‘Cloths with Names’: Luxury Textile Imports in Eastern Africa, c. 1800–1885
| Autor: | Sarah Fee |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
Swahili
History education.field_of_study Textile business.industry media_common.quotation_subject Population Empire General Business Management and Accounting Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering language.human_language Social life Economy Field research language Business and International Management education business media_common |
| Zdroj: | Textile History. 48:49-84 |
| ISSN: | 1743-2952 0040-4969 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/00404969.2017.1294819 |
| Popis: | In the nineteenth century, a vast area of eastern Africa stretching the length of the coast and into the reaches of the Congo River was connected by long-distance trade mostly channelled through the Omani commercial empire based in Zanzibar. As studies have recently shown, a critical factor driving trade in this zone was local demand for foreign cloth; from the 1830s the majority of it was industrially made coarse cotton sheeting from Europe and America, which largely displaced the handwoven Indian originals. Employing archival, object, image and field research, this article demonstrates that until 1885 luxury textiles were as important to economic and social life in central eastern Africa, textiles known to the Swahili as ‘cloths with names’. It identifies the thirty or so varieties which elites — and, increasingly, the general population — selected for status dress and gifts, instrumental in building the commercial and socio-political networks that linked the great region. Finally, it shows that the pro... |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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