Contribution to Book
Skype, Facebook & Chat Rooms: New Modes of Expression and Changing Gender Relations among Swahili Youth at Home and Abroad
Translocal Connections across the Indian Ocean
(2018)
Abstract
Though Indian Ocean trade and the Islamic religion are generally believed to be the
impetus for the Swahili people’s cosmopolitan sensibility, certainly long distance
courtship and marriage intensified Swahili translocal identity and continue to do so.
Today, the internet and cell phones facilitate communication between those
separated by distance. Communication has never been so cheap or so easy, a
situation that has allowed for the creation of virtual translocal spaces, where people
can “meet” and “chat” privately ways that were previously unimaginable. An
example of this is the open communication that young people of the opposite sex
now enjoy in Lamu Town, Kenya.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
Editor
Francesca Declich
Publisher
Brill
Citation Information
Rebecca Gearhart. "Skype, Facebook & Chat Rooms: New Modes of Expression and Changing Gender Relations among Swahili Youth at Home and Abroad" Leiden/BostonTranslocal Connections across the Indian Ocean (2018) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/rebecca_gearhart/15/