Conspicuous consumption in Africa

From early department stores in Cape Town to gendered histories of sartorial success in urban Togo, contestations over expense accounts at an apartheid state enterprise, elite wealth and political corruption in Angola and Zambia, the role of popular religion in the political intransigence of Jacob Zuma, funerals of big men in Cameroon, youth cultures of consumption in Niger and South Africa, queer consumption in Cape Town, middle-class food consumption in Durban and the consumption of luxury handcrafted beads, this collection of essays explores the ways in which conspicuous consumption is foregrounded in various African contexts and historical moments. The essays in Conspicuous Consumption in Africa put Thorstein Veblen's concept under robust critical scrutiny, delving into the pleasures, stresses and challenges of consuming in its religious, generational, gendered and racialised aspects, revealing conspicuous consumption as a layered set of practices, textures and relations. This volume shows how central and revealing conspicuous consumption can be to fathoming the history of Africa's projects of modernity, and their global lineages and legacies. In its grounded, up-close case studies, it is likely to feed into current public debates on the nature and future of African societies-- South African society in particular.

Thinking with Veblen : case studies from Africa's past and present / Deborah Posel and Ilana van Wyk -- Changes in the order of things : department stores and the making of modern Cape Town / Deborah Posel -- Conspicuously public : gendered histories of sartorial and social success in urban Togo / Nina Sylvanus -- Etienne Rousseau, broedertwis and the politics of consumption within Afrikanerdom / Stephen Sparks -- Cycling consumption : political power and elite wealth in Angola / Claudia Gastrow -- Chiluba's trunks : consumption, excess and the body politic in Zambia / Karen Tranberg Hansen -- Jacob Zuma's shamelessness : conspicuous consumption, politics and religion / Ilana van Wyk -- Precarious 'bigness' : a 'big man', his women and his funeral in Cameroon / Rogers Orock -- Young men of leisure? Youth, conspicuous consumption and the performativity of dress in Niger / Adeline Masquelier -- Booty on fire : looking at izikhothane with Thorstein Veblen / Jabulani G Mnisi -- Conspicuous queer consumption : emulation and honour in the pink map / Bradley Rink -- The politics and moral economy of middle-class consumption in South Africa / Sophie Chevalier -- Marigold beads : who needs…