CAFP investigates how, in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global power is manifested, negotiated, and resisted in people’s daily life in a South-South setting using fashion as an exemplary case.
This project will theorise how fashion is created, circulated, valuated, and consumed in and through Global Souths Value Chains (Guangdong-Nairobi-Maputo), dissecting complex dynamics and expressions of power.
Picture from Gikomba Market, Nairobi, 2023. Photography by Paul Cox.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The surge of China’s global power has caught the interest of the general public, policymakers and scholars alike, often focalized in discussions about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – the Chinese government’s ambitious global development strategy.
SOCIAL IMPACT
By the full-length research of the GSVC, the China Fashion Power project aims to positively impact economic and cultural development as well as the natural environment in the Global South.
Picture from Gikomba Market. Photography by Paul Cox.
UPCOMING EVENT
A guest lecture by Tommy Tse, Associate Professor in the Global Cross-Media Cultures programme, University of Amsterdam (UvA) and IIAS Board member.
When Nairobi shopkeepers proudly declared his “original” Adidas sneakers fake—but “a good deal, even better than the real”—Tommy Tse began rethinking what authenticity means. Drawing on over two years of ethnography in Kenya and China, this talk explores how fashion’s fakes, originals, and copies co-create new meanings of creativity and value.
The Q&A is moderated by Dr Wei Wang (UvA) and PhD Researcher Fairuzah Atchulo (UvA).
You can join online or in person. Registration is required as seating is limited, and to receive the Zoom link.
CAFP’s major contribution is threefold. Theoretically, it will move beyond a Western-centric epistemology to map the chains, restraints and materialities of China’s power expansion through fashion. Methodologically, this project will synergistically collect and triangulate empirical information along complete South-South commodity chains.
