likewise, Doreen Massey’s work on ‘a global sense of place’ would to my mind clearly resonate with Fabian’s analysis of cosmopolitanism and localization in Bagamoyo. Like Fabian, Massey was working to rethink ‘our sense of place’, to see it not simply as a defensive, reactionary attachment but as an ‘outward-looking’ strategy for engaging with the world, as Wabagamoyo often seem to have done over the period of time Fabian examines. But the book is already quite thick with references and empirical detail, so these are perhaps questions for someone else’s book. I have been engaging with the debates in which Fabian engages for 40 years, and yet I still learned much from Making Identity. The breadth, depth, and range of Fabian’s archival work is astounding, including extensive work in the UK, Germany, Tanzania, Zanzibar, and elsewhere, utilizing French, German, Swahili, and English-language documents. Fabian’s careful reading and deployment of archival evidence is masterful, backed by judicious use of oral interviews. It is a valuable contribution to African urban history on several fronts at once.