{"product_id":"fashioning-inland-communities-trade-and-popular-culture-in-central-east-africa-hardback-9780299350406","title":"Fashioning Inland Communities; Trade and Popular Culture in Central East Africa (Hardback) 9780299350406","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eFashioning Inland Communities\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eTrade and Popular Culture in Central East Africa\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eYaari Felber-Seligman (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780299350406\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 3 June 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e344 pages, 17 b-w figures, 9 maps\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e“Felber-Seligman brilliantly places the fashions, desires, and affective ties developed by men and women of the inland Ruvuma River basin region at the center of the centuries-long history of Indian Ocean trade. In Ruvuma residents’ artful hands and with Felber-Seligman’s thoughtful storytelling, foreign objects far exceed the familiar scholarly treatment of material culture from ‘elsewhere’ as prestige goods or regional currencies. Instead, \u003ci\u003eFashioning Inland Communities\u003c\/i\u003e ask us to recognize the power of informal ties and fashion whims to transform lives, politics, and even the sorts of intercontinental processes recognized as definitive of global histories.” - Kathryn de Luna, Georgetown University\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eWhen viewed from the economic centers of the Indian or Atlantic Oceans, the Ruvuma region of East Africa, crossing what is now Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique, would look like a periphery. But the same factors that marginalize the region historically brought distinct opportunities. In \u003ci\u003eFashioning Inland Communities\u003c\/i\u003e, Yaari Felber-Seligman traces the long history—from the first millennium CE into the twentieth century—of Ruvuma trade practices within a changing world. Felber-Seligman argues that Ruvuma trade should be understood fundamentally as a set of voluntary choices undertaken and revised to further communities’ aspirations. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ruvuma used fashion to build varied communities, from local to pan-regional, reflecting the dynamic relationships among inland groups. Examples of Ruvuma popular fashions reveal processes of meaning-making and community building that call for us to expand our attention to the ways in which East African peoples interacted alongside, as well as beyond, trade networks that sourced prestige and commercial goods. Popular culture here emerges as a heterarchical force that shaped lasting multidirectional connections across and between Ruvuma and their neighbors. As both a subject and a strategy for analysis, the history of popular fashion shifts how we view histories of small, decentralized societies as they encounter larger economies. Felber-Seligman demonstrates that this has implications for our understanding not only of trade but of material culture, community, gender, and family.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eList of Illustrations\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Note on Names and Conventions of Presenting Linguistic Evidence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Introduction: Popular Culture, Trade, and Community in African History\u003cbr\u003e Interlude I. Foundation\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Popular Aesthetics: Early Fashioning of Trade and Community, ca. Sixth–\u003cbr\u003eFourteenth  \u003cbr\u003eCenturies\u003cbr\u003e Interlude II. Expansion\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. As Good as Copper: New Trade, Popular Fashion, and Regional Culture, Fourteenth–\u003cbr\u003eSeventeenth Centuries\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Resource Entrepreneurs: Everyday Trading and Engaging New Networks, Fourteenth–\u003cbr\u003eSeventeenth Centuries\u003cbr\u003e Interlude III. Turbulence\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Refashioning Affinities: Negotiating Materiality, Hierarchy, and Transregional Style, Mid-Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth Centuries\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion: Popular Culture and Legacies of Connectivity\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Lexical Appendix\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Wisconsin Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52530916163864,"sku":"9780299350406","price":55.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/fashioning-inland-communities-trade-and-popular-culture-in-central-east-africa-hardback-9780299350406","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}