ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews existing studies of the workings of kinship in the urban setting in Tanzania. Urban kinship has posed substantial problems of understanding for sociologists and anthropologists. Kinship relations may change in nature and form, but they remain prominent and meaningful aspects of the lives of the majority of individuals. One of the main propositions of modernisation theory was the incompatibility of kinship and modern business enterprise. From the viewpoint of the individual, the cycle of kinship involvement enters its final phase with retirement. Research on kinship relations in urban Tanzania has concentrated mainly upon material exchanges between kin. Gender difference is one of the more neglected issues in the study of kinship in urban Tanzania. Men in Tanzanian societies have traditionally exercised considerable control over the movement of their wives outside the house. Approaches to urban kinship in Tanzania have generally adopted an instrumentalist perspective.
