Global Circulation of African Fashion

Leslie W. Rabine University of California at Davis

This is a landmark book in many ways. First, it grounds the study of global fashion in a way that sheds new and important light on issues of political economy, ethnic identity, and transnational aesthetics. Second, it moves far theoretically beyond the "disconnect" that often exists between understandings of production and consumption of fashion. And, Leslie Rabine illustrates - indeed models - the kind of scholarship that is so desperately needed at the interface of the humanities and social sciences: deep readings of cultural materials, coupled with courageous and self-reflexive ethnography. Susan B. Kaiser, University of California at Davis Within the study are some fascinating details - not least a searing indictment of a particular World Bank discussion paper, published in its Africa Technical Department Series in 1993. African Business This book contributes to discussions of fashion, transnationalism and globalisation through its exploration of the information global network of African fashion. Through her exploration of the ways that products are produced in Kenya, Senegal, and Los Angeles, and the ways that these consumer goods travel through international networks, Rabine exposes how inequalitites of power are reproduced through globalised capitalist production...Rabine's qualitative research with producers and traders in various contexts sheds light on these important and lesser-known global capital and cultural flows. Sage Race Relations Abstracts