This book is the first study of displaced Mozambican men, women, and children—from refugees and asylum seekers to liberation leaders, students, and migrant workers—during the war for independence from Portugal (1964-1974).
Throughout the war, two distinct communities of Mozambicans emerged. On the one hand, a minority of students and liberation leaders, congregated in Dar es Salaam and, on the other, the majority of Mozambicans, who settled in refugee camps. Joanna T. Tague attends to both these groups by juxtaposing the experiences of the two. Using a diverse range of archival materials and oral interviews, she argues that during decolonization the displaced acted as their own agents and strategized their own trajectories in exile. Compelling scholars to reconsider how governments, aid agencies, local citizens, and the displaced themselves defined, debated, and reconstituted what it meant to be a "refugee" in Africa during decolonization, this book ultimately shows how the state of being a refugee could be generative and productive, rather than simply debilitating and destructive.
Displaced Mozambicans in Postcolonial Tanzania will be invaluable for students and scholars of African and world contemporary history.