Claiming Territory: Medical Mission, Interreligious Revivalism, and the Spatialization of Health Interventions in Urban Tanzania

Abstract

Over the past decades, new religious actors have become involved in the provision of medical care in urban Tanzania. Muslim revivalist organizations and neo-Pentecostal churches in particular have established a range of health interventions that are tied to revisionist claims about religion, spirituality, and politics in society. In this article I discuss medical mission in Dar es Salaam in the light of (post)colonial histories of health service provision as well as with regard to inter- and intradenominational contestations over health and well-being, a morally acceptable life, and political participation. I argue that the nature of the inscription of revivalist organizations in urban space through health interventions depends on their structural location and their respective members' social and economic capital. I also show that the ongoing transformations of urban space through medical mission have become reflective of, as well as are triggering, moral interpretations of history and social inequality in contemporary Tanzania.

Politics of Religious Schooling: Christian and Muslim Engagements with Education in Africa

“…Authors also stress that the current success of religious organizations in the transnational development arena needs to be related to the broader processes of neoliberal restructuring and a related (partial) withdrawal of national governments from the areas of social services provision. These areas are now (partially) taken over by Christian as well as Muslim actors who offer structures of social and economic support, and articulate an idiom of moral and social renewal that appears as an attractive alternative to governmental institutions and rhetoric (Bornstein 2005;Schulz 2006Schulz , 2010aDilger 2009Dilger, Burchardt, and van Dijk 2010;Salih 2004;Kaag 2007;Bompani and Frahm-Arp 2010). Because of the shrinking capacities of the state to provide schooling for its young citizens-and the parallel pressure exerted by international organizations to guarantee universal access to education-a host of actors and organizations are currently moving into the educational field.…”

“…Also characteristic of current religious renewal movements are the multiple forms of interaction, collaboration, and sometimes cooptation that supporters of religious renewal establish with the institutions and representatives of the state (e.g., Otayek 1993;Brenner 1993;Obadare 2006;Bornstein 2005;Bompani and Frahm-Arp 2010;Schulz 2012a). Third, most present-day Christian and Muslim renewal trends capitalize substantially on the financial and infrastructural support of organizations that operate at a transnational level (e.g., Marshall-Fratani 1999;Hearn 2002;Seesemann 2002Seesemann , 2007Kaag 2007;Dilger 2009;Stambach 2010). 3 Last but not least, the new public prominence of Christian and Muslim revivalist trends has been supported (though not prompted) by the liberalization of the media landscapes in many African states since the 1990s (Meyer and Moors 2006;Schulz 2012a).…”

Embodying values and socio-religious difference: new markets of moral learning in Christian and Muslim schools in urban Tanzania

“…that Christians have secured in contemporary Tanzania can only be understood in the context of the intertwined histories of religious difference and social inequality, revivalist Muslims have feltand continue to feelmarginalized due to the allegedly higher social and educational status that Christians have secured since colonial times (Dilger 2013). Muslim revivalists have also launched several initiatives to overcome social inequalities that are closely linked with the articulation of religious difference (Loimeier 2007;Dilger 2014a;2014b;Becker 2015).…”

Obscuring and Revealing: Muslim Engagement with Volunteering and the Aid Sector in Tanzania

“…In this context, attempts by the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF), an important Tanzanian PEPFAR partner, to include Muslim intermediaries in the distribution of PEPFAR funds initially encountered little success (interview with Mihayo Mageni Bupamba, Dar es Salaam, 2005). While health facilities with Muslim sponsors have become a part of the Tanzanian cityscape (Dilger 2014), Muslims not aligned with Bakwata express concerns at the possibility of government interference with funding flows and remain distant from official AIDS policy. As for Bakwata, its efforts have remained limited to its established role as an umbrella organization for mosques and schools rather than health facilities (interview with Hashim Kalinga, Dar es Salaam, 2012; interview with Muhammad Hamisi Saidi, Dar es Salaam, 2012).…”