Heather Marie Akou
Biographic Data
| ID | 139156 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heather Marie Akou |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heather Marie |
| FAMILY NAME | Akou |
| SIGNATURE | AKOU H M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7288-9070 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Dressing Modern Like Our Mothers
Based on two decades of fieldwork in Ethiopia and the Oromo diaspora, Dressing Modern Like Our Mothers draws the reader into the worldview of the Oromo through an exploration of the history and symbolic meanings of Oromo dress practices. This includes clothing and jewelry, but also less-studied aspects of dress such as hairstyles, facial markings, applications of milk, butter, and blood to garments and the body, leather wrappings, and using sweet…
Beyond Listening
In their First Word essay, “Listening as a Radical Act,” Erica de Greef, Shayna Goncalves, and Angela Jansen (2021) argue for the importance of listening as a means to overcome our legacies of colonization. Without listening, it is too easy to assume that “fashion” is inherently capitalist and modern, created by genius designers (artists) in Western fashion capitals (Paris, London, New York) and that everything else is just a pale imitation. The …
Prison uniforms on the outside
With the United States having the highest rate of incarceration in the world – peaking in 2008 at 755 prisoners for every 100,000 residents – it is not surprising that American popular culture is saturated with images of prison. Although the experience of being in prison is associated with humiliation, punishment and a lack of choice (which is antithetical to the existence of fashion), numerous films, television shows, music videos, designers and…
Food service uniforms and the symbolism(s) of wearing a mask
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, ‘essential workers’ in the United States – including nurses, delivery drivers, grocery clerks and waitresses – bore the brunt of extreme scepticism over public health measures such as lockdowns and wearing facemasks. Conflicting messages from the president, the Centers for Disease Control and state and local governments turned mask mandates into political battles. Some businesses chose to require masks for employ…
Freedom of speech
Since their invention in the 1930s, t-shirts have become one of the most common styles of casual clothing in the United States – worn by all ages, genders and social classes. Although ‘graphic’ t-shirts have existed for decades, twenty-first-century technologies have made them much faster and easier to produce. Students protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s wore black armbands and grew their hair long; today, students (and activists o…
Tetela amulets
In the 1920s and 1930s, missionaries and colonial officials in equatorial Africa collected thousands of amulets – devices worn on the body that were made locally for protection and healing (spiritual and/or physical). One of these collections – assembled in the 1920s by an American pseudo-missionary, Major John White – is now held at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University, which accepted the amulets and other artefacts used by…
The politics of covering the face
In 2009, the French government established a commission to study the controversial practice among a minority of Muslim women of wearing the ‘voile integral’ (full-face veil). This led to the passage of a law the following year—widely referred to in the media as the ‘burqa ban’—designed to curtail what many lawmakers had described as a discriminatory, oppressive, and gendered practice that contravened the French values of liberty, equality, and br…
Becoming Visible
Although hijab is just one facet of Islam (and from a theological perspective, not the most important), many native-born converts in North America—especially women—appear to struggle with it: what to wear; what to think about hijab ; how to make the transition and how it affects their interactions with non-Muslims, including employers, close friends and family members. How can converts align their appearance with the values of their faith, especi…
The Politics of Dress in Somali Culture
Interpreting Islam through the Internet
Cloth in West African History (review)
Reviewed by: Cloth in West African History Heather Marie Akou (bio) Cloth in West African History. By Colleen E. Kriger . Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Pp. xviii+214. $80/ $32.95. At first, the title of this book seems to have too much sweep. Much of the literature on textiles and clothing in Africa has actually been about a few English-speaking, sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa (a good example of this…
Building a New “World Fashion”
This article critiques the concepts of “ethnic dress” and “world fashion” along with the common perception that there is only one world fashion system dominated by the West. A new framework—based on microcultures, cultures, and macrocultures—can allow us to recognize non-Western fashion systems that have a global reach. For example, Asian, African, and Islamic dress appeal to consumers in multiple nations and should not simply be considered “ethn…
Clothing as Material Culture (review)
Reviewed by Heather Marie Akou Clothing as Material Culture. Edited by Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Pp. x+195. $89.95/$28.95. This anthology is aimed at breaking down two sets of stereotypes that have limited scholarship on textiles and clothing. The first is a tendency in the West, and more specifically in academia, to view clothing as "intrinsically superficial" (p. 3). This is not a new observation, but Clothing as Ma…
Building a New “World Fashion”
This article critiques the concepts of “ethnic dress” and “world fashion” along with the common perception that there is only one world fashion system dominated by the West. A new framework—based on microcultures, cultures, and macrocultures—can allow us to recognize non-Western fashion systems that have a global reach. For example, Asian, African, and Islamic dress appeal to consumers in multiple nations and should not simply be considered “ethn…
Interpreting Islam through the Internet
The politics of covering the face
In 2009, the French government established a commission to study the controversial practice among a minority of Muslim women of wearing the ‘voile integral’ (full-face veil). This led to the passage of a law the following year—widely referred to in the media as the ‘burqa ban’—designed to curtail what many lawmakers had described as a discriminatory, oppressive, and gendered practice that contravened the French values of liberty, equality, and br…
Becoming Visible
Although hijab is just one facet of Islam (and from a theological perspective, not the most important), many native-born converts in North America—especially women—appear to struggle with it: what to wear; what to think about hijab ; how to make the transition and how it affects their interactions with non-Muslims, including employers, close friends and family members. How can converts align their appearance with the values of their faith, especi…
Beyond Listening
In their First Word essay, “Listening as a Radical Act,” Erica de Greef, Shayna Goncalves, and Angela Jansen (2021) argue for the importance of listening as a means to overcome our legacies of colonization. Without listening, it is too easy to assume that “fashion” is inherently capitalist and modern, created by genius designers (artists) in Western fashion capitals (Paris, London, New York) and that everything else is just a pale imitation. The …
Clothing as Material Culture (review)
Reviewed by Heather Marie Akou Clothing as Material Culture. Edited by Susanne Küchler and Daniel Miller. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Pp. x+195. $89.95/$28.95. This anthology is aimed at breaking down two sets of stereotypes that have limited scholarship on textiles and clothing. The first is a tendency in the West, and more specifically in academia, to view clothing as "intrinsically superficial" (p. 3). This is not a new observation, but Clothing as Ma…
Cloth in West African History (review)
Reviewed by: Cloth in West African History Heather Marie Akou (bio) Cloth in West African History. By Colleen E. Kriger . Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Pp. xviii+214. $80/ $32.95. At first, the title of this book seems to have too much sweep. Much of the literature on textiles and clothing in Africa has actually been about a few English-speaking, sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa (a good example of this…
Building a New “World Fashion”
This article critiques the concepts of “ethnic dress” and “world fashion” along with the common perception that there is only one world fashion system dominated by the West. A new framework—based on microcultures, cultures, and macrocultures—can allow us to recognize non-Western fashion systems that have a global reach. For example, Asian, African, and Islamic dress appeal to consumers in multiple nations and should not simply be considered “ethn…
Interpreting Islam through the Internet
The Politics of Dress in Somali Culture
Becoming Visible
Although hijab is just one facet of Islam (and from a theological perspective, not the most important), many native-born converts in North America—especially women—appear to struggle with it: what to wear; what to think about hijab ; how to make the transition and how it affects their interactions with non-Muslims, including employers, close friends and family members. How can converts align their appearance with the values of their faith, especi…
The politics of covering the face
In 2009, the French government established a commission to study the controversial practice among a minority of Muslim women of wearing the ‘voile integral’ (full-face veil). This led to the passage of a law the following year—widely referred to in the media as the ‘burqa ban’—designed to curtail what many lawmakers had described as a discriminatory, oppressive, and gendered practice that contravened the French values of liberty, equality, and br…
Freedom of speech
Since their invention in the 1930s, t-shirts have become one of the most common styles of casual clothing in the United States – worn by all ages, genders and social classes. Although ‘graphic’ t-shirts have existed for decades, twenty-first-century technologies have made them much faster and easier to produce. Students protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s wore black armbands and grew their hair long; today, students (and activists o…
Tetela amulets
In the 1920s and 1930s, missionaries and colonial officials in equatorial Africa collected thousands of amulets – devices worn on the body that were made locally for protection and healing (spiritual and/or physical). One of these collections – assembled in the 1920s by an American pseudo-missionary, Major John White – is now held at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University, which accepted the amulets and other artefacts used by…
Prison uniforms on the outside
With the United States having the highest rate of incarceration in the world – peaking in 2008 at 755 prisoners for every 100,000 residents – it is not surprising that American popular culture is saturated with images of prison. Although the experience of being in prison is associated with humiliation, punishment and a lack of choice (which is antithetical to the existence of fashion), numerous films, television shows, music videos, designers and…
Food service uniforms and the symbolism(s) of wearing a mask
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, ‘essential workers’ in the United States – including nurses, delivery drivers, grocery clerks and waitresses – bore the brunt of extreme scepticism over public health measures such as lockdowns and wearing facemasks. Conflicting messages from the president, the Centers for Disease Control and state and local governments turned mask mandates into political battles. Some businesses chose to require masks for employ…
Dressing Modern Like Our Mothers
Based on two decades of fieldwork in Ethiopia and the Oromo diaspora, Dressing Modern Like Our Mothers draws the reader into the worldview of the Oromo through an exploration of the history and symbolic meanings of Oromo dress practices. This includes clothing and jewelry, but also less-studied aspects of dress such as hairstyles, facial markings, applications of milk, butter, and blood to garments and the body, leather wrappings, and using sweet…
Beyond Listening
In their First Word essay, “Listening as a Radical Act,” Erica de Greef, Shayna Goncalves, and Angela Jansen (2021) argue for the importance of listening as a means to overcome our legacies of colonization. Without listening, it is too easy to assume that “fashion” is inherently capitalist and modern, created by genius designers (artists) in Western fashion capitals (Paris, London, New York) and that everything else is just a pale imitation. The …
Sociology (11 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Clothing (7 works) · Fashion and Cultural Textiles (7 works) · History (6 works) · Art (5 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Visual arts (4 works) · Advertising (3 works)