Second-hand clothing encounters in Zambia: Global discourses, western commodities, and local histories

The rapid expansion in commercial exports of second-hand clothing from the West to the Third World and the increase in second-hand clothing consumptio n in many African countries raise challenging questions about the effects o f globalisation and the meanings of the West and the local that consumers a ttribute to objects at different points of their journey across global spac e. This article draws on extensive research into the sourcing of second-han d clothing in the West, and its wholesaling, retailing, distribution and co nsumption in Zambia. Discussing how people in Zambia are dealing with the W est's unwanted clothing, the article argues that a cultural economy is at:w ork in-local appropriations of this particular commodity that is opening sp ace for local agency in clothing consumption. Clothing has a powerful hold on people's imagination because the self and society articulate through the dressed-body. To provide background for this argument, the article briefly sketches recent trends in the global second-hand clothing trade that place the countries of sub-Saharan Africa as the:world's,largest importing regio n. There follows a discussion of Zambians' preoccupation with clothing, bot h new and second-hand, historically and at the present time: It demonstrate s that the meanings consumers in Zambia attribute to second-hand :clothing are neither uniform nor static but shift across class and gender lines, and between urban and rural areas. Above all, they depend on:the cultural poli tics of their time. In dealing with clothing, people in Zambia are making s ense of post-colonial society and their own place within it and in the worl d at large.