1 Introduction

This chapter builds on and contributes to the debates on experienced, lived and multi-scalar citizenship that widens its conceptualizations beyond a legal status and membership defined by individuals’ rights and responsibilities vis-á-vis a state. Recent literature in citizenship studies has suggested more nuanced, multifaceted and contextualized understandings (Clarke et al., 2014; Isin & Nyers, 2014; Lazar & Nuijten, 2013; Shachar et al., 2017; Yuval-Davis, 1999, 2008). The novel contextual definitions of citizenship are especially relevant for research in Africa because, as a wealth of scholarship has pointed out, most existing theorization on citizenship focuses upon experiences in Europe and North America, and thus ignores the institutional and everyday realities of the majority of the world (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012; Isin, 2015; Kabeer, 2005; Kabeer & Kabir, 2009; Robins et al., 2008).

In response to these suggestions, and in continuation of our previous research on the topic (Holma & Kontinen, 2020b; Holma et al., 2018; Nguyahambi & Chang’a, 2020; Nguyahambi & Kontinen, 2020), we introduce a perspective drawing on the work of John Dewey (1859–1952), a pragmatist philosopher whose ideas have had a huge impact in fields related to democracy and education (Garrison et al., 2016; Stitzlein, 2014). Based on the Dewey-inspired conceptualizations of Holma and Kontinen (2020b; Holma et al., 2018), we understand citizenship as something that is constructed by participating in communities and everyday practices in the course of taking care of shared issues. Additionally, we draw on a definition of learning as acquiring habits of citizenship through participating in these practices and reformulating them in response to disruptions (ibid.). Building on these definitions, we analyse qualitative interviews conducted in the rural location of Kondoa District in Dodoma Region, Tanzania. We address two main questions: (1) In what kinds of diverse communities and practices do people participate in their everyday lives? (2) What kinds of habits of citizenship are learned through such participation?

In what follows, we first elaborate on the particular conceptualization of citizenship and learning inspired by Dewey’s work as a contribution to current citizenship studies. Then we will provide a short introduction of the empirical context and the methods used, followed by presentation of the findings of our empirical analysis. In conclusion, we reflect upon the implications of the proposed perspective for understanding citizenship in sub-Saharan Africa in particular, and for contextualized notions of citizenship in general.

2 Pragmatist Perspective on Citizenship

In this section, we elaborate on our perspective on citizenship and learning, drawing extensively on the contributions of Holma and Kontinen to the book, Citizenship practices in East-Africa: Perspectives from Philosophical Pragmatism (2020a). Based on Dewey’s philosophical pragmatism, they elaborate a conceptualization of citizenship as “constructed in practices taking place in communities involved in the public, thus, in shared activities that have an aim of taking care of shared issues, and thereby realizing citizenship habits both acquired and reformulated, thus learned, in the course of taking part in these communities” (Kontinen & Holma, 2020: 228). This definition is a starting point for our exploration of citizenship in the context of rural Tanzania and provides a useful angle for the debates on multiple and localized definitions of citizenship.

A growing body of literature in the field of citizenship studies argues for expanding state-centred conceptualizations and promotes the elaboration of more nuanced and multiple understandings of citizenship (Clarke et al., 2014; Isin & Nyers, 2014; Lazar, 2012; Lazar & Nuijten, 2013; Maas, 2013; Shachar et al., 2017; Yuval-Davis, 1999, 2008). These contributions have suggested the exploration of multiple scales, levels and communities, where citizenship as the rights and duties of members is constructed, and citizenship as belonging and identity is negotiated. The discussions have suggested focusing on “embodied” citizenship in contrast to its “abstract categories” (Yuval-Davis, 2008: 160), scrutinizing the “actual constitution” instead of the “normative ideals” of citizenship (Lazar & Nuijten, 2013), paying attention to how people “act as citizens” (Lister, 1998) and exploring “multi-scalar communities of citizenship” (Clarke et al., 2014: 9, 141). Overall, more context-sensitive analysis of practical manifestations of citizenship has been called for.

Pragmatist ideas contribute to conceptualizing citizenship as actualized and enacted by real people in particular contexts. In general, any pragmatist theorization and inquiry depart from the social practices taking place in different kinds of communities. For Dewey, the idea of citizenship relates to the notions of public and community, geared towards deliberating and acting on joint matters. In Dewey’s approach, the notion of public refers to the sphere where people attend to such shared issues, and where people take part in diverse communities in the form of groups participating in joint practices in their everyday lives (Dewey, 1927: 238–366). In contrast to some other action-oriented perspectives, such as “acts of citizenship” (Isin & Nyers, 2014), Dewey’s notion does not explicitly define citizenship as political participation, nor does it necessarily include elements of claim-making. Rather, it resonates with views wherein citizenship is seen as emerging in a myriad of community groups (Lister, 1997: 29) or in a variety of daily routines, in spite of or in addition to claim-making activities (Clarke et al., 2014: 132). In a similar vein, Dewey’s conceptualizations guide exploration of the kinds of communities that consist of people engaged in a variety of practices and addressing shared issues in any context.

Contextualized examination of citizenship is especially relevant in locations such as Tanzania. Obviously, much of the theorization on citizenship is embedded in European and North American historical and societal contexts (Chung, 2017; Isin, 2015). As such, it does not adequately address or resonate with, on the one hand, the consequences of colonialism for shaping what is labelled “citizenship” in parallel of speaking of “subjects” in relation to colonial powers and, on the other, specific formations of state-citizens relations in postcolonial, independent African nations (Aminzade, 2013; Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012; Dorman, 2014; Mamdani, 1996; Manby, 2009). Therefore, it has been argued that more nuanced conceptualizations of citizenship need to start from contextualized experiences, practices and perspectives. It has been suggested (Lazar, 2013; Mohanty & Tandon, 2006) that, rather than drawing from Western-based assumptions or one-size-fits-all theoretical frameworks, exploration should focus on how “people see themselves in relation to others, and what this implies for their understanding of citizenship in the world as they know it” (Kabeer, 2005: 3). For instance, Englund (2004: 2) has pointed out the irrelevance of state-centric citizenship for ordinary inhabitants in African countries and instead suggests scrutinizing diverse arenas where material and social connectedness—what could be called economic citizenship (Ahimbisibwe & Ndidde, this volume; Kessler-Harris, 2001)—and members’ expectations and obligations emerge vis-á-vis communities other than the state. Examples of such meaningful communities include religious groups (Jones, 2012), producer co-operatives (King, 2015), micro-finance schemes (Ssendi & Anderson, 2009) and community-based organizations (Dill, 2009).

In a Deweyan perspective, each such community is likely to address shared issues and, thus, become an arena for cultivating certain kinds of habits, the “acquired predispositions to ways or modes of responses” (Dewey, 1922: 32). The notion of habits of citizenship, we suggest, refers to a tendency to think and act in a taken-for-granted manner upon issues such as participation, rights, obligations, membership and identities. Habits are formed in a particular cultural and social context (Dewey, 1927: 334–335) and through human experience of interaction between the self and material and social environments (Hildreth, 2012: 922–923). Therefore, habits are always formed in certain societal and historical circumstances (Holma & Kontinen, 2020b). For instance, Stitzlein (2014: 63) shows, in the context of the United States, how habits of democracy in citizenship develop through interaction in social groups; however, given the contextualized nature of habits, the kinds acquired depend on the characteristics of the social groups and communities attracting participation. In addition to democratic or active habits, practices such as aligning with authority (Dorman, 2014: 170) or being passive by choice in repressed environments (Alava, 2020) may also be habit-forming. Yet learning, in the pragmatist perspective, does not only refer to acquirement and, thus, continuous reproduction of certain habits. In contrast, the notion of habit enables change as a response to a disruption to those habits. From the Deweyan point of view, as a consequence of disruption the habits of citizenship might come under reflection in a new situation where the old, taken-for-granted habits do not work, and communities start to experiment with new ways of thinking and action (Dewey, 1916: 107–108; Hildreth, 2009: 795–196; Holma et al., 2018).

Guided by the conceptualization of citizenship habits as acquired in the course of participation in communities that address shared issues, in what follows we scrutinize a specific location in rural Tanzania in order to understand the kinds of communities in which people participate and the habits of citizenship that are learned in the process.

3 Introduction to the Context and Methods

Tanzania shares characteristics such as colonial history and aid dependency with many other African countries. It is, however, a unique example of a long-lasting and somewhat successful nation-building during the first two decades after attainment of independence in 1961. Despite having more than 120 ethnic groups, division along ethnic, religious and racial lines is less significant in Tanzania than in neighbouring countries (Mushi, 2009; Swilla, 2009). When the state has played an important role in nation-building, historians describe how citizenship as sense of belonging has merely emerged in non-state arenas characterized by people’s self-organization (Halisi et al., 1998; Mpangala, 1992). Different patterns in Tanzania’s social, economic and political development have influenced the nature and current status of citizenship and continue to do so (Aminzade, 2013). The state-centric, one-party system of governance from 1961 to the mid-1980s shaped people’s understanding of the current multiparty system among citizens, experienced as a top-down initiative, and supported particular understandings of the rights and obligations of citizens, wherein the role or citizens is to support the state’s development (URT, 2011). Currently, the citizenship initiatives of civic education implemented by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and related to democratic elections and social accountability are playing an important and ongoing role in shaping ideas and practices of citizenship (See also: Nguyahambi et al., 2020).

As an entry point, we used a national Tanzanian NGO, SIKIKA, which is active in supporting citizenship revolving around social accountability, and studied one of the locations where it had implemented projects. The data was collected in three wards in Kondoa District, one of the six administrative district areas constituting Dodoma Region, with a population of about 300,000. The main economic activities in the area are farming and herding. The Warangi constitute the dominant ethnic group, comprising more than 91% of the population in the district, and Islam is the main religious affiliation in the area, subsuming some two thirds of the population. However, despite the Warangi being the dominant ethnic group and Muslims the dominant religious group, there is no single village with 100% Warangi and Muslim dwellers.

The participants in our qualitative thematic interviews (n = 20, 9 females and 11 males), conducted in January 2017, were all Muslims and all Warangi apart from one Maasai and one Sandawe. Most of the interviewees were peasants, although five were also occupied in small businesses. The majority had only primary education, apart from three female interviewees with secondary education and one male interviewee with university level. These interviews comprised a small-scale explorative case study (Yin, 2003) conducted at the beginning of a wider project on practices of citizenship in Tanzania and Uganda (Holma & Kontinen, 2020a). The interviewees had been active in one way or another in the NGO’s initiatives and, therefore, exemplify community members who have the opportunity, capacities and motivation to participate in various groups. The themes discussed included their definitions of citizenship, their belonging to and participation in various groups they considered meaningful for their everyday life, and the rights and obligations they attached to these groups. All the interviews were conducted by native Tanzanians in Kiswahili, a language used daily by all participants and also spoken by the second author. Interviews were recorded and transcribed.

Our inductive thematic analysis consisted of three rounds, with both authors participating. First, all accounts articulated in the interviews were coded according to their detailed, practical content. Second, from this content, the interview sections discussing participation in some kind of group or community were extracted for more detailed analysis, when types of communities were identified. Third, we used the notion of habit to interpret the kinds of citizenship habits acquired, first by identifying habits related to each community separately, and then combining and abstracting these into six broader categories. The habits were constructed based on the taken-for-granted ways research participants described the characteristics of the communities, and the roles and responsibilities attributed to them. Overall, the analysis resulted in identification of six types of communities in which interviewees’ participated—the village community, cultural groups, religious groups, self-help groups, economic groups and civil society organizations—and six categories of citizenship habits: habits of political citizenship, engaging citizenship, economic citizenship, cultural citizenship, responsible citizenship and moral citizenship.

Typically, the individuals we interviewed participated in a number of communities; those who were not active were not interviewed in this study. It is, therefore, likely that our interviews did not capture all existing communities or the experiences of those who were passive, not interested or unable to participate. Moreover, the borders between the types and categories identified overlap with each other; for instance, the line between some self-help groups and economic groups was blurred. Thus, the findings provide an illustrative picture of multiple arenas of participation. In 2018 the initial findings were discussed in two feedback sessions with the communities, providing the interview participants and other local inhabitants with the opportunity to comment on the findings and validate our analysis of existing groups and kinds of citizenship.

4 Communities and Habits of Citizenship

In this section we briefly present our findings on the types of communities in which people participated, the shared issues addressed and the practices undertaken. Then we proceed to our findings on the habits of citizenship acquired through participating in these communities.

4.1 Communities and Practices

The interviewees identified a number of communities where shared issues were addressed and where they actively participated. Most common was the village community to which each registered villager belongs, possessing equal rights and duties according to the law: for instance, to vote and stand for the village council. The village provides an arena wherein to participate in making decisions on joint issues and resources (Snyder, 2008), and functions as an official space for addressing common issues in village meetings and general assemblies. As an example of those mentioned, in one of the village meetings it was decided that village members should participate in building a pit-latrine in the village dispensary in order to address a concern over the lack of quality in health-care facilities.

The second important type was cultural groups, where villagers strengthen and maintain the cultural heritage of their ethnic groups: for example, the Warangi living in the area participate in group cultural activities such as dance, choirs and sports. These provided leisure and recreation, but also addressed the joint concern of supporting integration between generations, transmission of cultural knowledge and strengthening cultural identity in the area. Cultural groups also presented an educational opportunity in which people learned about their duties and rights in preserving their cultural identity and the welfare of their communities at large. Everyone also mentioned membership in religious groups, mainly Islamic ones. These were important, not only for building spiritual identities through participating in prayers and learning religious morals, but also for addressing practical concerns together. For instance, the interviewees narrated how members contributed to the construction and renovation of mosque buildings, participated in cleaning areas for worship and education and mobilized support for the teachers in madrasas.

Self-help groups were established by economically and socially disadvantaged community members, especially women, in order to mobilize resources, with the expectation of helping each other during times of sorrow and joy, kwenye shida na raha. These groups addressed the general problem of poverty and economic insecurity in the face of surprising challenges. In Tanzania, as in many other African countries, forming self-help groups dates back to pre-colonial times (Aikaruwa et al., 2014; Rodima-Taylor, 2014). They provide social protection from unexpected challenges and can help to secure small credits and capital, which members cannot access elsewhere due to their limited economic capacity. Members have a duty to participate frequently in group meetings and to contribute money to the joint cashbox. They also have the right, in turn, to benefit from credit or a gift from the group if in sudden need. Self-help groups were, therefore, both economically and socially significant. Economic groups, on the other hand, were communities that directly addressed the problem of inadequate income, poor productivity of agricultural activities and lack of access to loans from banks. The groups capitalized on joint efforts in performing production activities, and combined forces to market products and collect savings so that each member could benefit through the lending schemes, sometimes in the framework of an established village bank (VICOBA), an institution prevalent in Africa (Allen, 2006). Activities included horticulture, sunflower and maize farming, and goat keeping. Members have to subscribe to the regulations established by the group, which are meant to “maintain order” while somehow remaining flexible for the sake of strengthening group solidarity.

Finally, groups sponsored by civil society organizations (CSOs) were mentioned in reference to those created by the activities of a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that originated outside this particular rural area. Thus, as is common in African contexts, the CSOs discussed usually referred to urban-based organizations that establish their presence in villages by, for example, mobilizing committees to address certain issues based on the NGO’s agendas, such as health, education or the environment. For the research participants, the motive to participate in these groups was to benefit from the CSO’s activities by accessing the awareness created and support provided. A CSO initiative to encourage villagers to be active in monitoring the quality of the health service delivery—the Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) project—was mentioned multiple times. SAM projects are typical of NGO interventions aimed at strengthening citizenship and increasing states’ accountability for the realization of their citizens’ rights to quality services (Hickey & King, 2016; Joshi, 2013).

Overall, in regard to the multifaceted and multi-scalar idea of citizenship, the types of communities identified emphasized the scales of immediate village and neighbourhood groups as arenas of participation, identity and belonging. The wider scales, such as district, region or the nation were less deliberated, mentions of voting in general elections being an exception. This is not surprising given that some of the interviewees said that they had never even visited the nearest town of Kondoa; thus, everyday life was geared around their particular village and the diverse groups within.

4.2 Habits of Citizenship

The identification of habits of citizenship took the analysis to a more abstract level than recognition of the types of communities. There is no straightforward relationship between a certain type of community and a certain category of habit; rather, each habit could be acquired in diverse communities with different emphasis.

The habits of political citizenship refer to the ways in which the quite traditional sphere of “political” was discussed. Exercising political citizenship included voting in elections and participating in joint deliberations at village level. The village community offered the opportunity to participate in representative democracy by voting in elections for local leaders. Political agency vis-á-vis the state was merely mentioned in relation to the national elections when one was supposed to exercise one’s right to vote. CSOs played an important role in promoting this aspect of citizenship through their voters’ education and awareness-raising campaigns, as reported in the following extract:

I am a member of this village and I often take part in village assemblies and other meetings that discuss issues of common concern, just as is expected of every other village community member. Also, every member has the right and duty to participate in the election of local and national political leaders by voting, or being voted into a political position.

Most importantly, however, regular village meetings offered a space for discussing shared problems, often resulting in practical initiatives implemented by the village members. Thus, active participation in the village community contributed to acquiring habits of active deliberation on shared issues and undertaking joint action to address challenges, such as poor roads or inadequate water supply. All the registered residents in the community had the right, and also a kind of duty, to participate in these initiatives. However, some of the less privileged community members needed to focus on their daily survival rather than allocating time to collective activities, and they were not described as contributing members of the village community but, rather, as a group that needed the care of others. Overall, the political habits acquired were those of deliberation, the collective solving of practical problems and undertaking the act of voting in elections. These political habits, where the taken-for-granted responses to village problems were negotiations and working together rather than claiming contributions from the government, differed from habits of political claim-making or contestation of power suggested, for instance, by ideas related to engaged citizenship.

However, in some instances, there were signs of a reformulation of these prevalent political habits towards habits of engaging citizenship, especially within diverse CSO projects. In resonance with the pragmatist view of learning as the reformulation of habits in response to disruptions, these projects presented certain disruptions and questioned some existing habits. The interviewees mentioned an initiative related to rights advocacy promoted by a district NGO and the National Council of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NACOPHA), and an effort to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities undertaken by the Tanzania Federation of Disabled People’s Organization (SHIVYAWATA). As a result of these projects, some HIV/AIDS victims found it easier to access medicines and proper medical advice, which restored their lost hope, while some with disabilities were offered learning opportunities that changed their perceptions of their own capabilities. A CSO initiative that most clearly aimed to change prevalent citizenship habits was the Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) initiative implemented by our collaborator SIKIKA, which included the establishment of SAM committees that were supposed to monitor and contribute to the improvement of health service delivery. For instance, the committee addressed the challenge of mistrust between community and service providers in a case related to the use of photocopied maternity cards during a shortage of originals. It also negotiated with a medical practitioner to get him to change his behaviour, which had been experienced as inappropriate by the patients. The engagement with those responsible for service delivery was experienced as beneficial, as one of the interviewees reflected:

Everyone appreciates the role of the SAM committee in enabling community members to participate in monitoring and advocacy activities to improve health service delivery. Today, the situation has changed in terms of availability of medicines and medical supplies, and the relationship between health personnel and community members has been harmonized.

While SAM initiatives usually aim to promote claim-making and habits of engaged citizenship that hold the government accountable, the habits actually promoted in this case emphasized negotiation, building good relationships with individual health service providers and the community’s own contribution towards keeping the environment of the health centre clean. However, most of these novel habits of engagement did not endure after the CSO project ended in the community (Nguyahambi & Chang’a, 2020). This common phenomenon is related to the difficulty of really transforming existing habits, but also to the fact that very few individuals are usually invited by the village leaders—based on NGO requirements—to participate in the committees that represent the villagers, and wider benefits depend on the willingness and competencies of the active participants to engage others.

For the interviewees, gaining effective habits of economic citizenship were among the most important. Essentially, economic citizenship denotes the ability to participate in groups in the economic struggles that enable one to fulfil social and political responsibilities (Kessler-Harris, 2001); livelihood and belonging were often closely intertwined in local participation practices. These habits were acquired in communities that addressed the shared challenges of sustaining and improving livelihoods through joint efforts in agriculture and small business, while simultaneously providing a basic social protection net. The acquired habits of being able to perform economic planning, to save and invest and engage with practical issues, such as procedures related to opening bank accounts, increased the members’ general capacity to act (see also King, 2015). Economic groups with loose and informal structure attracted more participants than those that were formal and registered, as established regulations seemed to scare participants. Despite the long history of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (SACCOs) in Tanzania, people with irregular income flow found themselves outside such formal credit schemes because of their frequent inability to deliver contributions. Many participants preferred Village Community Banks (VICOBA) over SACCOS, because management of the former was based on traditional networks and social capital, while the latter operated in a formal system in affiliation with certain banks. Even more informal, small-scale and flexible self-help groups provided capacities in saving and credit use.

Most of the groups enhanced habits of cultural citizenship. These habits related to identity and belonging as exercised in the way typical of the ethnic groups residing in an area, and were gained predominantly in cultural groups but also, for instance, in self-help groups. Participants explained that these groups enabled them to appreciate their cultural resources, history and traditions, as well as culturally embedded activities of helping each other. Most of the self-help groups were informal constellations whose main goal was strengthening social belonging and mutual support in forms exercised for decades—if not centuries. Moreover, participation in cultural groups enforced the construction of identities and the undertaking of certain rights and responsibilities, as one of the villagers narrated:

Taking part in a traditional dance group gave me the opportunity to recognize basic principles (mambo ya msingi kwa mwanajamii) embedded in the Rangi ethnic community. Through the activities of our group, we have offered not only entertaining and recreational opportunities, but also promoted a traditional life-skills education that preserves our cultural heritage.

Thus, the cultural groups were the medium of transmission of cultural ideas and habits although choirs or drumming groups were at times also utilized as media for providing new knowledge and promoting the reformulation of certain habits. The interviewees explained how local traditional dancing groups usually composed songs based on exemplary events that should be cherished or bad events that needed to be prohibited. For instance, there were songs that aimed to educate people about safe sex as a way of waging war against HIV/AIDS, while others promoted modern ways of preserving newly harvested food in order to reduce shortages during dry seasons.

Each group, in its own way, supported habits of responsible citizenship. Participants learned to contribute and take responsibility not only for the wellbeing of themselves and their family but also the community in general. Taking responsibility for general welfare was especially stressed in self-help groups and the village community. The habits of being responsible did not only relate to practical activities aimed at addressing shared problems, but also adopted the principle of taking care of disadvantaged community members. In the same vein, mutual support was significant in the self-help groups. While members, usually women from a particular neighbourhood, shared an interest in the economic benefits of the groups, social and moral support also played an important role:

You know…, I have passed through very hard times. After the death of my husband I realized that I was helpless and it was not easy for me to address the challenges I was facing. As of now I am very thankful to KIWAJAKO; with their moral and material support I have been able to pursue my matrimonial inheritance case.

The overall idea of shared responsibility for others was typically considered more important than adhering to the rules and regulations of the self-help groups. While each group had rules concerning the amount and number of required cash contributions and expected participation in meetings and other events, in practice these appeared to be very flexible and negotiable in order to keep everyone on board despite difficulties. Additionally, members were helped with school fees and medical services for their children and funerals and other family functions. The habits of responsibility attached to self-help groups strengthened the sense of belonging, as well as increasing knowledge and skills in executing mutual duties and responsibilities. At times these were also extended to more disadvantaged village members who were helped by the joint efforts of diverse self-help groups.

While all the communities promoted certain ideals of being a good member, habits of moral citizenship were especially acquired through participation in religious communities; these included taken-for-granted ideals concerning virtuous and righteous thinking and behaviour. For the interviewees, participation in religious groups developed some sense of commitment to divine forces from an Islamic point of view. The principal, shared issues addressed in the religious groups were the duty and willingness to worship, to pray and to participate in other religious functions in order to exercise one’s faith and to ensure a good life and afterlife (Nguyahambi & Kontinen, 2020). For both children and adults, religious communities also provided places to learn about the holy scripts, practices and behaviour expected from a good believer. Consequently, the moral and ethical values that demonstrated being a “good believer” were equated with being a “good member of the community”, as illustrated in interview quote:

Religious teachings prepare our children to become good community members and also good citizens of the country. Therefore, this motivates parents to contribute … in order to make sure that our children learn Quran and [receive] other religious education.

The importance of learning the virtues of Islamic faith was also manifested in practical contributions for religious functions. Members voluntarily contributed money, which was given as a token of gratitude to religious education teachers in order to help them to meet some basic needs. Members of women’s groups in mosques volunteered to clean the religious venues and their surroundings and to take care of the preparations for certain religious festivities. Interviewees also felt that it was their duty to make sure that the young ones learned good morals and ethical values in order for them to become ethical persons with proper civic characters which, in turn, were linked to wide-spread and often quoted national values, such as the peace, harmony, unity and togetherness attached to the idea of a good society in Tanzania, and the general properties of good citizenry.

5 Conclusions

We draw three main conclusions from our exploratory analysis of communities and habits of citizenship in this specific part of rural Tanzania. First, the employment of the pragmatist idea of starting exploration of citizenship in everyday practices showed that, in accordance with Englund’s reflections on citizenship in Africa (2004), citizenship vis-á-vis the state did not play an explicitly significant role in everyday lives. Wellbeing, responsibilities, rights, identities and belonging were mostly constructed in relation to diverse proximate communities. The state was practically present at times of general elections, in the village and among its leaders as the lowest level administrative unit, and as a service provider when it came to health care and education. Therefore, the findings support the efforts in citizenship studies to promote multifaceted conceptualizations of citizenship that are formed alongside multi-scalar communities of citizenship (Clarke et al., 2014). At the same time, we provided a new, pragmatist approach, one that understands the moulding of citizenship first and foremost as participation in communities that address shared issues at grassroots levels; here, the habits of citizenship are formulated, to be potentially exercised at broader scales as well.

Second, the identified habits of citizenship revolved around features such as responsibility, contribution, negotiation and mutual solidarity, and, thus, around a certain kind of ideal of good citizenship. In contrast, a contestant, claim-making citizenship that would revolve around demanding one’s rights or challenging existing power structures, was absent from participants’ accounts. The new habits of “engaged citizen”, mainly introduced by the NGOs, included some notions of claim-making, but were practically realized through negotiation and establishing good relationships rather than contestation. The hesitance about shifting from existing habits of political citizenship towards more engaged citizenship resonates with the idea that general alignment with both the government and traditional authorities is an important characteristic of African citizenship (Dorman, 2014; Hoon & MacLean, 2014). Changing such taken-for-granted modes of relating to authority might not happen within the time-frame of NGO projects, although they can provide some disruptions and ideas for alternative ways.

Third, our exploratory study can inform the design of intentional efforts to promote citizen engagement as a means of enhancing local development. Previous research (Gaventa, 2016; King, 2015) has indicated that successful efforts to support citizens’ engagement have taken into account the fact that people’s own priorities often concern economic improvements in their daily lives rather than increased opportunities for political claim-making. However, the lessons learned also show that by starting with already existing groups geared towards local livelihood, cultural or religious priorities, the capacities and motivation for having a voice and engaging with the power holders can gradually increase as well (ibid.; Gaventa & Barret, 2012). Our methodological approach of asking prospective project participants about their existing communities of participation and their ideals of good citizenship, rather than starting with the introduction of new practices, might facilitate promotion of long-term change in citizenship habits.