The State of Swahili Studies: Remembering the Past, Present, and Future

It would be erroneous to conclude that Irish novelist Joyce Cary’s dismissal of Swahili language for supposedly having a narrow epistemic range in 1944 typifies attitudes toward the language. Indeed there were, have been, and will always be diverse attitudes and approaches within Swahili Studies. In tracing the path Swahili Studies as a field of enquiry has trodden over the years, this paper demonstrates these divergent views and opinions, and speculates about the future and its concomitant possibilities and challenges. In short, Swahili studies may be said to have traveled through three main historical and discursive phases, namely; 1) the colonial phase; 2) the nationalist phase; and 3) the post nationalist phase. However, it bears clarifying that categorizing Swahili studies into phases does not occlude or ignore the propensity for overlap between these phases. This paper will trace by way of example and in broad terms some of the key questions asked in the past and present and their implications for the future of Swahili Studies.