Neoliberal Migrants and ‘Bongoland’ in Elieshi Lema’s In the Belly of Dar es Salaam

Abstract

This article examines how neo-liberal economy in Tanzania can be understood through the framework of neo-liberal migration from rural to urban centres. The article draws its context from the post-liberal policy  adoption  era in Tanzania and Africa generally in the 1980s that brought about irreversible changes in socioeconomic and political policies. This shift in policies culminated in massive flock of neo-liberal migrants into the city to market their labour power. Thus, this article uses Elieshi Lema’s In the Belly of Dar es Salaam as a lens through which to understand how literature offers an opportunity to explore various ways in which the city of Dar es salaam is configured and re-configured to respond to the needs of neoliberal migrants. Using Achille Mbembe’s idea of crisis in the postcolony, tagged along with close-reading and contextual reading methods,  the article argues that In the Belly of Dar es Salaam (2011) represents the city of Dar es Salaam as a complex landmark that replete with images of disparity between rural and urban post-1990s Tanzania. Keywords: Neoliberal migrants, Bongoland, Rural-urban migration, Globalization https://dx.doi.org/10.56279/ummaj.v11i1.6