Overview
- Captures the changing contours of a language caught between parties in conflict
- Traces the role of Swahili as a language in conflict zones over a century of East Africa
- Argues that language as a malleable tool can be used in conflict to create meanings and counter-meanings
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Languages at War (PASLW)
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About this book
This monograph examines the roles and functions of Swahili in war/conflict situations, and the impact of wars on the destiny of the language. Covering a period of over a century, the monograph explores this sociolinguistic theme in the context of six wars/conflicts: the Maji Maji resistance against German rule, the two World Wars, the anti-colonial resistance to British colonialism, the wars of the Great Lakes region, the cold wars, and the ongoing war against terrorism. In geographical focus, some of the war situations explored here are “local,” others are “transnational,” and others still rather “global” in scope and ramifications. In the final analysis, the monograph provides important snapshots of the conflict-based history of the Swahili language, demonstrating once again that language is a malleable tool that can be appropriated and galvanized to serve the interests of either party in a conflict and sometimes as a means of creating hegemonic and anti-hegemonic meanings.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Alamin Mazrui is Professor at Rutgers University, USA. He has authored and edited several books and written numerous articles in sociolinguistics, education, literature, and culture. He has a special interest in human rights and civil liberties and has written policy reports on these subjects. He is also a published Swahili poet and playwright.
Kimani Njogu holds a Ph.D in linguistics from Yale University (1994). He is the Executive Director of Twaweza Communications, Nairobi, and serves in the Kiswahili Commission at the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), an organ of the African Union. His research interests revolve around language, culture and society.Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Swahili in Spaces of War
Book Subtitle: A Sociolinguistic Odyssey
Authors: Alamin Mazrui, Kimani Njogu
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Languages at War
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27338-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27337-7Published: 29 April 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-27340-7Published: 30 April 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-27338-4Published: 28 April 2023
Series ISSN: 2947-5902
Series E-ISSN: 2947-5910
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 232
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: African Languages, International Relations, Sociolinguistics, African History, International Security Studies