Between grassroots contention and elite manoeuvring: sub-nationalism in Zanzibar and coastal Kenya

In the early 2010s, Zanzibar and coastal Kenya witnessed the rise of assertive secessionist grassroots movements articulating perceived injustices committed by ‘upcountry’/mainland ruling elites. While on the islands, the Jumuiya ya Uamsho na Mihadhara ya Kiislam (Organisation for Islamic Awareness and Propagation) championed the breaking up of the Tanzanian Union, in Kenya, the Mombasa Republican Council actively campaigned for the creation of an independent coastal state. Locating these groups within two distinct histories of contentious politics, the article asserts that even though in both cases the temporary salience of secessionism revolved around controversial processes of (post-)colonial state formation, the overall dynamics of sub-nationalist mobilisation that have unfolded in Zanzibar and coastal Kenya since the early 1990s differ fundamentally. Specifically, the article demonstrates how and why it is only in Zanzibar that sub-nationalism has emerged as a viable political project. Furthermore, it shows that while in the archipelago, sub-nationalism and political Islam have become deeply interwoven, in coastal Kenya, they have emerged as separate strands of contention. Exploring and accounting for these differences, the article challenges the notion of two convergent paths of regional separatism grounding in the history of the Sultanate of Zanzibar.