Frontiers: Dealing with difference in Dar es Salaam

Frontiers of Faith network co-convenor Theo Stapleton (Social Anthropology) presents his research.  Derek Sheridan (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica) responds.

Abstract

Tanhua Temple, founded in 2018, is the first Chinese Buddhist mission in Tanzania. This talk is based on ethnographic fieldwork volunteering at the temple as an English-Chinese-Swahili interpreter and driver.

Stapleton’s talk will draw on two chapters from his PhD dissertation exploring how the Tanhua Temple fits into the broader Sino-Tanzania space. The first argues that unlike the ‘extractive enclaves’ described in the China-Africa literature (Bunkenborg, Nielsen, & Pedersen 2022), Tanhua Temple functioned as a redistributive enclave; receiving donations and support from powerful individuals and institutions in the Chinese diaspora, while redistributing those resources to Chinese migrant workers, Tanzanian children, and children of the diaspora. The second argues that Tanhua Temple functioned as a place of intellectual exchange that empowered Tanzanian university students studying Chinese who volunteered at the temple to improve their Chinese and network with potential Chinese employers and partners. While their three year degrees at the Confucius Institutes did not guarantee fluency, the linguistic skills they acquired at Tanhua Temple gave them the tools to speak truth to power in the temple and in their workplaces. 

About the Speakers

Theo Stapleton is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, St John’s College. His PhD research was conducted at the first official Buddhist institution from the People’s Republic of China in East Africa. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research at Tanhua Temple as a driver and Chinese-English-Swahili translator, he was able to gain deep access into the mission’s orphanage, monastery and growing list of charitable projects in Dar es Salaam. His dissertation explores cosmopolitan ethics on the Swahili coast, heuristics for thinking about value plural settings, and presents a picture of the monasteries’ engagements with travellers, translators, workers and bosses who operate in China-Africa spaces.

Derek Sheridan is an Associate Research Fellow in the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica. His research concerns geopolitical imaginaries and the ethics of global inequalities in Africa–China relations. His current writing and research topics include Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Afro-Asian martial arts, and Taiwan. He recently co-edited an oral history collection about American anthropologists in Taiwan during the Cold War and is currently working on a book examining how Chinese migrants and ordinary Tanzanians have come to depend on each other for their livelihoods within an uneven and hierarchical global political economy.

About Frontiers of Faith

Frontiers of Faith is a multidisciplinary academic network (hosted by CRASSH) for scholars working on religion in the China-Africa space. Economic and political dynamics in this field have been central in scholarly and popular debates, but the complex cultural side of China-Africa encounters has been conspicuously absent. If factories, construction sites and mines have been the paradigmatic sites of China-Africa engagement, what can we learn from the small but increasing number of churches, monasteries and mosques on the complex and multifaceted ‘frontiers’ between Africa and China?

Visit the Frontiers of Faith web pages at crassh.cam.ac.uk for more information about their events programme including how to sign up to their mailing list.