A History of the Excluded

Book excerpt: The twentieth-century history of Njombe, the Southern Highlands district of Tanzania, can aptly be summed up as exclusion within incorporation. Njombe was marginalized even as it was incorporated into the colonial economy. Njombe's people came to see themselves as excluded from agricultural markets, access to medical services, schooling - in short, from all opportunity to escape the impoverishing trap of migrant labour. Focusing on individual men and women, the story is largely told in their own words. It traces their efforts both to defy and benefit from the most important event in the modern history of Africa - the imposition of state authority. North America: Ohio U Press