2 - From Asia and Africa to the Globe: Living Memories, Aspirations and Tensions of the Past and Present in Second-hand Cloth Consumption

In recent years, China has surpassed Western European countries in becoming one of the largest exporters of second-hand clothes to Africa, only second to the United States. Few could have imagined that in the 1980s, second-hand clothes from Hong Kong and Japan were the most sought-after fashion items in mainland China, and about a decade ago, donation of second-hand clothes from urban centres to remote places in China was still a common practice. Today, the surplus of used clothes in China has found their way to other countries, creating lucrative businesses for both Chinese and African traders. Existing literature has overly focused on the study of the global second-hand clothes trade, especially the charity donation networks that extend from the West to Africa, and the economic, moral and environmental implications of these. What has been less explored is a truly global network and evolution of second-hand cloth consumption that takes into account the transnational cultural-economic histories that give rise to waste and re-use, the living memories and aspirations of people in their second-hand fashion consumption in the Global South, and the tensions between individual desires, environmental concerns and state-led initiatives in the making of consumerist, industrial nations – a process that invites reflection from the experiences of Asia and Africa to the globe.