Dressing Codes at Community Gatherings in Africa – Increased Expression of Diversity of View Dimensions in Society in the 21st Century
Keywords:
Dressing codes; dress and identity; community gatherings; cultural diversity; unhu/ubuntu; Afrocentricity.Abstract
Dressing at community gatherings such as weddings, funerals, initiation ceremonies, religious services, traditional ceremonies, political rallies and civic commemorations in Africa have long served as a visible language through which communities express belonging, respect, hierarchy, gender, faith and status. In the 21st century, the dressing codes that govern such gatherings have become sites of intense negotiation. Members of the same community increasingly judge appropriate dress from different and often competing vantage points. The article conceptualises the vantage points as view dimensions and examines how and why their diversity has increased. The article draws on secondary data analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books, ethnographies, legal and policy documents and international conventions. Afrocentricity provides the theoretical lens of the article, placed in dialogue with sociological and anthropological theories of dress, ritual and identity. The analysis reveals six themes: dressing at gatherings as a communicative and moral order; the layered colonial, missionary and nationalist reconfiguration of dressing codes; religious revival and the pluralisation of sacred dress; gender, the body and contested respectability; generation, class and the economics of collective dressing ; and globalisation, diaspora and digital media as accelerators of diversity. The article argues that dressing codes at African gatherings have not dissolved but have shifted from a regime of relatively consensual, elder-sanctioned norms. They are drifting towards one of negotiated pluralism, in which several view dimensions coexist, compete and are temporarily reconciled for the duration of a gathering through layering, sequencing, role differentiation and, at times, coercive exclusion.
References
1. African Union. (2006). Charter for African cultural renaissance. African Union.
2. African Union. (2015). Agenda 2063: The Africa we want. African Union Commission.
3. African Union. (2018). Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area. African Union.
4. Akinwumi, T. M. (2008). The “African print” hoax: Machine produced textiles jeopardize African print authenticity. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(5), 179–192.
5. Allman, J. (Ed.). (2004). Fashioning Africa: Power and the politics of dress. Indiana University Press.
6. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. University of Minnesota Press.
7. Appiah, K. A. (1992). In my father’s house: Africa in the philosophy of culture. Oxford University Press.
8. Asante, M. K. (2003). Afrocentricity: The theory of social change (Rev. ed.). African American Images.
9. Barthes, R. (1983). The fashion system (M. Ward & R. Howard, Trans.). Hill and Wang.
10. Beck, R. M. (2005). Texts on textiles: Proverbiality as characteristic of equivocal communication at the East African coast (Swahili). Journal of African Cultural Studies, 17(2), 131–160.
11. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Harvard University Press.
12. Bowen, G. A. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.3316/QRJ0902027
13. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
14. Byfield, J. (2004). Dress and politics in post-World War II Abeokuta (western Nigeria). In J. Allman (Ed.), Fashioning Africa: Power and the politics of dress (pp. 31–49). Indiana University Press.
15. Comaroff, J. (1985). Body of power, spirit of resistance: The culture and history of a South African people. University of Chicago Press.
16. Comaroff, J. L., & Comaroff, J. (1997). Of revelation and revolution, Volume 2: The dialectics of modernity on a South African frontier. University of Chicago Press.
17. Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act, 2013. Government Printer.
18. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.
19. de Witte, M. (2001). Long live the dead! Changing funeral celebrations in Asante, Ghana. Aksant Academic Publishers.
20. Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
21. Durkheim, E. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (K. E. Fields, Trans.). Free Press. (Original work published 1912)
22. Eicher, J. B., & Roach-Higgins, M. E. (1992). Definition and classification of dress: Implications for analysis of gender roles. In R. Barnes & J. B. Eicher (Eds.), Dress and gender: Making and meaning in cultural contexts (pp. 8–28). Berg.
23. Engelke, M. (2007). A problem of presence: Beyond scripture in an African church. University of California Press.
24. Entwistle, J. (2000). The fashioned body: Fashion, dress and modern social theory. Polity Press.
25. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
26. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. Basic Books.
27. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Polity Press.
28. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
29. Gondola, C. D. (1999). Dream and drama: The search for elegance among Congolese youth. African Studies Review, 42(1), 23–48.
30. Government of Zimbabwe. (2020). National Development Strategy 1: January 2021 – December 2025. Government of Zimbabwe.
31. Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and modernity: Philosophical reflections on the African experience. Oxford University Press.
32. Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp. 222–237). Lawrence & Wishart.
33. Hansen, K. T. (2000). Salaula: The world of secondhand clothing and Zambia. University of Chicago Press.
34. Hansen, K. T. (2004). The world in dress: Anthropological perspectives on clothing, fashion, and culture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 369–392.
35. Hansen, K. T., & Madison, D. S. (Eds.). (2013). African dress: Fashion, agency, performance. Bloomsbury.
36. Heaton, J. (2008). Secondary analysis of qualitative data: An overview. Historical Social Research, 33(3), 33–45.
37. Hendrickson, H. (Ed.). (1996). Clothing and difference: Embodied identities in colonial and post-colonial Africa. Duke University Press.
38. Ivaska, A. (2011). Cultured states: Youth, gender, and modern style in 1960s Dar es Salaam. Duke University Press.
39. Jindra, M., & Noret, J. (Eds.). (2011). Funerals in Africa: Explorations of a social phenomenon. Berghahn Books.
40. Johnston, M. P. (2014). Secondary data analysis: A method of which the time has come. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 3(3), 619–626.
41. Martin, P. M. (1994). Contesting clothes in colonial Brazzaville. The Journal of African History, 35(3), 401–426.
42. Masquelier, A. (2009). Women and Islamic revival in a West African town. Indiana University Press.
43. Mauss, M. (1973). Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2(1), 70–88.
44. Maxwell, D. (2006). African gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the rise of a Zimbabwean transnational religious movement. James Currey.
45. Mazama, A. (2001). The Afrocentric paradigm: Contours and definitions. Journal of Black Studies, 31(4), 387–405.
46. Mbiti, J. S. (1969). African religions and philosophy. Heinemann.
47. Meyer, B. (2004). Christianity in Africa: From African independent to Pentecostal-charismatic churches. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 447–474.
48. Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J., Venkatraman, S., & Wang, X. (2016). How the world changed social media. UCL Press.
49. Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. (2024). Heritage-Based Curriculum Framework for Primary and Secondary Education 2024–2030. Government of Zimbabwe.
50. Mkabela, Q. (2005). Using the Afrocentric method in researching indigenous African culture. The Qualitative Report, 10(1), 178–189.
51. Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge. Indiana University Press.
52. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013). Coloniality of power in postcolonial Africa: Myths of decolonization. CODESRIA.
53. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Routledge.
54. Nwafor, O. (2021). Aso ebi: Dress, fashion, visual culture, and urban cosmopolitanism in West Africa. University of Michigan Press.
55. Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2017). Incompleteness: Frontier Africa and the currency of conviviality. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 52(3), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909615580867
56. Oyěwùmí, O. (1997). The invention of women: Making an African sense of Western gender discourses. University of Minnesota Press.
57. Ranger, T. O. (1975). Dance and society in eastern Africa, 1890–1970: The Beni ngoma. Heinemann.
58. Ranger, T. (1983). The invention of tradition in colonial Africa. In E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition (pp. 211–262). Cambridge University Press.
59. Renne, E. P. (1995). Cloth that does not die: The meaning of cloth in Bùnú social life. University of Washington Press.
60. Roach-Higgins, M. E., & Eicher, J. B. (1992). Dress and identity. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 10(4), 1–8.
61. Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). Sage.
62. Ross, D. H. (1998). Wrapped in pride: Ghanaian kente and African American identity. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
63. Ross, R. (2008). Clothing: A global history. Polity Press.
64. Rovine, V. L. (2015). African fashion, global style: Histories, innovations, and ideas you can wear. Indiana University Press.
65. Samkange, S., & Samkange, T. M. (1980). Hunhuism or ubuntuism: A Zimbabwe indigenous political philosophy. Graham Publishing.
66. Schneider, J. (1987). The anthropology of cloth. Annual Review of Anthropology, 16, 409–448.
67. Simmel, G. (1957). Fashion. American Journal of Sociology, 62(6), 541–558.
68. Sylvanus, N. (2016). Patterns in circulation: Cloth, gender, and materiality in West Africa. University of Chicago Press.
69. Tamale, S. (2016). Profile: ‘Keep your eyes off my thighs’: A feminist analysis of Uganda’s ‘miniskirt law’. Feminist Africa, 21.
70. Tamale, S. (2020). Decolonization and Afro-feminism. Daraja Press.
71. Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. Aldine.
72. UNESCO. (2003). Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. UNESCO.
73. UNESCO. (2005). Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. UNESCO.
74. Van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage (M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Caffee, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1909)
75. Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class. Macmillan.
76. wa Thiong’o, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. James Currey.
77. Weiner, A. B., & Schneider, J. (Eds.). (1989). Cloth and human experience. Smithsonian Institution Press.
78. Wiredu, K. (1996). Cultural universals and particulars: An African perspective. Indiana University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Studies (JAMS) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), unless otherwise stated. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant JAMS the right of first publication.
