Street-Corner Justice in the Name of Jah: Imperatives for Peace among Dar es Salaam Street Youth

Young men throughout the world seem fascinated with Bob Marley. Especially fascinated with him are poor, disenfranchised youths, like those living and working in the streets of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who are the subjects this article. What is it about Bob Marley and Rastafari-inspired discourses of peace and love that make them so appealing? Why are street youths throughout the world growing dreads and praising Jah? By taking a close look at internal peacekeeping strategies employed on a specific street corner located in the middle of the central business district of Dar es Salaam, this article demonstrates that such questions are best answered from a local perspective. While Marley's global appeal may be attributed to shared experiences of inequality, the ways this popularity emerges locally sheds light on the particularities of those experiences.