On the Swahili coast of East Africa, monumental stone houses, tombs, and mosques mark the border zone between the interior of the African continent and the Indian Ocean. Prita Meier explores this coastal environment and shows how an African mercantile society created a place of cosmopolitan longing. Meier understands architecture as more than a way to remake local space. Rather, the architecture of this liminal zone was an expression of the desire of coastal inhabitants to belong to places beyond their homeports. Here architecture embodies modern ideas and social identities engendered by the encounter of Africans with others in the Indian Ocean world.

Prita Meier is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Introduction: The Place In-Between1. Difference Set in Stone: Place and Race in Mombasa2. A "Curious" Minaret: Sacred Place and the Politics of Islam3. Architecture Out of Place: The Politics of Style in Zanzibar4. At Home in the World: Living with Transoceanic ThingsConclusion: Trading PlacesNotesBibliographyIndex