Ujamaa, Small Christian Communities, and Moral Reform in Western Tanzania, 1960s–1990

This article examines the efforts of Small Christian Communities (in Kiswahili, Jumuiya Ndogo Ndogo za Kikristo) to carve out a separate space of moral reform and regulation beyond the spheres of ujamaa and state authority between the 1960s and 1990. These communities served as platforms for expressing ideas and addressing social concerns arising from members. They also controlled converts' demeanors and adjudicated issues related to moral laxity, marriage conflicts, and conjugal relations where ujamaa policies and the state had little to do with these issues. Nonetheless, like ujamaa villages, Christian Communities faced numerous challenges leading to the collapse of some of these communities in western Tanzania. This study builds on the scholarship which provides a model for understanding historically and culturally constructed institutions within their specific settings to show how sociocultural and political environments shaped Christian Communities, but also to understand the limits of ujamaa as well as its influence.