Respatializing culture, recasting gender in peri-urban sub-Saharan Africa: Maasai ethnicity and the 'cash economy' at the rural-urban interface, Tanzania

This article spotlights Maasai ethnic identity in Tanzania as a site of social, cultural, and political transformations triggered by urbanization and market liberalization. Important social and cultural changes have occurred among east African pastoralists as they have entered the 'cash economy'. Research done since the 1980's on the integration between the rural, pastoral economy and urban, 'cash' economy has depicted these changes largely as loss, e.g. of tradition and culture expressed as a weakening of traditional institutions. This article calls into question the narrative of change as loss. It eschews value judgment about 'tradition' and 'modernity' in relation to 'being Maasai' by recognizing Maasai ethnic identity, culture and gender roles as a blend of old and new meanings continually reshuffled as the Maasai partake in different social spheres, in and out of the 'cash economy', at the rural-urban interface. The article employs the theoretical framework of social, cultural, and rural geography, and is grounded in ethnographic analysis to unearth the negotiations and contestations over what it means to be Maasai today, including gender-based meanings connected to being Maasai men and being Maasai women.