Zanzibaris have imbued ‘Swahili’ and other ethnonyms with meanings that have shifted over time, reflecting the islands’ changing political and economic fortunes. These have been shaped by trade linking the archipelago to the mainland hinterlands and distant points across the Indian Ocean, Omani rule, slavery, British control, independence in 1963, revolution and union with mainland Tanzania in 1964, decades of one-party socialism, IMF-imposed economic liberalisation, and a stormy transition to multi-party politics. Against this historical backdrop, the anthropology of Zanzibar has probed issues of identity, race, religious syncretism and mobility (e.g. Middleton Reference Middleton1994; Larsen Reference Larsen2008).

Akbar Keshodkar's Tourism and Social Change in Post-Socialist Zanzibar is one of the latest contributions to this field. In the first chapter Keshodkar presents his theoretical perspective, central to which are the concepts of movement and social space: ‘Movement is fundamental to modern conceptions of identity, as people conceive their lives in terms of constantly moving between relations, people, things, groups and societies … Socio-economic processes give rise to the different forms of capital … which facilitate the ability of individuals to move … through different social spaces' (p. 8). The author finds inspiration in Clifford's musings (Reference Clifford1997) on routes and roots: ‘As Zanzibaris strive to move through the post-socialist landscape, they are pursuing new ‘routes’ to establish their ‘roots’’ (p. 6).

Chapters 2 and 3 summarise Zanzibar's turbulent social history, taking us through to the ascent of tourism, the concomitant influx of mainland Tanzanians and the return of Zanzibaris from exile, bringing renewed investment from the Arabian Peninsula and other parts of the Muslim world. (Keshodkar, whose research in Zanzibar was partly funded by the Aga Khan Foundation, is himself an embodiment of this engagement.) When I was carrying out fieldwork on Pemba in the early 1990s, it was evident that the archipelago was becoming established as the second part of a holiday in which visitors recuperated from wildlife safaris on the mainland by lounging on Zanzibar's beaches and strolling through the labyrinthine lanes of Stone Town. As Keshodkar explains, Zanzibar is now a popular destination in itself, with tourism contributing some 80% to government coffers annually. The government regulates tourism poorly: most profits go out of the country; Zanzibaris in the tourism industry have poor working conditions; rents and food prices have skyrocketed; and large stretches of the shoreline – once crucial to the subsistence of coastal villagers – have been alienated from locals. The result is deepening poverty.

In Chapters 4–7 – the core of the book – Keshodkar offers a variety of ‘vignettes’ to illustrate how ethnic origins, kinship, marriage and tourism enable or hamper people's ability to find work, and how notions of modesty, respectability, neighbourliness and other aspects of ustaarabu – the old coastal East African conception of civilised culture based on adherence to Islam and Arabic mores – are affected by current conditions. Many Zanzibaris complain of the moral decay induced by Western tourists and the mainlanders who come to take advantage of the new economic possibilities. Sadly, this antagonism has precipitated violent religious backlashes. At the same time, tourism has fostered new aspirations for modernity and prosperity. This gives rise to what Keshodkar, drawing from Georg Simmel (Reference Simmel1974), characterises as ‘new modes of strangeness’ that emerge as nouveau riche Zanzibaris seek to distinguish themselves from the have-nots.

Women do not make an appreciable appearance in this book until nearly three-quarters of the way through. In Chapter 6 Keshodkar shows that tourism has presented some Zanzibari women – those positioned to take advantage of new educational and employment opportunities – with new forms of power and avenues to advancement. It has also introduced limitations as newly affluent families strive to demonstrate their religiosity by placing more restrictions on their female members. For example, the face-covering ‘ninja’ veils that I never saw at the beginning of the 1990s and spotted only occasionally ten years later are now a common sight in Stone Town.

Chapter 8 concludes the volume by recapitulating points made earlier in the book and by highlighting the unintended effects of the ruling party's measures to retain power, its poorly executed programme of economic liberalisation, and its efforts to suppress ustaarabu as the cornerstone of identity. As Keshodkar elucidates, the consequences include the resurgence of ethnic animosities, the renewal of Arab and Middle Eastern influence and an ever more precarious economic situation for most Zanzibaris.

The book would have benefited from better copyediting, a vigorous pruning of routes/roots (the homophonic pair pops up in the text with distracting frequency), and more women's voices and insight into their diverse experiences. I did not find the analysis particularly illuminated by Keshodkar's application of the notion of individuals' movement into and out of spaces, as expressed in fustian passages like this one: ‘As tourism re-appropriates spaces in which Zanzibaris are now moving, the nature of their movements through these spaces facilitates their ability to develop new dispositions and social distinctions for classifying themselves and others around them, and in the process, re-constitute various aspects of their identities’ (p. 70). However, the author's sound descriptive ethnography clearly reveals that tourism is changing the ways in which Zanzibaris think about their own, and others', identities. Because it sensitively explores the dilemmas with which Zanzibaris are grappling, Tourism and Social Change in Post-Socialist Zanzibar is a welcome addition to the social study of the archipelago as well as to broader discussions of tourism, diaspora, modernity and globalisation. The book will therefore also be of interest to a wider academic readership.