Fatima Bapumia, Movement of Medicines along the Indian Ocean in Colonial Zanzibar

This research focuses on different kinds of medicines that traveled along with the migrants from the Arab peninsula and the Indian sub-continent, and the manner in which they influence the medicine landscape in present-day Zanzibar. The historical movement of goods and people along the Indian Ocean is well-documented. The exchange of culture, including healing practices, between the locals and the migrants in Zanzibar is also an extensively researched phenomenon. However, an insight into medicines as a commodity of exchange is yet to be explored further. This research aims to contribute to the study of transnational connections along the Indian Ocean by focusing on medicines, as material culture, that traveled into colonial Zanzibar.