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. 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. Front Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 List of Illustrations 9 1 Thinking with Veblen: Case Studies from Africa’s Past and Present 18 Veblen on conspicuous consumption 21 Different readings of Veblen 27 The contributors 29 2 Changes in the Order of Things: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Cape Town 42 The emergence of department stores 44 Garlicks and Stuttafords in Cape Town 46 Conspicuous consumption and race 53 3 Conspicuously Public: Gendered Histories of Sartorial and Social Success in Urban Togo 62 Cloth and clothing 64 Consumerism and urban grammars of style in colonial Togo 66 Styling the nation: Embodying modernity 70 Conspicuous style: Performing a female aesthetics of excess 72 4 Etienne Rousseau, Broedertwis and the Politics of Consumption within Afrikanerdom 80 Making (ORDENTLIKE) modern Afrikaners 83 ‘To be seen as part of the town’ 85 The managerial revolution 87 ‘Economically rich and soft’ 88 ‘Business has bred a new aristocracy’ 89 5 Recycling Consumption: Political Power and Elite Wealth in Angola 96 Consumption and power in Angola 99 The president’s children 102 6 Chiluba’s Trunks: Consumption, Excess and the Body Politic in Zambia 113 Background 115 The Money Matrix 116 The dressed body of the president 118 Chiluba’s trunks 120 A threshold of the body politic 121 Dress and power 122 7 Jacob Zuma’s Shamelessness: Conspicuous Consumption, Politics and Religion 129 A dishonourable man 131 Veblen on honour, shame and religion 132 Consuming for God 134 Zuma and the Neo-Pentecostals 135 Pentecostal politics 136 8 Precarious ‘Bigness’: A ‘Big Man’, His Women and His Funeral in Cameroon 150 Conspicuous registers of ‘bigness’: Women and funerals 152 Preparing to bury a ‘big man’ 155 A dramatic ‘wake-keep’ 157 Sexual ‘consumption’, material struggles 161 9 Young Men of Leisure? Youth, Conspicuous Consumption and the Performativity of Dress in Niger 167 ‘Sitting at the fada’: Idleness, sociality and the life course 170 Dress, consumption and ‘pecuniary standing’ 172 Conspicuous consumption in the past and present tenses 174 Generation, ‘fun,’ and the fashioning of youth 176 Obama’s sandals 178 Waste as work 179 The limitations of Veblen’s model 180 10 Booty on Fire: Looking at Izikhothane with Thorstein Veblen 185 Background to the subculture of ukukhothana 185 Conspicuous consumption 189 The critics 190 The Good Fellas 191 Honorific failure? 194 11 Conspicuous Queer Consumption: Emulation and Honour in the Pink Map 200 Queer consumption: Out of the closet through the Pink Map 201 Mobility, consumption and citizenship: A framework for analysis 202 Conspicuous queer consumption: Emergence and emulation 205 Conspicuous queer consumption: Seeking honour through retail therapy 208 Into the mainstream: The spectacle of consumption 210 12 The Politics and Moral Economy of Middle-Class Consumption in South Africa 217 The moral economy of lower-middle-class actor-consumers 219 Budgeting: Money is not an abstraction 221 Sharing and attachment to one’s community of origin 223 Convergence, Novelty And Tradition In Food Habits 224 On consumption, conspicuous or otherwise, and nation-building 226 13 Marigold Beads: Who Needs Diamonds?! 231 Veblen: Ownership and display wealth, waste and women 233 I need, I want: Who does, who doesn’t and why? 235 Offering solace, personal connections between women 238 Purposeful modes 239 African cosmopolitan: Beads, place and identity 241 Greed–need: Is there more to it? 242 Veblen and the hand-wrought object 243 Contributors 248 Index 252 A collection of essays examining cultures of consumption on the African continent 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. 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, to elite wealth and political corruption in Angola, this collection of essays explores the ways in which conspicuous consumption is foregrounded in various African contexts.