Overview

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. In 1899, Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase ‘conspicuous consumption’ to describe status-seeking in the obscenely unequal world of late-nineteenth century America. Many of the aspects he described in The Theory of the Leisure Class are still evident in our world today. While Veblen’s crude denunciation of material extravagance finds echoes in media exposés about the lifestyles of the rich worldwide, it is particularly recognisable in reporting on Africa. Here, images of conspicuous consumption have long circulated in local and global media as indictments of political corruption and signs of moral depravity. The essays in Conspicuous Consumption in Africa put Veblen’s concept under robust critical scrutiny, drawing on theorists like Mbembe, Guyer and Bayart by way of critique or addition. They delve 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. The authors resist the trap of easy moralisation, pointing to more complex ethical and political registers of analysis and judgement. 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.

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9781776143641

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Reviews

This fascinating, nuanced and persuasive volume combines sophisticated theoretical expositions with a high level of empirical inquiry. Taken together, the essays provide an important entry into the study of consumption in Africa, and indeed make a serious intervention into current socio-political concerns.-Robert Ross, Professor of African History Emeritus, Leiden University, the Netherlands This volume offers a summary of the relevance of consumption as a terrain of meaningmaking to South African public debates. It will convince readers that much more is going on with consuming practices than the media sometimes solicits. In particular, it brings attention to an abiding tension in discussions around 'consumption' normative expectations of societal values entailed in such phenomenon as 'conspicuous consumption' are set against the symbolic practices illustrated through the performative, visual presentation of status (and claims and counterclaims to it).-Bridget Kenny, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

This volume offers a summary of the relevance of consumption as a terrain of meaningmaking to South African public debates. It will convince readers that much more is going on with consuming practices than the media sometimes solicits. In particular, it brings attention to an abiding tension in discussions around 'consumption' normative expectations of societal values entailed in such phenomenon as 'conspicuous consumption' are set against the symbolic practices illustrated through the performative, visual presentation of status (and claims and counterclaims to it).-Bridget Kenny, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg This fascinating, nuanced and persuasive volume combines sophisticated theoretical expositions with a high level of empirical inquiry. Taken together, the essays provide an important entry into the study of consumption in Africa, and indeed make a serious intervention into current socio-political concerns.-Robert Ross, Professor of African History Emeritus, Leiden University, the Netherlands

""This fascinating, nuanced and persuasive volume combines sophisticated theoretical expositions with a high level of empirical inquiry. Taken together, the essays provide an important entry into the study of consumption in Africa, and indeed make a serious intervention into current socio-political concerns.""--Robert Ross, Professor of African History Emeritus, Leiden University, the Netherlands ""This volume offers a summary of the relevance of consumption as a terrain of meaningmaking to South African public debates. It will convince readers that much more is going on with consuming practices than the media sometimes solicits. In particular, it brings attention to an abiding tension in discussions around & consumption: normative expectations of societal values entailed in such phenomenon as & conspicuous consumption are set against the symbolic practices illustrated through the performative, visual presentation of status (and claims and counterclaims to it).""--Bridget Kenny, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Author Information

Deborah Posel is a professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town, based in the Institute for Humanities in Africa, of which she was the founding director. Ilana van Wyk is a lecturer in Anthropology at Stellenbosch University and former editor-in-chief of Anthropology Southern Africa. Joni Brenner is a practising artist and a principal tutor in History of Art at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has a master’s degree in Fine Arts, and has taught in Visual Literacy and History of Art. Sophie Chevalier is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Picardie. She is the editor of Anthropology at the Crossroads: The View from France and co-editor of Paris, résidence secondaire. Claudia Gastrow is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Pamila Gupta is an associate professor at WISER at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is the author of The Relic State: St Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India and co-editor of Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean. Adeline Masquelier is Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University. She is the author of Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger; Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town (2010 Herskovits award and 2012 Aidoo-Snyder prize). Jabulani Mnisi is a doctoral candidate in Communication Science at the University of Johannesburg, with a focus on conspicuous consumption and masculinities in the activities of the subculture of ukukhothana. He is employed as a programme head at the Independent Institute of Education. Rogers Orock is a lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand. Bradley Rink is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography, Environmental Studies and Tourism at the University of the Western Cape. Nina Sylvanus is associate professor of Anthropology at Northeastern University. She is the author of Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender and Materiality in West Africa. Karen Tranberg Hansen is an anthropologist with extensive research experience in Zambia. Books authored include Distant Companions: Servants and Employers in Zambia 1900–1985; Keeping House in Lusaka and Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing and Zambia. Stephen Sparks is a senior lecturer in the History Department at the University of Johannesburg.

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