Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and Materiality in West Africa by Nina Sylvanus (review)

In Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and Materiality in West Africa, anthropologist Nina Sylvanus builds on 30 months of fieldwork carried out in Togo between 2000–2016. She explores historical and contemporary consumptions and productions of wax print cloth, the females who trade the cloth, the materiality of the cloth itself, and the post-colonial and imperial powers that influenced traders’ marketing adaptation abilities. Sylvanus suggests that wax print tells a story about patterns of exchange over time. Additionally, she demonstrates how influential female cloth traders were in this process during colonial and post-colonial eras. This richly descriptive ethnography synthesizes the complex interconnections between female Togolese cloth traders, nation, and capitalism in a globalized world. The theoretical argument rests within what Sylvanus describes as the “dense materiality” of the cloth itself: visuality and materiality between people and institutions intersecting with ever-changing semiotic patterns of meaning through time.

Sylvanus first reveals that the very history of wax print production in Europe for West African consumption was the result of a copy of a copy. Dutch wax was introduced by Europeans in West Africa during the late 19th century; however, African traders often refused to buy the cloth because they were not fond of its colors, patterns, or textures. Beginning in the 1950s, Vlisco—the Dutch mass manufacturer of cloth—produced copies of Javanese batik to sell to their colonial subjects in Southeast Asia for less expensive prices than the original batik. The strategy did not work, since the Indonesians recognized the copies as fakes. At the advice of Togolese female cloth traders, Vlisco subsequently manufactured a spackled and textured cloth that appealed to West African customers. The female cloth traders, in turn, became successful businesswomen who controlled the largest market—Le Grand Marché de Lomé, or Assigamé (“women’s place”)—of wax print trade in West Africa.

Building on this historical context, Sylvanus delves deeper into the dense materiality of wax print and the complexities associated with alliances that were formed between people, things, and the government after Togo declared independence from France in 1960. Powerful female traders became known as the Nana Benz, a name created by the press to reference the material and social wealth they accumulated as a result of their success—for example, the Mercedes Benz vehicles some drove, their large homes on the sea, their property in other countries, and their expensive clothing and jewels. The Nana Benz subsequently forged links with the new government and dictator, Gnassingbé Eyadèma, and became part of a nationalist narrative, which made them mascots of the new government and celebrated Togo’s political, social, and economic prosperity after colonialism. Those ties created co-dependent relationships that did not always work in favor of the Nana Benz. However, they were able to maintain their prestige in the wake of an oppressive regime until the Togolese economy crashed in the 1980s due to World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs and the privatization of the state. The devaluation of the CFA franc and ongoing political crises in the 1990s left the cloth traders in dire straits. They were no longer able to secure credit lines with the manufacturers, and their customers could no longer afford the cloth. The middle class in Togo was gone, as were the prosperous livelihoods of the Nana Benz.

In Chapter 4, Sylvanus explores new dense patterns of materiality through relations between people, things, and imperialism beginning in the 1990s, this time through an analysis of Chinese influence in Togo. Togo needed assistance with economic development and the Chinese were willing to help by taking over the market place with copies of the wax print and many other commodities. The first copies were not well received. However, as had occurred with Vlisco, a new generation of young women traders—who became know as Nanettes—strategized and collaborated with Chinese companies to brand textures, patterns, and color to eventually create a wax print that was affordable and...