Abstract
The epilogue contemplates how the work of establishing urban claims of belonging through architecture and building is ever contingent and unstable by connecting to the 1976–77 rotaka, a pogrom that revealed the perils of zanatany belonging. Tensions between newer and more established migrants grew steadily until December 1976, when in a culminating moment of unrest newer migrants, especially from south and southeast Madagascar, violently killed and expelled “Comorians” over three days. This moment exposed urban masses' long-standing rancor about the economic and spatial dominance by those of Comorian descent, as well as the fragility of autochthonous claims. Yet, even decades afterward, the uneasy, lingering history of violence continues to haunt parts of the city. Broadening to post-independence times, this epilogue situates the rotaka in the unfinished history of decolonization in the region.