Settled Strangers
Asian Business Elites in East Africa (1800-2000)
- Gijsbert Oonk - Department of History, Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Rotterdam, Netherlands
This book is an attempt to provide some balance in the form of a history of the South Asians in East Africa through the lens of the actors themselves. It studies the kind of social, economic and political adjustments the emigrant Gujaratis had to make in the course of this migration. By using insights from the social sciences, including concepts like cultural capital, family firm, transnationality, middleman minorities and cultural change, this book aims to achieve a broader understanding of communities that do not belong to nations, yet are part of national states.