POST-SOCIALIST MICROPOLITICS - KILIMANJARO, 1993

In what sense are current African politics explicable as efforts to 'd omesticate' modernity? In Tanzania the post-socialist liberalisation h as opened space for new forms and objects of competition. A scramble f or control and for resources in the Kilimanjaro-Meru area in 1993 is d escribed here. The variety of competitive activities involved is encap sulated in events in four radically different organisational arenas: i n Chadema, a new national political party; in the Lutheran Church; in a sub-village on Kilimanjaro; and in a local patrilineage. These organ isational frameworks are approached as partially autonomous, locally s pecific, sites of political activity. Each is visibly marked by a hist orical past while also being rapidly propelled to respond to immediate changes of circumstance in a large environment. The details suggest t hat classical theoretical definitions of 'modernity' do not always sta nd up as useful analytic devices.