Through the intricate interplay of quality, form and decoration, cloth accomplishes far more than protecting the body.Footnote 1 In many African societies, cloth is a store of wealth, a means of exchange, a bridewealth payment (Picton Reference Picton1995; Steiner Reference Steiner1985), and, when transformed into clothing, a vehicle of complex messages that relate to individual beauty and rank as well as the social tensions that exist in interpersonal relations when it is decorated with proverbs and symbols (Beck Reference Beck2001; Domowitz Reference Domowitz1992). Cloth is a complex medium that is used to both construct and contest social and individual identities (Allman Reference Allman2004; Hendrickson Reference Hendrickson and Hendrickson1996) and to bring out one's true self (Miller Reference Miller, Küchler and Miller2005); to mobilize politically and for camouflage and carnivalesque disguise. This themed part issue explores examples of particular types of uniforms, how people use decorated cloth, and the projects for which they use it when they wear dress with the same decoration for specific, often recurrent, events.
Such decorated uniforms made from industrially produced fabrics have been observed at naming ceremonies, funerals, chiefs' installation festivities and weddings, at political and religious events, concerts, commemoration ceremonies and festivals at least since the early twentieth century. Participants at these events wear uniforms of decorated wax, fancy cloth or T-shirts, some of which also have printed photographs, brands and/or logos on them. Depending on the context, some of these uniforms resemble each other quite closely, while others allow for individual differences. With their uniforms, the participants visualize a sense of belonging to a community that reflects different degrees of association, ranging from casual gatherings at these events to more rooted and longer-term affiliations.
Uniforms reduce visible differences in a group (Allman Reference Allman2004; Joseph Reference Joseph1986). They also create difference with non-members, such as other social and professional associations and groups that wear a particular ethnic or national dress (Eicher Reference Eicher1995; Hendrickson Reference Hendrickson and Hendrickson1996), regardless of whether the uniforms comprise hand-made fabrics, individually tailored dresses, or industrially produced apparel. Uniforms emphasize sameness and consolidate group membership (Allman Reference Allman2004; Joseph Reference Joseph1986) while participants' individualities retreat into the background. The meaning of such clothing shifts again and symbolizes an asymmetrical relationship when a group wears dress that is decorated with photographs and/or specific logos. This suggests that decoration does something important to the cloth and that it conveys particular meanings to participants and observers. It is on this meaning of ‘uniformization’ and the ideas and projects behind it that the contributions to this issue offer insight in their discussions of social associations (Fokwang) and of large groups of people who celebrate annual events wearing a particular and uniform outfit (Adrover; Pommerolle and Ngaméni; Röschenthaler, this issue).
PERSPECTIVES AND CONTEXTS OF CLOTH IN AFRICA
A closer look at African cloth practices will provide a better understanding of the present-day meanings of associations' decorated uniforms and of the dress that bears the photographs of individuals. The possession of cloth is a visual assertion of wealth and power. In most African societies, kings and chiefs had (and often still have) a prerogative to receive and own the most precious, rare and decorated objects and the most elaborate costumes,Footnote 2 some of which they were expected in turn to redistribute and provide to their subjects. In many societies, the men's prestige depended, and still depends, on their capacity to dress their women and children. In some contexts, women owned and hoarded hundreds of locally produced or imported fabrics as a store of wealth (Cordonnier Reference Cordonnier1987; Picton Reference Picton1995; Spencer Reference Spencer1982; Steiner Reference Steiner1985; Sylvanus Reference Sylvanus2008); they received these from their husbands, or, depending on the context, produced and/or traded them themselves (Denzer Reference Denzer1994).
Cloth reflects the wealth of the elites, but styles, tastes and fashions differ locally and in different times (Adenaike Reference Adenaike and Mazzaoui1998: 260–1; Martin Reference Martin1994). As a medium to indicate social distinction or as a social skin (Turner Reference Turner, Burroughs and Ehrenreich1993), cloth is the visual expression of complex social differentiation. A good example is the study by Renne (Reference Renne1996), who examined the distinct categories of women and men in a part of Yorubaland who, according to the occasion, wear handwoven patterned cloth, factory-produced clothes or tailored dress. Since the twentieth century, clothing has increasingly replaced the practices of self-enhancement such as body scarification and tattooing (cf. Gell Reference Gell1993 for Melanesia), which expressed belonging, beautified the body and reflected social status and perfection in a permanent way. Meanwhile, new sartorial styles have emerged that focus on clothing (Rabine Reference Rabine2002; van der Plas and Willemsen Reference van der Plas and Willemsen1998) and emulations of elite status such as the Congolese movement of the sapeurs (Gandoulou Reference Gandoulou1989; Gondola Reference Gondola1999; MacGaffey and Bazenguissa Reference MacGaffey and Bazenguissa2000), variations of which have spread as far as West Africa (Hansen Reference Hansen2004).
Local African cloth production was complemented by fabrics that had been acquired from European traders on a large scale since about the sixteenth century. As African buyers had clear ideas about quality and local fashions, European cloth producers had to make enormous efforts to meet African tastes (Steiner Reference Steiner1985: 91–2): that is, the taste of the buyers dictated the terms of trade (Adenaike Reference Adenaike and Mazzaoui1998: 254, 258). As early as colonial times, factories in many African countries also produced their own fabrics. Organizers of large festivities were therefore able to order the textiles they needed for uniforms directly from these factories, or acquire them from wholesalers when, for example, social associations needed smaller quantities. With their choices and preferences, African consumers actively shaped the market. Placing an order with a specific design or a photograph is an expensive project that not everyone has the capacity to undertake. Individual organizers (and in some cases the state) therefore require entrepreneurial skills to be successful in such a venture (Röschenthaler Reference Röschenthaler, Röschenthaler and Schulzforthcoming); they not only need to have the necessary means at their disposal to purchase the cloth but also need a large enough following and one that is ready to acquire and wear the clothing made from the cloth. These fabrics attain a market value that depends not only on their material quality but primarily on their decoration. A cloth's design – and, for different reasons, a photograph or logo – influences its value and whether supporters will spend their money on the fabric or whether it has to be distributed for free.
These decorated uniforms, with and without photographs, form part of fashion regimes that constantly change with time and place (Davis Reference Davis1994; Entwistle Reference Entwistle2000; Hansen Reference Hansen, Hansen and Madison2013; Simmel Reference Simmel1957). This is particularly true for cloths that have photographs on them as they are short-lived and often made for one specific event (but see Fokwang, this issue); they are therefore less expensive and affordable for many. In contrast, elite and ‘big men’ – those who organize such events – continue to wear clothes of expensive fibres and elaborate designs at the same celebrations where their following and fans wear much cheaper items (T-shirts or fancy cloth) bearing the imprint of their faces. Such festivities, therefore, reflect established social hierarchies as well.
SAMENESS, HIERARCHIES AND GENDER NEGOTIATION
Dressing-up practices are often seen as being concerned with the fashioning of the self and identity construction. The contributions to this part themed issue focus instead on the social (and political) concerns that are visually expressed with decorated uniforms – in three particular ways.
Sameness and individual style
Social associations emphasize in their dress practices the equality of members. Often, however, uniforms also show individual differences; since they are sewn individually, the uniforms are not exactly the same (Hansen Reference Hansen2004; Hendrickson Reference Hendrickson and Hendrickson1996; Jenkins Reference Jenkins1996; Fokwang, this issue). Members of social associations, such as those in Cameroon that Fokwang examines, decide together on the acquisition and design of a new uniform. Each member has to contribute to the purchase of the cloth but each woman takes the cloth to a tailor who creates a dress that fits her body shape, even though the dresses are supposed to follow the same style. Indeed, associations often prescribe the way the dresses should look, in order to optimize the degree of sameness. When state institutions offer printed fabrics for nationwide celebrations such as the International Women's Day in Cameroon (Pommerolle and Ngaméni, this issue), they also tend to make regulations about the style of dress that men and women are supposed to wear. In such cases, there is more room for individual variations and non-conformity (for example, wearing the leader's face upside down) (Spencer Reference Spencer1982). At other festivities, where the cloth is purchased to affirm support for a leader or star, there are no prescriptions about what the dress should look like; multiple styles can be observed as individuals design their dresses according to their own ideas, at, for example, the concerts that Röschenthaler observed in Mali. At such events, the equality conveyed by uniforms adorned with celebrity photographs becomes interspersed with the display of individual dress styles. Similarly, industrially produced apparel is often decorated with accessories to create some variation, as is the case with the T-shirts for the annual chiefs' festivals in Ghana that Adrover discusses. All these outfits are made for one specific event, the purpose of which is indicated on the items of clothing as they are decorated with the event's name, place and date.
Sameness and status hierarchies
Social associations' uniforms are normally made of wax cloth (see Fokwang; Pommerolle and Ngaméni); photographs are generally printed on the less expensive fancy cloth (printed only on one side) on which it is easier to bring out the details of the photographs. In contrast to the wax cloth worn by members of social associations, fancy cloth implies a reduction in quality and a shift in the message when it bears a photograph. This form of dress expresses wearers' difference in status from the individuals whose image is printed on the cloth – and who would normally not wear such a photograph on their own clothes. The photograph on the uniforms focuses the attention on the person portrayed as the patron and organizer of the event, as Adrover, Fokwang and Röschenthaler discuss in their contributions. This constellation visualizes a hierarchy in social relations between these two categories of individuals. Adrover shows how, in Ghana, chiefs are responsible for providing clothing for their people at the annual chiefs' festivals. When a chief lacks the means to do so, multinational companies volunteer to sponsor T-shirts on which their brands are printed. Displaying the brands of the companies rather than the photograph of the chief, this clothing conveys conflicting messages. While it offers a solution to the chief's problem, it also erodes his authority (see also Adrover Reference Adrover, Hansen and Madison2013).
Negotiation of gender relations with cloth
The contributions by Fokwang, Pommerolle and Ngaméni, and Röschenthaler underscore the fact that far more women than men wear wax or fancy cloth uniforms. The Cameroonian cases explicitly suggest that people consider wax cloth uniforms to be something connected with women. Fokwang examines how gender roles are constructed and negotiated with wax cloth uniforms in the North West Region of Cameroon, where members of some men's associations refuse – in particular contexts – to even wear such uniforms. Pommerolle and Ngaméni note that official sources also contribute to the construction of the gendered perception of International Women's Day in Cameroon, and this makes the celebrations an effective means of political mobilization. At these events, the authorities provide the cloth while the women voluntarily wear the uniforms and participate in the celebrations, giving them a reason to be away from the home and allowing them the space to express their own desires. Additionally, Röschenthaler illustrates that in Mali the organizers of events who order the cloth consider this to be particularly beneficial for women. Indeed, women constitute the majority of the uniform wearers, and this resonates again with the local experiences of status hierarchies that are strongly connected to gender and women's place in society, which the women set out to redefine. The large celebrations – political and religious but also for entertainment – that are held in the urban space and during which such uniforms are worn provide fresh opportunities for such negotiations, as the affinities of participants transcend ethnic and regional origins and offer new forms of urban sociality.
These gendered uses of fabrics, their potential to emphasize uniformity and individual style, sameness and the asymmetries of status hierarchy, corroborate the powerful capacities of cloth as a medium of expression. But, more importantly, the exploration of the concerns of local people and what they actually pursue with these fabrics shows that people actively use cloth as an instrument to negotiate their concerns and to push and realize their often contested projects. Such creative uses of cloth seem to be particularly vivid in societies with a lively and affordable culture of tailoring.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Great thanks are due to Peter Geschiere, who brought three of us together in a panel at the African Studies Association (ASA) in Philadelphia in 2012, where the idea for this themed part issue began to take shape. I am grateful for very helpful comments from Marie Pommerolle and Jude Fokwang. I also wish to thank Janine Murphy for her immense efforts to make this text readable and the reviewers and editors of Africa for pushing us patiently to make our work publishable.
