African Literature and Globalization: Semiotizing Space in a Tanzanian Novel

Globalization offers a number of challenges to social-scientific research, the most important of which is to arrive at empirical substantiations of concepts such as flow, centre-periphery and networks. In this paper, it is argued that conceptualizations of space are a useful starting point for such analyses. The authors investigate a Tanzanian novel written by Gabriel Ruhumbika, Miradi Bubu ya Wazalendo. The novel is a critique of Ujamaa Tanzania, and it sketches the life history of two Tanzanians. In the construction of the plot and the characters, extensive use is made of locally salient perceptions of space: good versus bad neighbourhoods, poor versus affluent regions. Such perceptions of space are closely tied to the identities of the characters and they attribute presupposable meanings to their activities. Thus, we see local perceptions of centres and peripheries at work, and mobility appears as a crucial feature in the organization of Ruhumbika's critique of Ujamaa. In turn, the book itself is diasporic and its meanings need to be repatriated for a Tanzanian readership. The locality of the book, inscribed in the local semiotics of space, appears to be caught in a complex dynamic of localization and translocalization, creating a true 'diasporic' act of cultural production and turning the book into a typical example of culture in a globalization framework. Mobility appears to define the cultural product, and this has implications for social-scientific studies in general.