Beyond Global Apartheid: Polarization and (De)Radicalisation in Tanzania

This contribution studies polarization and (de)radicalization in Tanzania. It is based on interviews with 175 people conducted between 2012 and 2018. For this contribution the author focuses on one of them, a well-known Muslim leader in Dar es Salaam. The author analyses the interview with him from a Dialogical Self Theory perspective, using Critical Discourse Analysis as a method. The aim of the contribution is to test the fruitfulness of bridging these two approaches in understanding (de)radicalization. The author assumes that both approaches are compatible and complementary. Both are rooted in social constructivism, dialogism and narrative theory. The author concludes that both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. A strength of Dialogical Self Theory is that it conceptualizes the self in society. Critical Discourses Analysis conceptualizes better the society in the self. For understanding social polarization and (de)radicalization, critical discourse analysis has the advantage that it shows that words constitute and are constituted by political agendas. Dialogical Self Theory can better explain that the other is not a complete stranger but already part of me. This makes compromises between quite different positions possible.