Material Knowledge: African – Asian Exchange Through Kente Cloth

Paper Abstract: The iconic kente cloth, produced in Ghana and adjacent countries, is today usually both handwoven and machine made. This paper is concerned with some of the latest trends in the design and production of the same: cloth woven in narrow strips and embroidered with adinkra motifs and other patterns. This kind of kente has come to inform the latest fashion, which brings together three historical textile traditions together in a single cloth: handwoven kente; handstamped adinkratextiles; and embroidered gowns common through West Africa. In recent years, this fashionable cloth is not just made in Ghana but replicated in India and shipped to West Africa directly or through Europe. Nana Duah II in Tewoobabi near Kumasi designed the proto-type of this cloth for major chieftaincy events, including those by the Asantehene. The cloth was popularized when Obama visited Ghana in 2009, dubbed ‘Obama cloth’. Nana Akuffo Addo, the current president of Ghana, used one such cloth at his inauguration in 2017, and today it is one of the most popular special-occasion cloth in Ghana, southern Togo and western Côte d’Ivoire. This paper traces the inter-African and African-Asian trajectories of this cloth – and argues that the incorporation of foreign elements and constant innovations not only manifests in design but also production. It uses the materiality of cloth to tell the story of contemporary African-Asian exchange in artefacts, symbolism, and aesthetic sensibilities.