Reading for Texture: West African History at the Intersection of Sartorial Politics and an Emerging Global Cloth Economy
How can historians of the pre-industrial world center the diverse experiences and perspectives of Africans in ways that transcend the colonial archive? What can such a shift in perspective contribute to wider understandings of West African history in a global context? This talk will explore such questions through a discussion of The Texture of Change, a book that examines historical change from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Freetown, Sierra Leone through the development of textile commerce, consumption, and dress during the 18th and 19th centuries. Indigo-dyed and printed cotton, wool, linen, and silk cloths constituted major trade items that linked African producers and consumers to exchange networks that were both regional and global. Shifting focus from the historiographic conventions of the Atlantic slave trade and its impact, this study follows the global cloth trade to account for the broad extent and multiple modes of engagement between Western Africa with Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
