DRESSING UP: CLOTHING, CLASS AND GENDER IN POST-ABOLITION ZANZIBAR

Abstract

Pemba Peremba

Ukija na winda, hutoka na kilemba

Ukija na kilemba, hutoka na winda.

(Proceed cautiously in Pemba

If you come wearing a loin cloth, you leave wearing a turban

If you come wearing a turban, you leave wearing a loin cloth.)

Dress has historically been used as one of the most important and visually immediate markers of class, status and ethnicity in East African coastal society. As one of many forms of expressive culture, clothing practice shaped and gave form to social bodies. Examining transformations in dress and fashion illustrates, however, that boundaries between theoretically distinctive social categories were often vague in practice.