Swahili Worlds in Globalism

This Element discusses a medieval African urban society as a product of interactions among African communities who inhabited the region between 100 BCE and 500 CE. It deviates from standard approaches that credit urbanism and state in Africa to non-African agents. East Africa then and now was part of the broader world of the Indian Ocean. Globalism coincided with the political and economic transformations that occurred during the Tang-Sung-Yuan-Ming and Islamic Dynastic times 600-1500 CE. Positioned as the gateway into and out of eastern Africa the Swahili coast became a site through which people inventions and innovations bi-directionally migrated were adopted and evolved. Swahili peoples'' agency and unique characteristics cannot be seen only through Islam''s prism. Instead their unique character is a consequence of social and economic interactions of actors along the coast inland and beyond the Indian Ocean.