Locating the ‘customary’ in post-colonial Tanzania’s politics: the shifting modus operandi of the rural state

This paper examines how both rhetoric about custom and practices drawing on elements of deep-rooted political culture remain relevant in post-colonial Tanzania. This is the case despite the Tanzanian government’s aggressively modernising stance and the erasure of colonial-era ‘traditional’ chiefs after independence. The paper identifies three patterns. Firstly, witchcraft cleansing remains a rare flashpoint over which rural people are willing to defy officials, amid legislation that has barely moved on from the colonial period. Secondly, for defenders of certain practices, describing them as customary is a way to try to place them beyond criticism, while for officials it becomes a way to wash their hands of the attendant problems. Lastly, a performative political practice can be discerned in the interactions between rural populations, officials and development experts that resonate with descriptions of pre-colonial political encounters. By looking for local legitimacy in interactions with so-called elders, development experts have become arbiters of (pseudo-)traditional authority despite their modernising identity. These observations show that discourses about and practices drawing on the customary have become deeply imbricated with the political practices of the rural state.