Initiated into What? Gender and Adolescence in Zanzibar, 1900–60

This paper takes on the question of how local gendered concepts of adolescence intertwined with global understandings of girlhood. It traces the history of initiation and marriage in Zanzibar during the first half of the twentieth century as insight into the masculine connotation of the Swahili word for “adolescent” or “youth” (“kijana”) and the social transformations that defy this gendering. Historically, upon reaching puberty, girls underwent initiation in preparation for marriage, which came as soon after initiation as possible. Boys, too, underwent initiation, but as an entry into the extended state of “kijana” during which time they learned the skills and accumulated the income necessary for acquiring and supporting a wife. Childhood was defined as the stage before initiation; adulthood as the stage after marriage. Under British rule, Western schools for boys and, by the late 1920s, girls gradually impacted the structure and meaning of childhood and its distinction from adulthood. Also beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, new opportunities for work and other forms of education (especially Islamic) added to the list of post-initiation options for girls and boys in Zanzibar. This paper examines such opportunities and institutions for their effect on the gendered understanding of adolescence. More specifically, I look to the emergence of a female adolescent identity among girls who, as a result of such transformations, remained in the limbo stage between puberty and marriage for an extended period of time. I also detail how this story engages with current “Modern Girl” debates about the various cultures of female adolescence that appeared across the globe in this period.