Clothing donated by Western nations plays a significant role in the African economy, but Anthropology professor Karen Tranberg Hansensaid Monday the media’s depiction of the second-hand textiles market tends to distort its cultural significance.
About 20 students, faculty and Evanston residents gathered in the office of the African studies department for the latest session of its year-long Monday night lecture series. Much of Hansen’s lecture focused on Zambia, where she has done research in the past.
Hansen criticized the media for its lack of consideration for the positive impact of secondhand clothes, which come primarily from donations to organizations in the United States and Europe, including The Salvation Army.
“Journalists … do not recognize the significance of secondhand clothing locally.” Hansen said. “Journalists are fascinated by these clothes but don’t know what to do with them.”
Hansen read examples from several articles that misrepresented the meaning of the Western-style clothing to the African people. Hansen said journalists fail to realize that used clothes are more than simply a reflection of the region’s poverty.
“People in Zambia have been wearing western-style clothing for so long they have made it their own.” Hansen said.
In addition to discussing the media’s distortion of the secondhand clothes trade, Hansen also explained that the journey garments go on from donation centers in the United States to end up in Zambia. Hansen said the clothes are shipped to a warehouse in Africa and then are brought to a market in Zambia. At the market, large, plastic-wrapped bundles are burst open to an eager crowd of shoppers, she said.
After the lecture, audience members asked questions about everything from the change in fashions in Kenya to the proper care of traditional West African garments.
Beatrix Allah-Mensah, a visiting fellow from the University of Ghana at Legon, was among those present for Hansen’s lecture. While Allah-Mensah said she has been exposed to the issue of the secondhand clothes trade as a native of Ghana, she found the presentation interesting because it is a subject that “academics rarely go into.”
Allah-Mensah said she agreed with Hansen that the secondhand clothes trade is a much larger cultural element of fashion in many African countries than the media acknowledges.
“The issue of uniqueness is one of the key elements that drives people to the secondhand markets.” Allah-Mensah said.
“There is an embracing of western-style clothing,” she said of the customs in Ghana. “For very serious occasions like weddings and church, most people like traditional (clothing).”
