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Dressing the Diaspora: Dress practices among East African Indians, circa 1895–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2018

CHRIS WILSON
CHRIS WILSON*
Affiliation:
Faculty of History, University of Cambridge Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article analyses the dress practices of East African Indians from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, which have failed to attract much scholarly attention. It begins by examining the ways in which very material interactions with items of clothing, while separated from the body, were productive of identities and communities among Indian tailors, shoemakers, Dhobis, and others in East Africa. It then turns away from a specific focus on questions of identity to consider the ways in which dress was incorporated into the diasporic strategies of East African Indians as they sought to negotiate the Indian Ocean world. Finally, it explores how, where, and when Indians adopted particular dress practices in East Africa itself, to illuminate the role of dress in orderings of space, colonial society, and gender. The analytic value of dress, this article contends, lies in its universality, which allows for the recovery of the everyday lives and efforts of ordinary East African Indians, as well as a new perspective on elite diasporic lives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 660 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and kind encouragement. I also wish to express my thanks to Ruth Watson, Andrew Arsan, and Leigh Denault. The responsibility for any mistakes and weaknesses is mine alone.

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