Abstract

“‘Africa’ can mean many things… there are thus multiple Africas, including regions, diverse politics and economies, and some 2,140 living languages.” (Large, 2021: 9) In this paper, I propose “Global Africa as Method” as an epistemological approach to rethink the multi-layered creation, manifestation and impact of African fashion. The framework simultaneously decenters Eurocentric perspectives on Africa and fashion while recentering African fashion practices within relational, non-Western circuits of creativity. Drawing on multi-sited ethnography conducted in Nairobi, Maputo and Guangzhou between 2023 and 2025, I propose an expanded understanding of African fashion beyond dominant framings that privilege novelty; elite or designer-led creativity; pan-Africanist aesthetics, cultural purity, spatio-temporal fixity; or material symbolism. By examining everyday practices across China–Africa fashion networks—spanning design, trade, and consumption in both formal and informal markets—the analysis foregrounds how fashion value is produced through processes of mediation, adaptation, and recombination. By foregrounding these grounded, South–South fashion practices, I reframe African fashion as plural, relational, and processual, intervening in how non-Western fashion systems are conceptualised within global fashion studies. Beyond African fashion, Global Africa as Method also offers a framework for rethinking how fashion systems, value, and creativity are theorised within fashion studies more broadly.

Speaker Bio

Tommy Tse is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and is currently a Visiting Fellow (2025–2026) at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, and Visiting Scholar (Jan–Mar 2026) at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. His research explores platform economies, creative and digital labour, consumer culture, and fashion. He leads the ERC-funded project China (Africa) Fashion Power, a five-year ethnographic study of fashion and cultural economies across Asia and Africa. For details, see: https://www.tommyhltse.com