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5 - Global Commodities in East African Societies

from Part II - Interactions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2022

Philip Gooding
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
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Summary

Chapter 5 examines exchanges of material cultures. Through the paradigm of ‘domestication’, it shows how lakeshore populations incorporated several commodities circulating the wider Indian Ocean World into their everyday lives, while also showing how coastal traders sought to affect the supply of these objects to enrich their commercial networks. The principal items discussed are glass beads, cotton cloths, and guns. The chapter uses the Lake Tanganyika case study to show how demand for specific products in East Africa affected broader commercial patterns that traversed the wider Indian Ocean World, which themselves were concurrently being affected by the spread of capitalism from Europe. Additionally, it shows how patterns of consumption on the lakeshore served to enhance the status of several bonds(wo)men, suggesting a contravention of often assumed links between being in bondage and of having low social status.

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On the Frontiers of the Indian Ocean World
A History of Lake Tanganyika, c.1830-1890
, pp. 148 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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