The fabric of Africanity
Tracing the global threads of authenticity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2401701 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nina Sylvanus (0000-0002-3079-7714, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 201-216 |
| Publication date | 2007-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropological Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1463-4996 • E-ISSN: 1741-2641 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1463499607077298 |
| OpenAlex | W1980238155 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 24 |
| References cited | 17 |
This article explores the global circulation of a commodity - African wax-prints, manufactured since the late 19th century in Europe for the West African market and increasingly reproduced today in China - by way of focusing on the idea of the `authentically African'. Exploring the biography of wax fabric, this article seeks to cross-examine what serves as a parameter of authenticity, both in international markets, in which the African signifier appears as a source of the renewal of identity, and in Africa, where wax fabric's integration into local structures of consumption as a status symbol is informed by the principles of simulation and imitation. I suggest that the notion of `Africanity' is a conceptual construction whose validation depends more on the observer's gaze than on the object of that gaze in the context of western consumption practices. I propose that the trajectory of wax-cloth, not only in Africa, but also in international markets, is based on the principle of reproduction and imitation which determines the notion of authenticity
Aesthetics · Art · Commodity · Consumption (sociology · Context (archaeology · Economics · Epistemology · Gaze · Identity (music · Imitation · Linguistics · Market economy · Object (grammar · Social science · Sociology · Symbol (formal · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Computer Science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
Smugglers , Fayuqueros, Piratas
We have rights to designs’
Patching sites, patching data
Transcultural body spaces
Of Mutuality and Copying
From Your Size to My Size
The ‘third tier’ of globalization
Tanzania’s batik industry
The foreign and the familiar
Chinese goods in Africa
Commemorative textiles
Dress Politics and Framing Self in Ghana
From local to grobal, and back
Fashions in Africa, and Africas in Fashion – Global Africa as Method
Sustainable Internal Marketing and Internal Customer Motivation Model
Colonial threads to made in China
From rage to riches
Weaving gender in open collaborative innovation, traditional cultural expressions, and intellectual property
Brands and Their Surfeits
Negotiating Authentic Objects and Authentic Selves
The Fabric of Friendship
Fabrics of Identity
Asr Forum
Chinese Devils, the Global Market, and the Declining Power of Togo's Nana-Benzes
Sharing the Same Bowl
Entangled Objects
The cultural biography of things
Provincializing Europe
The Invention Of Tradition
Indigenous Cloth Trade and Marketing in Africa
Yinka Shonibare
The Art of African Textiles
Nana et pêcheurs du port de Lomé
Another Image of Africa
Entangled objects
L'Afrique
Des racines et (dé)routes
Money Has No Smell
| Unique citing works | 24 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,33 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2026 (19) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 24 |