The Inter-generational Imperative; Beyond the myth of the monolithic youth; Adult and Youth agency in the architectural sovereignty of Africa’s Transformation

Introduction: The Tyranny of the Imported Trope and the Erasure of the Sovereign Adult

The prevailing discourse surrounding the horizon of Africa is anchored by a singular, persistent trope, which is the absolute fixation on the demographic youthfulness of our populations. Global think tanks, international development agencies, and foreign policy forums continuously broadcast the narrative that Africa's future belongs exclusively to the youth, treating the continent as a blank slate awaiting digital and economic salvation from its youngest citizens. While this focus is rooted in the undeniable demographic reality of our vast population, its unexamined byproduct has been a subtle, systemic side-lining of the adult and mature populations, those currently holding the institutional memory, economic capital, and active leadership of our sovereign nations.
As noted within continental economic research and structural analysis, "sustainable continental productivity requires multi-generational skill upgrades and addressing the missing middle of the active adult workforce" (ACET, 2020). To accept the premise that Africa must look solely to its youth while pushing its adults into premature obsolescence is to accept a deeply flawed, Eurocentric framework that fundamentally misunderstands the historical and structural architecture of African societies. True continental transformation requires dismantling this artificial generational fracture, ensuring that the accumulated agency of adults and the dynamic energy of youth converge in an unbroken line of collective greatness.

The Neo-Colonial Fracture: Dissecting the Foreign Import of the "Youth-Only" Future

The modern obsession with isolating the youth as the sole agents of African change is not an indigenous concept, but a neo-colonial construct imported from Western development models. In traditional Western sociology and neoliberal economic planning, populations are ruthlessly atomized into disconnected demographic categories, pitting generations against one another in a manufactured competition for scarce resources and political relevance. By framing the older and adult generations as bottlenecks, obstacles, or relics of a stagnant past, foreign development metrics seek to bypass the institutional sovereignty that mature Africans hold.
As explored in critical sociological assessments regarding post-colonial educational frameworks, imported models historically "marginalize adult learning infrastructures in favor of primary and tertiary schooling" (CODESRIA, 2022). This strategy of generational erasure serves a deliberate purpose, as it weakens the collective bargaining power of African societies, erodes deep-rooted historical consciousness, and installs a hyper-individualized, corporate-driven mindset that treats human beings as disposable economic units. Recognizing this manipulation allows African societies to reject the false binary of "youthocracy versus gerontocracy" and return to a paradigm where the wisdom of experience and the vigor of innovation are harmonized.

Ontological Continuity: How African Societies Have Historically Thrived Through Intergenerational Complementarity

When we examine the deep philosophical and social foundations of African societies, we find that human personhood and societal development have never been measured by age segregation. As the philosopher Ifeanyi Menkiti established in foundational texts on African relational ontology, human personhood is "not a static, individualistic milestone achieved in youth, but an accumulative, lifelong moral and social achievement" (Menkiti, 1984). Wisdom, responsibility, and societal stewardship naturally increase with maturity, forming an unbroken chain of generational continuity.
Furthermore, as Kwasi Wiredu demonstrates through indigenous frameworks of consensus and shared community responsibility, traditional African decision-making structures operated on a "complementary trusteeship model where the energy of the young and the accumulated operational experience of adults functioned interdependently" (Wiredu, 1996). In these indigenous structures, leadership and community survival were never pitted against each other. Instead, African societies thrived because every stage of life carried distinct, indispensable duties that reinforced the collective greatness of the community, proving that our past was built on synthesis, harmony, and mutual respect across the entire spectrum of age.

The Economic Cost of Discontinuity: Preserving the "Missing Middle" for Continental Sovereignty

To secure the economic independence of our nations, we must confront the dangerous economic fallacy that youth-led innovation alone can industrialize a continent. Economic research from institutions like the African Center for Economic Transformation demonstrates that sustainable productivity requires what is termed the missing middle, defined as "the prime-age adult workforce holding the capital reserves, regulatory navigation skills, and industrial execution capacity" (ACET, 2021).
When development funds and national programs obsess exclusively over youth entrepreneurship while ignoring adults trapped in informal trade or legacy sectors, the result is structural amnesia and economic fracture. As empirical labor market data from the African Development Bank highlights, "the vast majority of stable productivity, tax generation, and informal-to-formal enterprise scaling is managed by prime-age adults" (AfDB, 2024). Scaling micro-enterprises into continental manufacturing complexes, navigating the complex trade corridors of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and maintaining critical infrastructure require the deep operational experience of adults. Sidelining this core demographic starves our economies of the very people who translate raw ideas into lasting, sovereign institutions.

Conscientization and Re-tooling: The Blueprint for Adult Education in Decolonized Societies

If African societies are to reclaim their sovereign trajectory, we must radically expand adult education and continuous development, anchoring them in the liberating philosophies articulated by thinkers like Julius Nyerere. In his seminal political and philosophical framework, the Declaration of Dar es Salaam, Nyerere defined adult education not as formal schooling, but as "a critical tool for political consciousness, self-reliance, and active economic agency" (Nyerere, 1978).
Adult education must transcend basic literacy or vocational compliance, evolving into a deliberate process of political and economic conscientization that decolonizes the mindset of the mature population. By establishing community learning centers and targeted technical re-tooling programs, we equip prime-age adults to master modern digital systems, regional trade logistics, and advanced resource management alongside the youth. Just as physical infrastructure requires constant maintenance, the intellectual and operational infrastructure of our adult workforce requires continuous upgrading. When adults are actively re-tooled to meet the demands of a rising Africa, they become an unstoppable force of institutional stability, ensuring that our collective trajectory is guided by historical clarity and uncompromising sovereignty.

Conclusion: Forging a Grand Future Through the Unbroken Power of All Generations

The future magnitude of Africa does not belong to a single demographic slice, but to the unified, unshakeable strength of our entire societal tapestry. By casting off the imported, divisive myth of the monolithic youth, African societies can restore a holistic vision of progress where adults and youth stand shoulder to shoulder as co-architects of our destiny.
As continental survey data from sources like Afrobarometer confirm, "African citizens across all age brackets overwhelmingly favor collaborative, cross-generational governance rather than age-cleansed political or economic spaces" (Afrobarometer, 2024). Our history testifies to a magnificent heritage of communal resilience, relational continuity, and structural wisdom that spans across generations. As we look toward the boundless greatness that awaits us on the continental horizon, we must declare that no generation will be sidelined, no adult will be rendered obsolete, and no artificial foreign construct will fracture our unity. Through intergenerational solidarity, continuous adult education, and uncompromising sovereign agency, we will build an Africa that honors its past, empowers all its citizens, and commands the respect of the entire world.

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The Epistemic Siege: Black Thought, White Gates. A Mapping of Systemic Academic Exclusion

Introduction

The production of academic knowledge is not a neutral enterprise. It is shaped by geography, institution, language, and power, and nowhere is this more evident than in the stark disparities between who publishes and who is published.

This dossier synthesises foundational research and critical literature mapping the systemic underrepresentation of African and global Black academic voices. It highlights structural publishing biases, institutional gatekeeping, the geography of knowledge production, and the lived realities of scholars navigating these inequities.

What emerges is a portrait of an epistemic siege: Black thought, systematically confined behind white gates.

The Geography of Knowledge: Who Speaks and Who Is Silenced?

The disparity in academic publishing is not anecdotal; it is empirically documented. Studies evaluating top-tier international development and communication journals consistently demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of scholarly output is dominated by Northern institutions. A long-term analysis of leading development journals revealed that fewer than one in six articles featured Southern researchers, while roughly 73 percent were authored by Northern researchers (Demeter, 2021).

This pattern extends beyond development studies. A comprehensive scientometric analysis found that over 90 percent of publications in top communication journals were authored by Global North scholars, while less than 10 percent were by Global South scholars. Editorial boards told the same story: the United States alone accounted for 63 percent of board members (Demeter, 2021).

Perhaps the most striking manifestation of this imbalance is what we might call the Africa Paradox: scholarship about Africa, often written without Africans. Research examining high-impact economics and medical journals found that the vast majority of Africa-focused papers, including over 66 percent of literature concerning regional public health crises, were written by researchers based outside the continent (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026).

Even within scholarship explicitly focused on African development, health, and economic policy, authorship skew persists. This dynamic is thoroughly analysed in policy framing documents which outline how structural exclusion leaves local experts on the periphery of policymaking (United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa).

The legacy of Eurocentrism affects knowledge production in subtle but significant ways. Evidence produced in and about the Global North is assumed to be more universal, whereas evidence from or produced in the Global South is considered valid only for specific contexts, that is localised (Hofstra et al., 2022). This dynamic is evident in the phrasing of articles' titles. Examining more than half a million social science research articles indexed by Scopus from 1996 to 2020, Hofstra and colleagues (2022) found that empirical articles written by authors affiliated with Global North institutions, using data from these countries, are less likely to include a concrete geographical reference in their titles. When authors are affiliated with Global South institutions and use evidence from Global South countries, the names of these countries are more likely to be part of the article's title (Hofstra et al., 2022). This constitutes an unwarranted claim on universality and may lead to lesser recognition of Global South studies (Hofstra et al., 2022). These naming gaps are large and consistent across 23 social science subfields, yet naming conventions are merely the tip of the iceberg of the imbalances in knowledge production between the Global North and South (Hofstra et al., 2022).

This is not an accident of geography. Two interlocking systems are at work: the Coloniality of Power, which racialises Black African academics as Other, and the Coloniality of Knowledge, which marginalises their intellectual, theoretical, and experiential contributions (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024). Black academics in predominantly white institutions are systematically seen as out of place, a positioning that compounds their experiences of interpersonal and systemic marginalisation (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024). The consequences are tangible: microaggressions, hyper-surveillance, research alienation, funding gaps, and being passed over for promotion, leading to feelings of exclusion and fractured belonging within academia (Gatwiri & Udah, 2024).

The Gatekeeping Apparatus: Editorial Bias, Linguistic Hegemony, and the Cost of Entry

If the geography of knowledge determines who gets to publish, the gatekeeping apparatus determines what gets published, and under what conditions.

Recent scholarship highlights unethical and structural editorial practices that disproportionately penalise scholars of African origin and the broader Global South (University of Toronto Press, 2025). These include prolonged peer-review delays that slow the dissemination of research from African scholars, unclear or disproportionate desk rejections that lack substantive feedback, stylistic gatekeeping that delegitimises non-traditional frameworks or non-native English writing styles, and exclusion from editorial decision-making processes and under-representation on editorial boards (University of Toronto Press, 2025). These practices are not isolated incidents but reflect systemic biases embedded in global publishing systems. The psychological and professional repercussions for African academics are demonstrated through qualitative evidence and scholarly literature (University of Toronto Press, 2025).

Central to the inequality between Global North and South are the hurdles of language and financial support (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). Global South scientists face additional efforts non-native English speakers must invest in reading and publishing, higher rejection rates compared to native English speakers, and widespread neglect of publications in languages other than English (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). These challenges not only hinder the advancement of science but also deepen existing divides (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026). A study of Chilean early-career academics found that they navigated profound identity tensions as they attempted to balance local relevance with global prestige, often finding their work scrutinised not for scientific rigor but for the identity of the researcher (European Journal of Teacher Education, 2026).

High-impact tier-1 journals are predominantly indexed within Western-centric databases like Scopus and Web of Science and often enforce prohibitive open-access publication fees (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). Without comparable institutional grants or endowment support, academics based in African institutions face severe financial and logistical hurdles just to enter the pipeline (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). While open access policies democratise access to scientific knowledge, they can inadvertently exacerbate North-South inequalities due to the prohibitive costs associated with open-access publishing, a financial burden that is often unmanageable for researchers with limited funding (Berger, 2023; Mellors & Cole, 2025). This funding gap severely restricts the Global South's scientific capabilities and impact, affecting everything from conducting comprehensive research to attending scientific meetings. The culmination of these disparities not only diminishes the impact of Global South researchers in their fields but also traps them in a cycle of reduced funding and limited global networking opportunities (Turba, Thoré, & Bertram, 2026).

A qualitative phenomenological study involving 50 African intellectuals across disciplines identified high article processing charges and limited institutional funding as key obstacles that hinder publication in high-impact journals (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026). Linguistic biases favour English, disadvantaging non-native speakers, while peer review processes often exclude African perspectives, pressuring scholars to conform to Western epistemologies (Mugwisi et al., 2025/2026).

Global South scholars bear an additional psychological and intellectual burden. A study of authors from six Global South countries found that they must become shapeshifters, shifting consciousness and inhabiting two or more worlds as they cross borders between Global South and Global North conventions (Naicker et al., 2024). Participants described experiences where their work was deemed irrelevant to Global North audiences, they were unable to interpret rejections, and had learned to play the publishing game by attending to both local and global imperatives (Naicker et al., 2024). These motivations and experiences revealed several practical, academic, and transformational tensions that Global South authors face (Naicker et al., 2024). As one co-author explained, Southern authors have to change how they act and write as researchers in the Global North. They have to mimic what is going on in the Global North when they write for Global North journals. And then they have to shift to doing something different when they write for their own journals in the Global South (Naicker et al., 2024). There is an added burden and risk in performing this shapeshifting, as Global South authors stand astride the borders of two worlds without belonging fully to either (Naicker et al., 2024). This intellectual labour, incurred in understanding foreign epistemic frameworks and producing scholarly work in academic-level English, impacts researchers' confidence, creativity, identity, and emotional integrity (Naicker et al., 2024).

The Diaspora and the Double Bind: Black Academics in the Americas and Beyond

The marginalisation of Black academic voices is not confined to the Global North-South divide. It is a trans-continental phenomenon that manifests differently, but no less painfully, across the Americas, the Caribbean, and the diaspora.

Black academics navigate a paradoxical double bind: they are simultaneously hypervisible, scrutinised as diversity tokens and expected to represent their race, and invisible, as their accomplishments go unrecognised and their scholarship is delegitimised (Settles et al., 2018). Research drawing from 118 interviews with faculty of colour at a research-intensive, predominantly white institution identified six themes related to this dynamic. Faculty of colour experienced hypervisibility when treated as tokens used to represent diversity, alongside invisibility through social and professional exclusion, and epistemic exclusion, a lack of recognition for their scholarship and achievements (Settles et al., 2018).

Black women academics experience this double bind with particular intensity. Comparative studies of British and postcolonial British Caribbean higher education institutions reveal persistent patterns: hypervisibility of race, mammification tropes, hyperinvisibility, and misogynoir (Stewart, Elgoharry, & Simpson, 2025). These intersectional harms are not incidental but structural, and sustained efforts to dismantle systemic oppression are required (Stewart, Elgoharry, & Simpson, 2025).

Faculty of colour, and Black academics in particular, consistently report disproportionate service workloads compared to white colleagues, undervaluation of Indigenous epistemologies within legacy university models, slower career progression, and research alienation and funding gaps (Arday, 2022/2025). Foundational texts and special editions, such as Black Academic Voices: The South African Experience, document the lived realities of institutional isolation, disproportionate service workloads, and the systematic undervaluing of indigenous epistemologies within legacy university models (Black Academic Voices Review).

Moving beyond geographic borders, the systemic exclusion of Black academics is a trans-continental phenomenon. Studies examining Black women in higher education across South Africa, Canada, and the United States reveal persistent headwinds, including targeted online harassment regarding hiring practices, undervaluation of community-grounded research, and slower career progression compared to their non-Black peers (Black Academic Voices Review).

Within the South: Afro-Descendant Erasure in Latin America and Asia

Less frequently documented, but equally significant, is the marginalisation of Black populations within the Global South, in Latin America and Asia, where local national narratives often erase structural anti-Blackness.

In many Latin American countries, Brazil, Colombia, and parts of Central America, national identity has been historically framed through mestizaje (racial mixing) or the myth of racial democracy. In practice, this ideology erases structural anti-Blackness. Black scholars and intellectuals within these countries are expected to assimilate into a default national identity, rendering systemic racism and Afro-descendant epistemologies invisible in mainstream curricula (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Data from regional studies highlight severe educational disparities: Afro-descendants in Latin America face disproportionate drop-out rates, severe underfunding in Black-majority territories such as the Chocó in Colombia or Bahia in Brazil, and acute lack of representation in tenured faculty positions (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).

Black populations, Afro-descendants, and African expatriate scholars and students living and working in parts of Asia, including South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, navigate complex forms of structural and social marginalisation (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Black academics operating within Asian tertiary institutions often experience tokenism or complete erasure. Their intellectual contributions are filtered through monolithic lenses, either exoticised or subjected to rigid xenophobic and colourist hierarchies embedded in local academic labour markets (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). Consequently, securing institutional backing, research grants, or editorial authority within local university publishing houses presents immense hurdles (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).

Scholars within these contexts experience a double marginalisation: they are excluded by the local academic elite for addressing race or counter-hegemonic frameworks, and simultaneously ignored by Western-centric global journals that view their regional insights as too niche (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South). This internal-South marginalisation remains one of the least documented yet most insidious forms of epistemic exclusion (CALAS Perspectives from the Global South).

Resistance and Renewal: Toward Epistemic Justice

Despite the scale of the problem, resistance is not only possible, it is already happening.

The concept of bibliodiversity, the idea that scholarly communities must determine their own agendas and create diverse pathways for varied knowledge circuits, offers a powerful counter-narrative to corporate publishing monopolies (Debat & Babini, 2025). Diamond Open Access models, free to read and free to publish, pioneered in Latin America through networks like SciELO and Redalyc, offer a concrete alternative to commercialised Western paywalls (Debat & Babini, 2025; SciELO Network). These community-led, non-profit initiatives resist the neoliberal capture of scholarly communication and create space for multilingual, locally-relevant scholarship (Debat & Babini, 2025; SciELO Network).

African-led initiatives like AfricArXiv and Baobab provide dedicated platforms that bypass Western gatekeeping, enabling African scientists and academics to share research openly and resist predatory publishing practices (AfricArXiv Portal). These repositories address the urgent need for African-owned open-access preprint servers to circumvent Western gatekeeping (AfricArXiv Portal).

The surge in institutional decolonisation rhetoric has been met with justified critique. Scholars warn against performative box-ticking that fails to address structural whiteness in curricula and the persistent underrepresentation of Black and minority ethnic faculty (Bhambra et al., 2021). Addaquay advocates for reforms that enhance ethical practices, including equitable timeframes, transparent peer reviews, and greater representation of African scholars in editorial positions (University of Toronto Press, 2025). The paper advocates for empirical research to evaluate bias and calls on the publishing sector to integrate universal ethical standards with African intellectual perspectives to promote epistemic justice (University of Toronto Press, 2025).

The epistemic siege is real. Black thought has been systematically confined behind white gates, through geography, language, economics, and institutional power.

Conclusion

But the siege is not unbreakable. Latin American bibliodiversity, African preprint repositories, and the growing movement toward epistemic justice offer pathways to a different future, one where knowledge is not measured by its proximity to the Global North, but by its capacity to speak truth across borders.

The gates are opening. The question is: who will walk through them? And who will hold them open for others?


References

AfricArXiv Portal. (n.d.). Building a trustworthy research environment. https://info.africarxiv.org/

Arday, J. (2022/2025). Examining decolonisation in global higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education. Taylor & Francis Online.

Berger, M. (2023). The politics of open access and the decolonization of knowledge. Invited talk, German Institute for Japan Studies.

Bhambra, G. K., et al. (2021). Decolonising the curriculum beyond the surge: Conceptualisation, positionality and institutional politics. London Review of Education. UCL Press.

Black Academic Voices Review. (n.d.). YouTube Academic Archives.

CALAS (Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies). (n.d.). Perspectives from the Global South.

Debat, H., & Babini, D. (2025). How the Global South is reshaping scholarly communication. eLife, 14, e108426.

Demeter, M. (2021). Geographic disparities in knowledge production. International Journal of Communication.

European Journal of Teacher Education. (2026). English language teacher educators' identity tensions: Academic publishing struggles and agency in Chile.

Gatwiri, K., & Udah, H. (2024). Becoming both: "Students" and "experts" of race in Australian higher education contexts. Journal for Multicultural Education, 18(4), 422-434.

Grosfoguel, R. (2013). Decolonizing peer review: Disrupting academic gatekeeping and epistemic violence. Human Architecture. Frameworks expanded in Tupas & Tarrayo (2025). Qualitative Research Journal. Emerald Publishing.

Hofstra, B., et al. (2022). North and South: Naming practices and the hidden dimension of knowledge production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Mellors, J., & Cole, S. (2025). Why restrictive academic authorship practices perpetuate inequality. LSE Impact Blog.

Mugwisi, T., et al. (2025/2026). Decolonizing knowledge production: Barriers and strategies for African scholars in academic publishing. ResearchGate Repository.

Naicker, A., et al. (2024). Shapeshifters: Global South scholars and their tensions in border consciousness. Focus on Health Professions Education. PubMed Central / NCBI.

Open Research Africa. (2025). Africa's research publishing: Navigating systemic inequalities and visibility.

SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) Network. (n.d.).

Settles, I. H., et al. (2018). Scrutinized but not recognized: (In)visibility and hypervisibility experiences of faculty of color. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 107, 166-182.

Stewart, S., Elgoharry, Y., & Simpson, S. (2025). Black women academics' hypervisibility and hyperinvisibility in British and postcolonial British Caribbean higher education institutions. Comparative Education Review, 69(2), 269-291.

Turba, R., Thoré, E. S. J., & Bertram, M. G. (2026). Global North-South science inequalities due to language and funding barriers. Peer Community Journal, 6, e9.

United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA). (n.d.). Conceptual briefs on global scholarship.

University of Toronto Press. (2025). Under-representation of African and Global South scholars in academic publishing. Journal of Scholarly Publishing. UTP Publishing.

The Ecological Price of the Resist: Why Scaling Petroleum Wax Threatens Aquatic Ecosystems—and the Organic Lessons of Indigenous African Starches

The Petrochemical Pivot and Industrial Dependency in Global Textile Processing

The global romanticization of wax-resist textiles—universally recognized as batik—masks a severe, escalating environmental hazard. While consumer markets package these goods under the rubric of sustainable slow-fashion craft, the backend realities of commercial production reveal an unacknowledged industrial dependency on petrochemicals. Historically, resist-dyeing relied on natural beeswax or organic resins. However, modern commercial scaling has driven a heavy substitution toward petroleum-derived paraffin wax. Paraffin is chemically inert, non-biodegradable, and persistent in natural ecosystems.

When paraffin is paired with low-cost synthetic dyes—such as Indigosol (vat dyes) or reactive dyes that require aggressive acid oxidation baths utilizing hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid—the processing cycle generates hazardous, low-pH wastewater. Environmental news investigations and comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research evaluating small-and-medium enterprise (SME) textile processing clusters confirm:

"The substitution of organic binding agents with petroleum-derived paraffin, coupled with unmitigated synthetic dye loads and acid oxidation agents, shifts traditional craft into an intensive non-point pollution source characterized by high chemical oxygen demand and persistent aquatic ecotoxicity." (SimaPro Textile LCA Database, 2024; Environmental Science & Pollution Research, 2023).

This foundational friction proves that scaling traditional aesthetics using industrial, petroleum-based inputs replicates the exact toxic footprint of conventional fast fashion.

Ecotoxicity, Aquatic Smothering, and Wastewater Runoff Realities

The environmental degradation peaks during the boil-off phase, where dyed fabrics are boiled in soda ash to melt away the wax. This creates a dense, sludgy wastewater effluent laden with suspended paraffin particles, fats, and residual dye molecules. Investigative reporting on artisanal water pollution and environmental engineering studies documenting textile effluent runoffs observe:

"Unlike water-soluble chemical compounds that disperse in aquatic columns, suspended paraffin wax emulsions cool upon release, solidifying on riverbeds and soil banks. This physical accumulation coats aquatic flora, suffocates benthic macroinvertebrates, and drastically limits dissolved oxygen exchange, creating an invisible mechanical trap that collapses aquatic biodiversity." (Journal of Cleaner Production, Water Footprint of Artisan Textiles, 2023; Global Water News Chronicle, 2025).

Furthermore, because these micro-enterprises frequently operate out of decentralized home workshops without capital-intensive filtration units, thousands of liters of raw effluent are dumped daily, permanently compromising shallow community groundwater wells and agricultural topsoils.

3. The Eco-Friendly Precedents of Indigenous African Material Science

Long before modern industrial pollution metrics existed, traditional African textile practices engineered completely biodegradable, zero-waste resist systems. Across the continent, artisans successfully bypassed petrochemicals by utilizing local biological matter:

  • Cassava Starch (Àdìrẹ Eleko): In West Africa, Yoruba artisans boil fermented cassava flour to create a thick, sticky paste that acts as a natural physical barrier against indigo vats.
  • Maize Meal (Sadza Batik): In Southern Africa, artists transformed ordinary cornmeal porridge into an accessible, non-toxic resist medium.

Because these organic pastes are derived directly from staple food crops, they break down entirely in natural water systems without leaving synthetic residues, micro-plastics, or toxic heavy-metal particulates. They demonstrate that high-performance technical textile barriers do not require petroleum foundations.

4. Toward an Ecological Imperative for African Textile Economies

If African textile economies are to industrialize sustainably under continental trade frameworks, they must reject the importation of environmentally destructive processing models. Replicating the pollution-heavy trajectory of foreign industrial hubs will permanently poison local river basins. True industrial sovereignty requires an ecological imperative: anchoring modern manufacturing growth in closed-loop, biodegradable, and indigenous material sciences that protect regional resources while meeting global quality demands.

References

  • Environmental Science & Pollution Research. (2023). Ecotoxicological impacts of paraffin wax and synthetic dye effluents in small-scale textile hubs. Springer.
  • Global Water News Chronicle. (2025). Investigating decentralized artisanal wastewater dumping in regional water tables. Investigative Desk Report.
  • International Trade Centre [ITC]. (2025). How to invest in a viable textile and cotton value chain in Africa. United Nations International Trade Centre.
  • Journal of Cleaner Production. (2023). Water Footprint and Effluent Toxicity in Decentralized Textile Processing Clusters. Elsevier.
  • SimaPro Textile LCA Database. (2024). Comparative environmental impact assessment of synthetic vat dyes versus organic resist mediums. PRé Sustainability.

The White Shirt Ideology: How Missionaries Made Christianity a Dress Code

In 1844, a concept was published that would shape the relationship between African identity and Christian conversion for generations. It was called the "gospel of the clean shirt" (Fox, 1844). The phrase appeared in William Fox's The Western Coast of Africa, capturing a missionary logic that was already being practiced across the continent. The gospel of the clean shirt was not about salvation. It was about appearance. It was about control. It was about the belief that before an African could be saved, they had to be dressed—and dressed according to European standards.

This was the white shirt ideology. It was not merely a preference for European clothing. It was a theological position. It was the conviction that European dress was a visible sign of an invisible conversion. Without the white shirt, the conversion was suspect. Without the European garment, the African was not yet civilised. And without civilisation, there was no salvation.

The Theological Logic of European Dress

The Hermannsburg missionaries in the Western Transvaal considered clothing "an indispensable pre-requisite to prepare pagan Africans for becoming Christians." It had to be "scrupulously submitted to the control of the self-styled agents of Christian civilisation" (Hermannsburg missionaries, cited in researchspace). Missionaries did not simply suggest European dress. They enforced it. When they lost control over African clothing habits, they disapproved not only of African appearance but of African mission residents themselves. Outward appearance was considered to be the mirror of a person's inner condition (Hermannsburg missionaries, cited in researchspace). The logic was consistent and totalising. If the outside did not look European, the inside could not be Christian.

This was not an isolated practice. In British and French colonial areas, missionaries banned drumming, dancing, and the wearing of African clothes. They forbade converts to participate in traditional ceremonies of naming, initiation, marriage, and burial. They substituted biblical names for African names (Owomoyela, n.d.). They saw everything African as "godless heathenism that must be wiped out" (Owomoyela, n.d.). The white shirt was not offered as an option. It was imposed through the destruction of African alternatives.

The Erasure of Barkcloth: When Indigenous Textiles Became Heathen

In Buganda, the Baganda had a thriving barkcloth industry. Barkcloth was made from fig trees, an indigenous fabric not woven but beaten from the bark of the mutuba tree. It was warm, durable, and culturally significant. The missionaries actively discouraged its use. They promoted the "clean shirt" or "white shirt" ideology, arguing that before the Western God, all people are alike if they keep their bodies clean—which the missionaries interpreted as "white" (Barkcloth missionary influence, n.d.). The result was the demise of the Baganda barkcloth industry. The indigenous textile was not just replaced. It was erased.

The pattern was repeated across the continent. In Namibia, among the Aawambo people, the Finnish missionaries taught that traditional costumes and ornaments were "heathen objects." The locals were persuaded to burn their traditional clothes. Sabina David states: "people eventually did away with traditional clothes and burned them. By doing so, they were persuaded to believe that they were abandoning paganism and evil objects for the righteousness of God the savior" (David, cited in Caley, n.d.). The white shirt did not arrive as an addition to African wardrobes. It arrived as a replacement for what was destroyed.

The White Habit and the White Fathers

The logic was not limited to African converts. It was embodied by the missionaries themselves. Cardinal Charles Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers and Carthage, founded the Society of Missionaries of Africa in 1868. He adopted a white habit for the Society's members, based on the traditional North African dress of a white gown (gandoura) and a white hooded cloak (burnous), with a rosary worn around the neck (Missionaries of Africa, n.d.). The white habit stood in contrast to the common black and brown habits of other Catholic religious orders. The Missionaries of Africa came to be known as "the White Fathers" (Missionaries of Africa, n.d.). The white habit was a marker of identity, authority, and difference. The white shirt was not just a tool of conversion. It was the uniform of the converter.

One source captures the pervasiveness of this whiteness: "Little baby Jesus was presented to me white, and in most cases — blue eyed! All the angels have been made white except of course those connected to Lucifer. Even John Bunyan's 'Pilgrims Progress' depicts the 'Flatterer' as 'a man black of flesh.' All the missionaries who were sent to teach me the ways of Godliness were white" (Nwosimiri, n.d.). The theology was racialised. The dress code was theological. And the two were inseparable.

The Subversion of the Uniform: When African Women Reappropriated Control

But the story does not end with control. African women found ways to resist and reappropriate. The Manyano, prayer groups of African women nurtured by female missionaries, emerged in the early twentieth century (Haddad, 2016). The church uniform provided the members with autonomy, status, and dignity. It functioned as a healing tool that healed illness and oppression. It helped participants escape the hard oppressive realities of life (Haddad, 2016). The same uniform that was imposed by missionaries was later reappropriated as a source of dignity and resistance. Former schoolgirls of missionary educator Mabel Shaw in Zambia embraced stylish modern apparel not as a rejection of Christianity but as an expression of "Christian modernity" (Kalusa, 2022). They were not rejecting Christianity. They were rejecting the missionary's control over what a Christian should look like.

The Legacy

The white shirt ideology is not history. It is inheritance. It is the lingering assumption that European dress is professional, respectable, and Christian. It is the belief that African clothing is traditional, casual, and not for serious occasions. It is the reason why barkcloth was burned, traditional dress was condemned, and the white shirt became the uniform of conversion. The missionaries did not bring a religion. They brought a dress code. And the dress code was a tool of subjugation.

There is no biblical basis for the white shirt. The Gospels do not mandate European tailoring. The apostles did not wear Victorian collars. The white shirt was a cultural imposition dressed in theological language. It was not a requirement of salvation. It was a requirement of submission.

Today, the same logic persists in the distinction between "formal" and "traditional" attire. The suit, the tie, the white shirt remain the uniforms of authority, professionalism, and respectability. African clothing—the dashiki, the boubou, the kente, the barkcloth—is often relegated to ceremonies, weekends, or cultural events. It is not seen as appropriate for boardrooms, courtrooms, or government offices. The white shirt ideology did not disappear. It became the standard.

The Manyano women and the former schoolgirls of Zambia demonstrate that the same garment can be a tool of control or a symbol of resistance. The uniform imposed by missionaries was reappropriated as a source of dignity and autonomy. The white shirt was not simply accepted. It was contested. It was subverted. It was made to mean something else. The question is not whether we wear the white shirt. It is whether we decide what it means, or whether it decides us.


References

· Caley, Maria A. N. "The Modernized Traditional Dress of the Aawambo." University of Turku. (n.d.)
· Fox, William. The Western Coast of Africa. London, 1844. Cited in Herskovits, M.J., The Human Factor in Changing Africa. London, 1962.
· Haddad, Beverly. Church uniform and Manyano women. 2016. Cited in researchspace.ukzn.ac.za.
· Hermannsburg missionaries. Cited in researchspace.ukzn.ac.za.
· Kalusa, Walima T. Former mission schoolgirls and modern apparel. 2022. Cited in researchspace.ukzn.ac.za.
· Missionaries of Africa. "History." Available at: https://missionariesofafrica.org/our-story/history/ (n.d.)
· Nwosimiri. Colonial period ideologies of European cultural superiority. (n.d.)
· Owomoyela, Oyekan. African Literatures: An Introduction. (n.d.)
· Van der Walt. Missionaries and separate education. (n.d.) Cited in researchspace.ukzn.ac.za.
· White Fathers. History of the Society of Missionaries of Africa. (n.d.)

“Though we are black, and mean, and vile”: The Unbroken Thread, Colonial Extraction, from Plantation to NGOs. Part 2: The Politics of Dependency and the Persistence of External Control: Beneficiaries Without Ownership

Who Benefits from Empowerment?

For more than three centuries, Africa has been the subject of programmes designed to educate, uplift, civilise, develop, modernise, empower, train, and transform its people. The language has changed with each era. Missionary societies spoke of salvation. Colonial administrations spoke of civilisation. Development agencies speak of capacity building. NGOs speak of empowerment.

Yet beneath the changing language lies a persistent question.

If empowerment is successful, why do so many beneficiaries remain beneficiaries? Why do so few become owners? Why do so few control the institutions, brands, markets, technologies, and capital created in their name?

Empowerment is often measured through participation. Ownership is measured through control. The two are not the same.

This chapter examines that distinction through the history of African textile production, tracing the institutional thread that connects plantation economies, missionary education, colonial labour systems, and contemporary development programmes.

The Plantation, the Mission, and the Formation of Labour

The thread begins on the plantation. The missionary societies that ran schools across Africa and the Caribbean were funded by the wealth extracted from enslaved labour. The objective of this analysis is not to argue that plantations, missionary schools, and NGOs are identical institutions. They are not. They emerged in different historical periods and operated under different legal and moral frameworks. The question is whether they occupied similar positions within a broader political economy in which African labour was mobilised while ownership, governance, and capital accumulation remained concentrated elsewhere.

The SPG owned the Codrington Plantation in Barbados, receiving a bequest in 1710 that required “three hundred negros at Least always Kept” on the estate (Fulham Palace, 2023). The Society branded enslaved people with the word “Society” on their chests with a hot iron (Fulham Palace, 2023). The London Missionary Society (LMS), founded in 1795, was supported by the Clapham Sect, whose members included slave traders and plantation owners (University College London, n.d.). The Church Missionary Society (CMS) received donations from the West India Interest, the powerful lobby representing Caribbean sugar planters who owned enslaved labour forces (Kinghorn, 2019). The plantation funded the mission. The mission educated the colonised. The education taught obedience. The cycle was complete.

From the plantation, the thread moved to the missionary school. The curriculum taught needlework, sewing, and embroidery. The goal was not creativity. The goal was discipline. The goal was a labour force that would serve the colonial economy without resistance. The missionary school was the bridge between the whip and the wage. The enslaved became the educated. The educated became the employed. The employed remained under control.

From the missionary school, the thread moved to the NGO. The missionaries did not disappear. They rebranded.

Diagram 1: Labour Extraction Timeline (Decision Path Diagram)

From Missionary Society to Development Agency

The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PMES, founded 1822) is now Défap, a French Protestant mission agency that funds development projects in Africa (Défap, n.d.). The Rhenish Mission Society (1828) is now the United Evangelical Mission, a global fellowship of churches that describes itself as a “development cooperation” organisation (UEM, n.d.). The Danish Mission Society (1821) is now Danmission, which runs development programmes in Tanzania, Nepal, and the Middle East (Danmission, n.d.). The Leipzig Mission (1836) is now part of EMS (Evangelisches Missionswerk), a German development agency (EMS, n.d.). The Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans—all built schools. All taught sewing. All now run NGOs.

The significance of these institutional transformations is not theological but organisational. In several cases, contemporary development agencies are not merely inspired by historical missionary organisations; they are their direct descendants. The question therefore becomes whether institutional missions changed only in language, or whether they also changed in their underlying relationship to power, governance, and economic control.

Diagram 2: Missionary to NGO Transition (Decision Path Diagram)

The framework was always economic. The plantation needed enslaved labour. The missionary school needed trained labour for the colonial administration. The NGO needs donor funding to survive. The artisan is the raw material in each phase. The institution captures the value. The worker remains at the bottom.

The language changed. The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society spoke of “spreading the Gospel.” Défap speaks of “development cooperation.” The Rhenish Mission spoke of “saving souls.” UEM speaks of “capacity building.” The Danish Mission spoke of “civilising the heathen.” Danmission speaks of “empowerment.” The words are new. The structure is the same.

The NGO Economy

The modern NGO is often presented as a temporary institution designed to address a specific social or economic challenge. Yet throughout Africa, NGOs have become permanent actors within local economies. They employ staff, manage grants, commission research, influence policy, broker market access, organise production, and shape development priorities.

This has produced what may be described as an NGO economy: an ecosystem sustained through the continuous circulation of donor funding, development projects, beneficiaries, consultants, auditors, programme officers, monitoring specialists, and international partners.

The issue is not whether NGOs perform useful work. Many undoubtedly do. The question is whether institutional incentives favour the production of independent owners or the continuous reproduction of beneficiaries.

A successful textile entrepreneur eventually ceases to require an empowerment programme. A cooperative that controls its own production, branding, intellectual property, and export relationships eventually ceases to require an intermediary. Yet development success is often measured by the number of beneficiaries reached rather than the number of beneficiaries who cease to be beneficiaries altogether.

The distinction matters. Beneficiary-centred systems reproduce participation. Ownership-centred systems reproduce power.

The framework was always economic. The plantation needed enslaved labour. The missionary school needed trained labour for the colonial administration. The NGO needs donor funding to survive. The artisan is the raw material in each phase. The institution captures the value. The worker remains at the bottom.

The Persistence of External Control

Across multiple historical periods, decision-making authority frequently remained external to the communities whose labour sustained the system. Under plantation slavery, ownership and capital accumulation were concentrated in Europe. Under colonial administration, policy and economic planning remained external. Under many contemporary development programmes, strategic authority often remains concentrated among donors, boards, international agencies, certification bodies, and programme managers located outside the communities being served.

Table

SystemLabourDecision MakingOwnershipValue Capture
PlantationAfricansEuropeEuropeEurope
Mission SchoolAfricansMission BoardMission BoardMission Institution
Colonial EconomyAfricansColonial StateColonial StateMetropole
NGO ProgrammeAfricansNGO/Donor NetworkNGO/BoardMixed
CooperativeMembersMembersMembers

Secular NGOs: New Institutions, Familiar Questions

Not all organisations working in African textiles follow the extractive model. Some are cooperatives. Some are artisan-owned. The distinction matters.

Espace Tissage Djougou (ETD) in Benin is a women-led weaving cooperative. It preserves the lokpa openwork fabric tradition. It is a partner in the EU-OACPS Business-Friendly Programme. The cooperative has 508 beneficiaries working through 18 cooperatives and 14 fashion brands. The stated mission is to preserve ancestral know-how and empower rural girls. The structure is a cooperative. The artisans are members, not employees. This is a different model. The value is shared.

Most NGOs, however, do not operate this way.

The ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative is a programme of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. It operates in Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Kenya, and Zambia. It connects artisans to international fashion brands including Stella Jean and Vivienne Westwood. The language is “ethical fashion,” “sustainability,” “market access.” The artisans are members of cooperatives. The governance is not in their hands. The UN agency controls the buyer relationships, the quality standards, and the brand.

Maisha by Nisria in Nakuru, Kenya, trains vulnerable women, single mothers, refugees, and persons with disabilities in sewing and fashion design. The language is “empowerment,” “conscious engagement,” “sustainability.” The organisation is a registered non-profit. The women are trainees. The decisions about funding, programming, and branding are made by the non-profit’s leadership, not by the women.

Unkara Fashion is a US-registered 501(c)(3) non-profit operating in Kenya. It trains women fashion designers in underprivileged communities and promotes indigenous textile culture including batik dyeing techniques. The language is “financial inclusion,” “sustainable income,” “indigenous textile culture.” The organisation has a US board of directors. The women are trainees. The intellectual property of the training materials and the brand belong to the US non-profit.

WEL NGO (Women Entrepreneurs & Leaders) in Côte d’Ivoire trains low-income and vulnerable women in sewing and handmade goods. The language is “economic empowerment,” “African culture,” “income generating activities.” The organisation is an NGO partnered with Koné Consulting. The women are beneficiaries. They do not control the organisation.

These NGOs are not descended from missionaries. They are new. These organisations differ in history, mission, and intent. The relevant question is not whether they are exploitative, but whether beneficiaries exercise meaningful ownership over governance, intellectual property, buyer relationships, and long-term capital accumulation. The answer varies by institution and deserves closer examination.

The beneficiaries are not owners. The decision-makers are not local. The NGO captures the brand, the donor relationships, and the market access. The artisan receives training and wages. The value leaves. The pyramid remains.

The Cooperative Alternative

The cooperative model in Benin shows a different path. Artisan ownership. Shared governance. Value retained locally. The difference is not the product. The difference is who controls the organisation.

The significance of the Benin case is not that it is perfect. Its significance is that it shifts the position of the artisan from beneficiary to member. The distinction is fundamental. Beneficiaries receive programmes. Members exercise governance. Beneficiaries participate in projects. Members participate in ownership.

The religious language is gone. “Saving souls” became “empowerment.” “Civilising mission” became “capacity building.” “Conversion” became “financial inclusion.” The words are new. The extractive structure remains.

Beneficiaries Without Ownership

How many beneficiaries became exporters?
How many became factory owners?
How many became brand owners?
How many became machinery manufacturers?
How many became employers?

Across the development sector, success is often measured through outputs: workshops conducted, trainees reached, women empowered, livelihoods supported. Far less attention is paid to ownership outcomes. Who controls the assets created? Who accumulates capital? Who acquires market power? Who determines future strategy?

How NGOs Use Labour

The NGO registers in a Western country. In the United States, it files for 501(c)(3) status, becoming exempt from federal corporate income tax (IRS, n.d.). In the United Kingdom, it registers as a charity, exempt from corporation tax (UK Government, n.d.). In the Netherlands, it registers as an ANBI, exempt from corporate tax and in some cases VAT (Dutch Tax Administration, n.d.). In Switzerland, it registers at the cantonal level, exempt from federal, cantonal, and municipal taxes (Swiss Federal Tax Administration, n.d.).

The NGO then opens a branch in an African country. It receives tax exemptions from the host government. It pays little to no corporate tax on its local activities. It employs local staff, often at lower wages than Western staff. It trains artisans. It organises production. It exports finished goods.

Diagram 3: NGO Value Pyramid (Decision Path Diagram)

[Place diagram here showing NGO at top, intermediaries in middle, artisans at bottom.]

The artisans are paid wages or piece-rates. They work in the informal economy. They pay little to no income tax. Their labour is the raw material of the NGO’s programmes. Their faces appear in annual reports. Their names are rarely listed. Their designs are not protected. Their knowledge is not owned by them.

The NGO sells the handicrafts through fair trade catalogues, online shops, and ethical fashion platforms. In the United States, if the sales are considered a regular commercial activity, Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) applies at 21 percent (IRS, n.d.). But many NGOs avoid UBIT by arguing that the sales are “substantially related” to their charitable mission.

The NGO director receives a salary from the tax-free revenue. The salary is paid from the profits of the artisans’ labour. The director pays personal income tax. The NGO pays nothing. The artisan receives wages. The African government collects nothing. The Western government collects little to nothing. The value leaves.

The local market model works differently. Artisans sell directly to tourists and local consumers (University of Nairobi, 2010). There is no NGO intermediary. There is no fair trade certification. There is no tax exemption. The artisan keeps the majority of the sale price. She pays market fees. The local government collects revenue. The value stays.

The NGO model is not designed for the artisan. It is designed for the NGO. The pyramid is upside down. The largest piece goes to the top. The smallest piece goes to the bottom.

The framework did not end. It rebranded. The names changed. The pyramid did not.

But the cooperative in Benin shows that it could be different.

The thread has not been broken.

References

Basel Mission Archives / mission 21. “Nähschule in Kyebi (Sewing class in Kyebi).” Reference: D-30.13.039. Available at: https://bmarchives.org/items/show/56603
Basel Mission Archives / mission 21. “Nähschule in Akropong 1904 (Sewing school in Akropong 1904).” Reference: QD-30.106.0153. Available at: https://bmarchives.org/items/show/71875
Caley, Maria A. N. “The Modernized Traditional Dress of the Aawambo.” University of Turku.
Coutau-Bégarie Auction House. “Three entre-deux and one carré in Chebka lace, North Africa, late 19th/early 20th century.” Lot 129. Available at: https://coutaubegarie.com/en/lot/157092/26525906
Danmission. “About Danmission.” Available at: https://danmission.dk
Défap. “Service Protestant de Mission.” Available at: https://defap.fr
Dutch Tax Administration. “ANBI - Public Benefit Organisations.” Available at: https://www.belastingdienst.nl/anbi
EMS (Evangelisches Missionswerk). “About EMS.” Available at: https://www.ems-online.org
Espace Tissage Djougou (ETD). “Preserving lokpa openwork fabric tradition.” EU-OACPS Business-Friendly Programme. Available at: https://www.businessfriendly.org/etd-benin
Fulham Palace. “Church of England’s plantations in Barbados.” 13 March 2023. Available at: https://www.fulhampalace.org/resistance/church-of-england-plantations/
IRS. “Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations.” Available at: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-section-501c3-organizations
IRS. “Unrelated Business Income Tax.” Available at: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/unrelated-business-income-tax
ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative. “CABES Burkina Faso.” Available at: https://ethicalfashioninitiative.org
Kinghorn, Alice. “The Church of England and the West India Interest.” PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 2019.
Maisha by Nisria. Available at: https://maishabynisria.org
McLean-Farrell, Janice, and Michael Anderson Clarke. “Missions in Contested Places/Spaces: The SPG, Slavery, and Codrington College, Barbados.” Mission Studies, 2021.
Mission 21. Available at: https://mission-21.org
Monk, Matthew, and Linda Eaton. “A Sampler’s Story from Sierra Leone.” Winterthur Museum, 5 September 2025. Available at: https://www.winterthur.org/blog/a-samplers-story-from-sierra-leone
Porte Brown. “Watch for UBIT When Your Nonprofit Pursues New Activities.” 2025.
Strickrodt, Silke. “African Girls’ Samplers from Mission Schools in Sierra Leone (1820s to 1840s).” History in Africa, 2010;37:189-245.
Swiss Federal Tax Administration. “Taxation of Non-Profit Organisations.” Available at: https://www.estv.admin.ch
TRC Leiden. “Embroidery and the White Sisters.” 29 June 2015. Available at: https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/regional-traditions/middle-east-and-north-africa/pre-modern-middle-east-and-north-africa/embroidery-and-the-white-sisters
UK Government. “Charities and tax.” Available at: https://www.gov.uk/charities-and-tax
United Evangelical Mission (UEM). “About UEM.” Available at: https://uem-partnership.org
University College London. “Legacies of British Slavery: Clapham Sect.” Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
University of Nairobi. “Access to E-Commerce in the Ethical trade Arena: A Case study of Artisans in Kenya.” 2010. Available at: https://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke
Unkara Fashion. Available at: https://unkarafashion.org
USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). “About USPG.” Available at: https://uspg.org.uk
WEL NGO African Arts Creation. Available at: https://wel-ngo.org
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. “Sampler by Lucy Davis.” Object number 2018.0007. Available at: http://museumcollection.winterthur.org/single-record.php?recid=2018.0007

Image Sources

Basel Mission Archives. “Nähschule in Kyebi (Ghana).” https://bmarchives.org/items/show/56603
Basel Mission Archives. “Nähschule in Akropong (Ghana).” https://bmarchives.org/items/show/71875
TRC Leiden. “White Sisters teaching lace making.” https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles
Coutau-Bégarie Auction House. Chebka lace collection. https://coutaubegarie.com
Winterthur Museum. Sampler by Lucy Davis. http://museumcollection.winterthur.org/single-record.php?recid=2018.0007
International Mission Photography Archive (USC). Mission sewing archives. https://digitallibrary.usc.edu
Yale Divinity Library. Raphia weaving missions archive. https://collections.library.yale.edu
Mennonite Archives. Sewing class Zaire. https://archives.mennonite.net
United Church of Canada Archives. Sewing school Japan. https://archives.unitedchurch.ca

Additional Academic References

Political Economy, Dependency and Colonial Continuity

Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1972.

Nkrumah, Kwame. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1965.

Amin, Samir. Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976.

Amin, Samir. Accumulation on a World Scale: A Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

Beckford, George L. Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Best, Lloyd. Essays on the Theory of Plantation Economy. Mona: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies.

Girvan, Norman. The Caribbean Dependency Tradition: From New World Group to the Present. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers.

Beckles, Hilary. Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2013.

NGO Critique and Development Studies

Manji, Firoze and Carl O’Coill. “The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa.” International Affairs 78, no. 3 (2002): 567–583.

Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Ferguson, James. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.

Fowler, Alan. Striking a Balance: A Guide to Enhancing the Effectiveness of Non-Governmental Organisations in International Development. London: Earthscan, 1997.

Edwards, Michael. Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014.

Moyo, Dambisa. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.

African Development Thought

Ake, Claude. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1996.

Mkandawire, Thandika. African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development. London: Zed Books, 2005.

Mazrui, Ali A. The Africans: A Triple Heritage. London: BBC Publications, 1986.

Mafeje, Archie. Africanity: A Combative Ontology. Dakar: CODESRIA, 2008.

Ayittey, George B.N. Indigenous African Institutions. Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1991.

Olukoshi, Adebayo. The Politics of Opposition in Contemporary Africa. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute, 1998.

African Textiles, Craft Economies and Cultural Production

Rovine, Victoria L. African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations and Ideas You Can Wear. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

Rovine, Victoria L. Bogolan: Shaping Culture Through Cloth in Contemporary Mali. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.

Picton, John and John Mack. African Textiles. London: British Museum Press, 1989.

Boone, Sylvia Ardyn. Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Asante, Molefi Kete. Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change. Chicago: African American Images, 2003.

Cooperative Governance and Ownership

Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Ostrom, Elinor. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

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Terraforming Africa: Resilience in Thread-Part 2: The Pre-colonial Fibre, The Sheep That Survived, The Wool That Endures

Ethiopia has over 80 ethnic groups and approximately 30 million sheep, one of the largest populations in Africa. The country has more than fourteen local sheep breeds, with several producing wool suitable for textile applications. The indigenous wool-producing breeds include Washera, Menz, Farta, Tikur, and Wollo.

The Bernos is a traditional dark wool cloak worn by Amhara men in the Ethiopian highlands. It has a large point on one side of the shoulder designed to keep a rifle in place. Wealthier men of Menz wore it as a sign of status. Today it is worn during traditional ceremonies and special occasions. The Gabi is a thicker, warm garment made from four layers of fabric, worn by both men and women, mainly by the Amhara in cold high-altitude regions. Clergy and elderly people wear it frequently. Amhara women spin the yarn together and present the finished Gabis as gifts to their husbands.

Ethiopian wool fibre from indigenous breeds has been studied by Ethiopian researchers. Liyew and Adamu (2023) found that the wool fibre from Washera, Menz, Farta, and Tikur breeds has good fibre yield and moisture regain properties, making it suitable for manufacturing wool products including rugs, socks, sweaters, quilts, and mattresses. The wool fibre yield for Washera males was 89.29 percent. For Menz males it was 88.29 percent. For Farta males it was 73.33 percent. For Tikur males it was 81.74 percent.

Sitotaw, Woldemariam, and Tesema (2020) investigated the physical properties of wool fibre from Menz, Wollo, Farta, and Tikur breeds. The results revealed that these properties are significantly different from each other. The wool fibre from Ethiopian sheep breeds is suitable for textile production and should be classified based on breed for different textile applications. Sitotaw, Tesema, and Woldemariam (2021) found that fineness and strength of wool fibres varied significantly within each breed and among breeds. Ethiopian sheep wool fibre is suitable for numerous types of classical and technical applications, including suits, blankets, shirts, and carpets.

The rinderpest virus entered Ethiopia in 1887 after Italian forces landed in Eritrea with infected Indian cattle. The virus spread through the northern provinces of Tigray and Shewa before moving south. It killed approximately 90 percent of the country's cattle population and decimated wild buffalo, antelopes, and giraffes. The sources confirm that sheep and goats died in massive numbers as well.

An estimated one third of the Ethiopian population died from starvation following the loss of livestock. The rinderpest virus does not infect humans. The people starved because their cattle died, their sheep died, their goats died. The oxen that pulled ploughs were gone. The animals that fertilized crops with dung were gone. The food supply collapsed.

An Ethiopian poem from the 1890s documents the devastation. The poet writes: "I came from there to here without seeing an ox." The line has a double meaning: "I came from there to here over dead bodies." Families sold their children into slavery. Smallpox broke out. Starving people ate the skins of decomposed cattle, then leaves and roots, then animal dung. Lions, leopards, and hyenas began attacking and killing people in broad daylight.

The Borana people of southern Ethiopia call the rinderpest pandemic ciinna tiittee guuracha — "the extermination of cattle whose corpses were covered by swarms of black flies." For the Borana, whose economy was based entirely on cattle, the pandemic was "the worst time in Borana history, which we do not want to be reminded of, but which we also cannot forget."

After the conquest of Ethiopia in 1935, the Italian fascist government planned a "demographic colonization" of the country. Haile M. Larebo, an Ethiopian scholar, has documented this extensively. The fascist objective was to divert Italian migration from the Americas to the newly conquered Ethiopia. This would solve Italy's "surplus population" problem while providing cheap materials for Italian industry and a protected market for Italian products.

Mussolini boasted that Italy had finally joined the ranks of the "satisfied" nations and had "at last got an empire of her own." Fascist leaders spoke of moving 6,250,000 Italians within a short period. Marshal Pietro Badoglio declared it was "not an exaggeration" to envisage the shipment of one million settlers within a year. Haile Selassie's private estates were confiscated for the establishment of agricultural colonies. Black Shirts remaining in Abyssinia were to be the first colonists.

The Italians introduced the rinderpest. The rinderpest killed the cattle, the sheep, the goats. The famine killed an estimated one third of the Ethiopian population. The Italians then planned to move their own settlers into the depopulated land. Mussolini's government confiscated Haile Selassie's private estates for agricultural colonies. Black Shirts were designated as the first colonists. The disease cleared the land. The settlers were meant to take it.

The plan failed. By June 1940, no more than 400 peasants had settled in Ethiopia. Only about 150 had brought their families. When the British forces came to the aid of Ethiopian patriots, Mussolini's East African empire crumbled in less than three months. The settlers abandoned their farms and were repatriated to Italy as paupers. The land remained Ethiopian. The sheep remained Ethiopian. The wool remained Ethiopian.

Ethiopia's textile industry did not collapse. It redesigned itself. The Gabi and the Bernos are still worn. The wool from indigenous sheep is still processed by small-scale enterprises into rugs, socks, sweaters, quilts, and mattresses. The Lemlem project, founded by supermodel Liya Kebede, trains women weavers and produces hand-woven garments for international markets. The wool is grown in Australia, spun in Italy, and woven in Ethiopia. This is not ideal. But it is not extinction.

The Ethiopian government's industrial strategy focuses on cotton, not wool. The industrial parks are built for foreign investors to process cotton for export. The wool sector receives little attention. The Gabi and the Bernos survive without government support. They survive because Ethiopians still wear them. They survive because the women who weave them still teach their daughters. The industry is not dead. It is ignored by policy but alive by choice.

The Macina sheep is an indigenous breed from the Inland Delta of central Mali. It is raised by the Fulani people. The breed produces wool. The Inland Delta of Mali is the only area in Sub-Saharan Africa where wool is traditionally produced on a significant scale.

The wool is traditionally woven into specific categories of textiles. The Niger Bend region spanning Mali and Niger was "the foremost center of technical and visual diversity in West African treadle-loom weaving traditions." The primary wool textiles include the Kaasa, a heavy wool cover that changed significantly in appearance over the 20th century, and the Arkilla, a ceremonial marriage cover that maintained the same design for centuries. Other products include Mopti blankets, carpets, tweed, and felt.

The textile system is intimately linked to the Fulani people who own the sheep. The knowledge is encoded in animal husbandry, material practice, and visual language simultaneously. The Fulani consider wool production important enough that castrated males contribute significantly to their flock numbers.

The rinderpest virus reached the Senegal River by 1891, sweeping through the Sahel corridor that includes the Inland Delta of Mali. The impact on the Macina sheep population specifically is not quantified in the available sources. The broader Sahelian pastoral systems collapsed. The virus was not an act of God. It was an act of war. The Italian army imported infected cattle to feed its campaign against Ethiopia. The virus escaped. It spread across the continent. The Macina sheep were part of that destruction.

The French colonial administration launched specific interventions between the 1920s and 1940s to industrialise the Macina sheep. Wilson's 1981 analysis in the journal Textile History outlines these attempts. The French sought to upgrade local Macina sheep for increased wool production by selection or cross-breeding with Merinos. They attempted to increase goat wool production by crossing imported Angora goats with local goats. They tried to increase pelt production by crossing the local long-haired Black Moor sheep with Karakul (Bokhara) sheep.

A French veterinary student named Georges Hugaud submitted a 1934 thesis titled "Le mouton du Macina, son amélioration en vue de la production lainière" (The Macina Sheep, Its Improvement for Wool Production). The thesis proposed methods for increasing wool yield through cross-breeding with European Merinos.

The attempts failed. The Merino, bred for European climates and intensive management, could not tolerate the environmental conditions of the Inland Delta. The Fulani traditional system of pastoral management did not conform to the industrial model the French attempted to impose.

The French left. The Macina sheep remained. The wool is still woven into Kaasa and Arkilla by Fulani weavers. The garments are still produced, not at industrial levels, but at the level of community, tradition, and survival. The French industrial model failed. The Fulani knowledge system did not.

Today, no industrialisation of Macina sheep wool exists in Mali or Niger. The government strategy in Niger focuses exclusively on meat and live animal exports, not wool processing. The cotton industry dominates the textile sector in both countries. The wool sector receives no policy attention. The Kaasa and Arkilla continue to be woven because the Fulani have not stopped. The industry is not dead. It is ignored by policy but alive by choice.

The Macina sheep population was estimated at 1 million head in 1947, which grew to 2 million by 1985. The most recent available data for Macina sheep in Mali is from 2015, showing a population of 2.9 million head. The sheep recovered. The weavers continued. The wool is still there. The knowledge is still there. The garments are still there.


References

· Liyew, E.Z. & Adamu, B.F. (2023). Wool fiber yield and moisture regain of four Ethiopian sheep breeds. Tropical Animal Health and Production.
· Sitotaw, D.B., Woldemariam, A.H., & Tesema, A.F. (2020). Physical properties of wool fiber from four Ethiopian indigenous sheep breeds. The Journal of The Textile Institute.
· Sitotaw, D.B., Tesema, A.F., & Woldemariam, A.H. (2021). Investigation of wool fiber fineness and strength from pure and cross-breed sheep. Journal of Engineered Fibers and Fabrics.
· Larebo, Haile M. The Building of an Empire: Italian Land Policy and Practice in Ethiopia, 1935-1941.
· Tiki, Waktole & Oba, Gufu. (2009). Ciinna-the Borana Oromo narration of the 1890s Great Rinderpest epizootic. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 3(3), 479-508.
· Wilson, R.T. (1981). Livestock production in central Mali: Attempts to produce raw materials of animal origin for the French textile industry during the colonial period. Textile History, 12, 104-117.
· Gardi, Bernhard and Gilbert, Michelle. (2021). Arkilla, Kaasa, and Nsaa: The Many Influences of Wool Textiles from the Niger Bend in West Africa. The Textile Museum Journal, 48, 24-53.
· Slow Food Foundation. Mouton de Macina - Arca del Gusto.
· Statistic (2025). Niger Sheep Market Report 2026.
· Agriculture and Market News Service (Niger). (2021). Recensement National du Cheptel. Republic of Niger.

Terraforming Africa: The Weaponisation of Dress; Part 1: The Basotho Blanket – A Colonial Artifact, a Biological Weapon, a Nation’s Scar

The blanket is a central piece in Basotho culture. It is worn for births, marriages, initiations, and funerals. The Basotho people have a saying: Kobo ke Bophelo — "the blanket is life". It is a national symbol, a source of warmth in the high-altitude Kingdom of Lesotho, and a marker of identity. But the blanket is also a scar. The story of the Basotho blanket is not a story of tradition. It is a story of terraforming: the deliberate reshaping of a landscape and its people through the weaponisation of disease, economics, and dress.

Before the blanket, the Basotho wore the kaross — an animal skin cloak. Chiefs and royalty wore cloaks of wild cat or leopard skin, called lehlosi. Priests wore specific capes of black and white sheepskin. Common people wore cloaks of cowhide or goatskin. The kaross was not a primitive covering. Written accounts from the 19th century describe the cloak of King Moshoeshoe I as "a great black leopard-skin kaross, as soft as the best silk". The indigenous sheep of Southern Africa were not wool producers. The Nguni, Damara, Namaqua Afrikaner, and Ronderib Afrikaner breeds have coarse hair rather than wool and a significant fatty deposit at the base of the tail. They were kept for meat, fat, and skins, not for fibre. These breeds are still present today. They are drought tolerant and kept by smallholder farmers. But they produce no wool. Lesotho has no historical tradition of woven textiles. The Basotho did not weave cloth. They worked with skins, not looms.

Wool production in Lesotho began in the 1850s, barely twenty years after the founding of the nation by Moshoeshoe I. Basotho acquired wooled Merino sheep through labour migration and employment on South African sheep farms, and sometimes through stock theft. By the end of the 19th century, almost the entire local sheep flock had been transformed from traditional meat-producing varieties to exotic Merino sheep. The Angora goat population was similarly replaced. Between 1900 and 1931, the Merino population increased tenfold, from 300,000 to nearly 3 million head. The Angora population increased from about 100,000 to over 1 million. The introduction of wool was part of a colonial project to integrate Lesotho into the Southern African market economy. Yet the kaross remained. The old ways persisted until the rinderpest came.

In 1887, a small Italian expeditionary force landed in the Horn of Africa. The soldiers were fighting a colonial war against the Ethiopians. Accompanying them were Indian cattle, imported to feed the troops. Those cattle carried the rinderpest virus, a close relative of measles and canine distemper, native to the steppes of Central Asia. Rinderpest was not native to Africa. The continent's cattle had no immunity. The virus spread with catastrophic speed. It reached the Atlantic within five years. Within a decade, it had arrived in South Africa. By the end of the century, an estimated 5.5 million cattle had died south of the Zambezi alone. Rinderpest killed over 95 percent of African herds throughout Southern Africa. Farmers had no oxen to pull ploughs or drive the waterwheels that irrigated fields. Hungry populations fell prey to smallpox, cholera, typhoid, and new diseases brought by Europeans. The rinderpest was not an act of God. It was an act of war. The Italian army imported infected cattle to feed its campaign against Ethiopia. The virus escaped. It spread across the continent. The same wave reached Lesotho in 1896-1897 and killed over 95 percent of African herds.

The rinderpest panzootic had already destroyed over 90 percent of African cattle herds. In response, Cecil Rhodes urgently sought replacement cattle. In December 1900, nearly 1,000 cattle imported from Australia arrived at the port of Beira in Mozambique. These cattle carried an entirely new disease that had never before been seen in Africa: East Coast Fever. The disease proved equally fatal to rinderpest. Robert Koch, the renowned German bacteriologist, was called in to investigate but made critical errors. The first instinct of the colonial authorities was to deny the existence of the disease for fear of discouraging investment. Cecil Rhodes wrote explicitly about his intentions: "I am already preparing for settling the Colonial or Englishman choosing to remain… I want to settle the Colonials, start the railway to the Victoria Falls, see the mines personally." The cattle were imported specifically to support white settlement. African herds were destroyed. White farms were stocked. Half a million cattle still die from East Coast Fever every year in East and Central Africa. In Zimbabwe alone, 5.5 million cattle have to be dipped in insecticide every week to control the brown tick that transmits the disease.

By 1860, securing sufficient skins for karosses was increasingly difficult. By 1872, a large majority of sheepskin covers had been replaced by poor quality cotton or wool. The kaross was not abandoned because it was inferior. The kaross was abandoned because the source of its raw material had been systematically destroyed by biological weapons: first rinderpest, then East Coast Fever. Into this void stepped the blanket. Legend holds that the first blanket was given to King Moshoeshoe I in 1860 by a British trader. The king liked it and took to wearing it around his shoulders as a kaross. His subjects followed suit. The blanket was worn in the same way as the animal skin cloak. The line (mola) on modern wool blankets is a direct transfer of the design from the traditional kaross, where the spinal seam of the pelt created a visible line along the wearer's back. The British Museum confirms that the history of the Basotho blanket dates back to the 1860s, when "a blanket of European manufacture was presented to King Moshoeshoe I". The blanket was a manufactured product of the British Industrial Revolution, made possible by the Jacquard weaving machine. The blanket is not the tradition. The blanket is the scar.

The Basotho blanket is made of wool. Wool is not only for cold climates. Merino wool acts as a natural thermoregulator. The fibres are highly porous and hygroscopic, absorbing moisture vapour before it turns into sweat on the skin. It wicks moisture away from the body, keeping the wearer dry and aiding natural cooling. Wool also offers natural UV protection, with a Ultraviolet Protection Factor of 30 or higher. A typical cotton t-shirt has a UPF of around 5. The fibre is odour resistant, trapping bacteria rather than releasing it. Other African countries could buy Lesotho's wool to reduce their dependence on imported synthetic fibres. This would help Lesotho grow less dependent on AGOA and on the low prices offered by South African brokers. The wool is there. The quality is high. The market exists. The only missing piece is political will.

Wool and mohair account for 60 percent of Lesotho's agricultural exports and support more than 25 percent of the rural population, approximately 45,000 households. Yet most of the fibres are exported raw. South Africa is the world's dominant mohair producer, supplying over 50 percent of global output. The fibre comes from Angora goats and fetches up to $53 per kilogram for luxury knitwear. Lesotho shares the same breed and produces the same high-quality fibre. The local Merino sheep is hardy and well adapted but a low yielder. The sector is dominated by rural small-scale farmers. The Boer goat, an indigenous South African breed, is primarily kept for meat, milk, and skins. It is not a wool or mohair producer. Who is still making money on Lesotho's wool and mohair today? The South African brokers. The international buyers. The luxury fashion houses in Europe and the United States. The Basotho farmers receive a fraction of the final price. The weavers receive less.

Masetumo Lebitsa is a 73-year-old weaver who started weaving in 1975. She worked with an international designer who commissioned a tapestry. She and her group were paid M5,000. The designer sold the piece for US$136,000. He returned and offered M7,000 for another piece. She refused. Maseru Tapestry, her business, once had a regular buyer in Cape Town. A package of 20 tapestries sent through Lesotho's postal service did not arrive on time. The buyer ended the relationship. Since then, she has stopped using Lesotho's postal system. The middlemen capture the value. The weavers are paid a fraction of what their work commands.

Lesotho's garment industry employs approximately 34,000 workers, roughly three-quarters of them women. The sector accounts for about 35 percent of the country's exports, most destined for the United States. This export-driven model was deliberately built around AGOA. When AGOA expired in September 2025, compounded by 15 percent tariffs imposed the previous month, factory orders were cancelled. Production slowed. Some facilities shut down. The government declared a national state of disaster. Women absorbed the shock first. Layoffs and reduced hours hit them disproportionately. AGOA was renewed in February 2026 but runs only until December 31, 2026. Less than a year of certainty. This short timeline discourages long-term investment.

A Chinese investor named Baokunyaoda has entered the market. The company has begun purchasing wool and mohair locally at prices higher than those offered by South African brokers. They are stockpiling fibre in anticipation of the lifting of a Foot and Mouth Disease ban. They aim to create a direct link between Basotho farmers and the Chinese market, eliminating intermediaries, ensuring faster payments, and capitalising on zero-tariff trade opportunities. They have also promised to build processing factories in Lesotho. The weavers are watching. They have seen promises before.

The International Trade Centre's Ethical Fashion Initiative launched a programme in Lesotho in November 2025 to rebrand Lesotho's wool and mohair for international markets while building local capacity. The programme is part of the Wool and Mohair Value Chain Competitiveness Project (WaMCoP), a partnership between the government of Lesotho, the Ministry of Agriculture, and IFAD. The previous Wool and Mohair Promotion Project (WAMPP) closed in 2023. The weavers at Maseru Tapestry report that support has not reached them under the new project. A baseline survey is still being conducted. Activities have not started.

Most weavers in Lesotho today are women who learned the trade decades ago through foreign-run workshops. Masetumo Lebitsa started weaving in 1975 after attending workshops run by Elizabeth Everett. Her weavers have no formal training. At the Leribe Craft Centre, Mamookho Mangope, who is deaf, travels over 134 kilometres to the centre. "Before, we were very withdrawn, hidden and did not understand what life was like. But after coming here, it opened our eyes," she says. Most weavers are elderly. Lebitsa hopes government plans to train new weavers will materialise soon. "We want the new generation to take over," she says. "We have to teach them."

The rinderpest opened a gap. The Australian cattle opened another. Leading to the kaross raw materials to be destroyed. The blanket was introduced during that void. But the blanket was not a solution, It was a substitute. The kaross is gone, no signs of revival or reinstateting. How many more extinctions can we take?

References

· British Museum. Collection object E_2012-2018-5. 'Motlatsi' Jacquard woven blanket, 'Khosana' (chief) design.
· British Museum. "Blanket of European manufacture presented to King Moshoeshoe I." Collection notes.
· Brighton Museums. Fashioning Africa project. Basotho blanket 'Badges of the Brave'.
· National Museum Publications. Basotho blanket classifications and material composition.
· International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO). Lesotho wool and mohair production statistics.
· Agricultural Research Council of South Africa. Indigenous Veld Sheep Breeders' Society.
· Rinderpest history: FAO archives; Past & Present journal (2024) on Italian imperial mirage.
· East Coast Fever history: Rhodes, Cecil. Letter to Alfred Milner, 26 May 1900.
· Masetumo Lebitsa. Interview. Maseru Tapestry.
· Mamookho Mangope. Interview. Leribe Craft Centre.
· ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative. WaMCoP project documents. 2025-2026.
· AGOA renewal. US Trade Representative. February 2026.

THE FEAR OF THE INTERSTICE: ARTHUR LEWIS, THE PLANTATION SCHOOL, AND WHY BLACK LEADERS ARE AFRAID OF THE SPACE BETWEEN EMPIRE COLLAPSE AND SOVEREIGNTY CREATION

There is a fear that runs through African and Caribbean economic policy. It is not named. It is rarely discussed. But it explains why the textile mills closed, why the cotton is still exported raw, why the gold remains in foreign vaults, and why the African Union cannot break from the extractive systems that have strangled the continent for generations. It is the fear of the interstice.

The interstice is the gap left behind when a system withdraws, collapses or is destroyed. Not a void. Not a vacuum waiting to be filled. The West calls it a vacuum. They panic. They rush to fill it with loans, aid, trade agreements, and military bases. Their logic demands that every space be occupied, measured, controlled, by them. African metaphysics has always understood the interstice differently. The Kongo call it the hollow, the printing chamber where realities are imprinted before they emerge. The Akan know the threshold between the living and the ancestors. The Yoruba map the Odu, the space where opposing forces balance. Ubuntu accepts the distance between persons as part of relation. The Mandari name the margin that cannot be utilized.

The interstice is not empty. It is the condition for new creation, for sovereignty, for independence, for liberation.

Yet the architects of African and Caribbean development policy have been terrified of it. Arthur Lewis, the Nobel Prize-winning economist from St. Lucia, built his entire model on avoiding the interstice. His critics, the Plantation School of Lloyd Best, Norman Girvan, and George Beckford, understood that the interstice was necessary, but they could not convince the policymakers. And today, the same fear paralyses the African Union and most heads of state. They negotiate for better terms within the existing system. They do not demand a new system nor prepare for an alternative. Because they are afraid of what happens if the old system withdraws and they are excluded from what comes.

This blog post traces that fear from Lewis to the present, using the textile industry as the thread that runs through the entire story. Because cotton was the colonial crop. And the cloth tells the truth.

ARTHUR LEWIS AND THE REFUSAL OF THE INTERSTICE

Arthur Lewis was born in St. Lucia in 1915. He was the first Black professor at the London School of Economics, the first Black person to hold a full professorship at the University of Manchester, and the first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He was a staunch anti-imperialist who had personally taken on the English economic establishment over the West Indies' "right to industrialise" and won. He advised Kwame Nkrumah. He shaped the economic policy of newly independent nations across Africa and the Caribbean.

Yet his model of development was designed to avoid the interstice at all costs.

Lewis's Dual Sector Model, published in his 1954 paper "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour," divides the economy into two sectors: a low-productivity subsistence sector (traditional agriculture, crafts, the informal economy) and a high-productivity capitalist sector (modern industry). The model predicts that surplus labour from the subsistence sector will move to the capitalist sector, attracted by higher wages. Industrialization will proceed. Wages will eventually rise. The economy will transform.

Crucially, Lewis saw the subsistence sector as having "unlimited supplies of labour." The marginal productivity of additional workers is zero or even negative. Removing them from farming does not reduce output. This surplus labour can be drawn into the capitalist sector without raising wages, because the subsistence sector provides a constant supply of workers desperate for any wage above survival.

The model assumes that labour will move voluntarily. Workers see higher wages in the factory. They leave the farm. They are replaced by others. The process continues until the surplus labour is exhausted. At that point, wages rise across both sectors, and the economy becomes fully developed.

Lewis did not consider all factors. He assumed that labour would move from one sector to the other without any gap. The subsistence sector would shrink. The capitalist sector would expand. There would be no space between, no pause, no uncertainty. The transfer would be smooth, continuous, and automatic.

The textile industry was central to this vision. Lewis advised Kwame Nkrumah's government in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1953, recommending that the state should "pioneer" industries and then sell them once they became viable. Cotton was the obvious starting point. It was the major cash crop. It could be spun, woven, and printed locally. Foreign capital would be invited in to build the mills. Local labour would leave the farms and enter the factories.

But Lewis did not ask what would happen if the foreign capital refused the invitation. He did not ask what would happen if the mills closed. He did not anticipate that foreign capital might prefer to extract raw materials at low cost, ship them elsewhere for processing, and capture the value-added profits in their own countries. Why would he, living during the heights of the struggle of liberation, not see how the colonisers structured the realities of the economies we lived in?

PART TWO: WHAT LEWIS OVERLOOKED

The first problem with Lewis's model is that labour does not move voluntarily when it is forced. Colonial taxation policies in German East Africa (now Tanzania) deliberately created a cash shortage. Local people could not pay their taxes. To raise cash, men left textile-producing areas to seek wage work on distant plantations. The textile industry in Ufipa began to decline in the first decade of the twentieth century, not because of competition from imported cloth, but because colonial taxation policies destabilized the local labour supply.

Lewis assumed that the subsistence sector was simply less productive. The evidence shows that colonial taxation made it impossible for people to remain in the textile industry sector. They were not attracted to higher wages. They were fleeing the tax collector.

The second problem is that Lewis assumed that once labour moved to the capitalist sector, the process would be self-sustaining. The evidence from Nigeria tells a different story. Nigeria had approximately 200 textile mills in the 1970s and 1980s, employing 600,000 workers. The mills were built with foreign machinery, foreign management, and foreign capital. Then the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was imposed in 1986. The government withdrew support, assuming farmers could produce cotton as a business without guidance. The farmers were smallholders, mostly illiterate. They could not sustain production without extension officers. Land degradation followed. Soil samples were sent to India; investors refused to invest because the land was degraded. Imported cotton seeds failed to germinate. Locally developed seeds from research institutes existed, but importers bypassed them for personal profit. The mills collapsed. Today, fewer than 20 remain.

The third problem is that Lewis assumed the labour transfer would be permanent. The evidence shows that when the mills closed, workers did not return to productive subsistence farming. They migrated to cities for informal work, or they remained unemployed. The capitalist sector did not expand. The subsistence sector did not recover. The interstice opened, but it was not a space prepared for local industry. It was a wound.

The fourth problem is that Lewis assumed that the capitalist sector would eventually absorb all surplus labour. The evidence from across Africa shows that labour has moved from agriculture directly to services, bypassing manufacturing entirely. This happened largely because trade liberalization exposed manufacturing to global competition that African industries could not withstand. Today, 90 percent of Africa's production exports are unprocessed goods. The structural transformation that Lewis predicted did not happen.

The fifth problem is that Lewis assumed that wages are determined solely by labour supply and demand. The evidence from Ethiopia and Kenya shows that national labour laws and enforcement matter more. Kenyan apparel workers earn approximately three times more than their Ethiopian counterparts, not because labour is scarcer in Kenya, but because Kenya has sector-specific statutory minimum wages and stronger enforcement. Ethiopia has no statutory private-sector minimum wage, weak enforcement capacity, and limited worker representation. Foreign-owned factories in both countries tend to pay lower wages than domestic firms. This contradicts the Lewis assumption that foreign capital automatically benefits local workers.

The sixth problem is that Lewis assumed that the international economic order was neutral. The evidence from Lesotho shows that the country's entire textile sector is dependent on US trade policy. When the US threatened a 50 percent tariff in April 2025, Lesotho's government declared a two-year state of disaster. Over 20,000 jobs were at risk. Factories announced temporary closures. The sector employs approximately 30,000 to 40,000 workers. The Lewis model assumes that once labour is absorbed into manufacturing, the process is self-sustaining. Lesotho's textile sector is dependent on US buyer orders. When those orders disappear, the jobs disappear. This is not a turning point. It is a single point of failure.

THE PLANTATION SCHOOL AND THE DEMAND FOR THE INTERSTICE

The Caribbean critics of Lewis, the Plantation School of Lloyd Best, Norman Girvan, and George Beckford, saw what Lewis refused to see. They called his strategy "Industrialization by Invitation" as a deliberate dismissal. Best famously accused Lewis of being "epistemologically an Englishman," arguing that his intellectual framework was so shaped by British classical economics that he could not conceive of a development path that did not pass through foreign capital.

The Plantation School argued that the Caribbean economy was not a "dual economy" waiting to be developed. It was a single, integrated plantation economy, a socio-economic unit that remained structurally unchanged from slavery through independence. Its purpose was not local development. It was raw extraction for external powers. The capitalist sector was not the solution. It was the problem.

For the Plantation School, the interstice was not something to be avoided. It was something to be created. They called for industrialization by intention, state-led diversification away from monoculture, land reform to break up the plantation estates, and regional economic integration to create scale. They understood that the withdrawal of foreign capital would create a gap. That gap was necessary. It was the space where local industry could grow.

Girvan articulated the central difference: "In the Lewis model, foreign capital in industry is part of the solution while in the Plantation model it is part of the problem." The Plantation School looked backward at the structural limitations of the economy, the history of extraction, monoculture, and external control. Lewis looked forward to a strategy of industrialization without fundamentally altering those structures.

George Beckford authored the classic Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World (1972). He argued that plantation economies are "high-cost export propelled satellites specializing in producing raw materials for export." The Caribbean economy was not waiting to be developed. It was actively being held back by the very structure that Lewis wanted to work within.

But the Plantation School could not overcome the fear. The policymakers listened to Lewis. They invited the foreign capital. The textile mills were built. And when the mills collapsed, the Plantation School's warnings were vindicated, but it was too late. The interstice had opened as a wound, not as a workshop.

COTTON AS COLONIAL CROP

Cotton was not a neutral material. It was not just another crop. It was the fibre that financed the transatlantic slave trade. It was the raw material that powered the Industrial Revolution in England. It was the commodity that colonizers extracted from Africa, shipped to Europe, processed into cloth, and sold back to Africans at a profit.

The focus on cotton in African textile production was not natural. It was engineered. Before Europeans arrived, Portuguese-speaking Africa used raffia, palm fiber, sisal, wild rhubarb root dyes, and other local materials. Cotton became dominant because it was exportable. Colonial regimes controlled it, channeled it into global trade, and extracted it for profit rather than local use. The knowledge of how to work with raffia, palm fiber, and sisal was not written. It was not patented. It was not passed down. And because those materials had no export value, their knowledge systems were not valued.

The Kuba people of Central Africa are renowned for a specific process that turns stiff raffia plant fiber into a soft textile. Men weave the base cloth from fine raffia fibers. Women then create intricate geometric patterns using a specialized cut-pile embroidery technique. After the pile is cut, the fibers are rubbed together, which gives the surface a silky lustre reminiscent of velvet, hence the name "velvet raffia." This was historically used as a form of currency, as ceremonial dress, and to adorn royal stools. An unprocessed raffia fiber is stiff, but after these specialized techniques, it can be as soft as cotton, with a luxurious velvet-like feel. This is not just a craft. It is a sophisticated material engineering process.

But the colonial economy had no use for raffia. It could not be exported in bulk. It could not be processed in European factories. It could not be taxed at the same rate. So raffia was ignored. Its knowledge system was not protected. And today, the knowledge to make velvet raffia is at risk of being lost.

The cotton textile industry in Africa was not designed to develop the continent. It was designed to manage the labour surplus. Lewis's model, with its "unlimited supplies of labour" moving voluntarily from subsistence to industry, provided an economic justification for this structure. He assumed labour would move because wages were higher. He did not account for the fact that labour had to be forced, taxed, or coerced into wage employment. He did not account for the soil degradation that followed monocropping. He did not account for the fact that when the mills closed, the workers could not simply return to farms that had been depleted and abandoned.

The cotton was colonial. The mills were colonial. The collapse was colonial. The interstice that opened was not a space for African industry. It was a space for Asian imports and European second-hand clothing. And the leaders were afraid to demand anything different, because they feared the interstice.

THE AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN CRITICS OF LEWIS

African and Caribbean intellectuals have been critiquing Lewis for decades.

Lloyd Best (Trinidadian) was the most important critic. He coined the term "Industrialisation by Invitation" specifically to ridicule Lewis's model. He argued that Lewis's strategy, attracting foreign capital to build industry in the Caribbean, would lead to foreign control, dependency, and lack of genuine transformation. Best's most devastating line: he called Lewis "epistemologically an Englishman," meaning that even though Lewis was Black and from the Caribbean, his intellectual framework was entirely shaped by British classical economics. He argued that Lewis "was brought up by Ricardian and Smithian theories and he was Stanley Jevons professor in the University of Manchester. He had to be an Englishman."

Norman Girvan (Jamaican) was a member of the New World Group of Caribbean economists that directly challenged Lewis. In his 2008 lecture at the University of the West Indies, Girvan articulated the central difference: "In the Lewis model, foreign capital in industry is part of the solution while in the Plantation model it is part of the problem." He documented that the attacks on Lewis were personal. Many of his generation saw Lewis "with his English accent and bearing similar to that of an English academic" as "the epitome of the black Englishman." Girvan also noted that Lewis was hurt by these attacks, admitting as much to a colleague.

George Beckford (Jamaican) authored Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World (1972). He led the "Plantation School" which argued that Caribbean economies are "high-cost export propelled satellites specializing in producing raw materials for export." The plantation school's ultimate critique of Lewis was precisely that he overlooked the structural limitations of the economy.

Walter Rodney (Guyanese) wrote How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). While not directly mentioned in the search results, his work is a full-throated critique of the kind of development thinking that Lewis represented. Rodney argued that Africa's underdevelopment was not a lack of integration into the global economy, but the specific form of that integration, extractive, coercive, and designed to benefit Europe.

Kwame Nkrumah (Ghanaian) directly disagreed with Lewis over the Volta River Project and the Akosombo Dam. Nkrumah is "often portrayed as a politician who ignored economic experts." But the evidence shows that Nkrumah "was also trained in economics and wrote several books on political economy examining why and how African energy resources had been exploited and underdeveloped during the colonial era." Nkrumah advocated "energy developmentalism," the achievement of progress by maximising the energy under state control at all costs. Lewis advised against it, favouring a more cautious, market-oriented approach. Nkrumah believed that controlling energy infrastructure was the prerequisite for industrialization. Lewis believed that industrialization would create its own demand for energy.

These critics confirm that you are not alone in questioning Lewis's assumptions. The reason Lewis did not account for external control of Africa's resources is not that he was unaware of it. It is that his policy advice was aimed at working within the existing international economic order, not overthrowing it. He took the existing economy as a starting point, and instead of questioning it, he recorded and analyzed the problems. The plantation school, by contrast, argued that the status quo itself was the problem.

HOW EUROPE USED LEWIS AGAINST AFRICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The evidence shows that European powers, specifically Britain, actively used and promoted the Lewis model as a deliberate strategy to manage their post-colonial relationship with Africa and the Caribbean.

The British Colonial Office adopted "industrialization by invitation" as a deliberate strategy. British officials framed it as the "rational" and "apolitical" path to development. They rejected proposals for a Caribbean development bank or regional development corporation that would have given local leaders planning power. The model served British interests by attracting foreign capital while limiting British financial risk and maintaining influence.

France operated through direct state control rather than private investment. France "continued to provide Africa with industrial goods under near monopolistic conditions and to restrict local manufactures to foodstuffs, beverages, and household items." French West Africa was required to pay its own way as a colony. The administration imposed forced labour (courvee) and imprisonment (indigenat) to extract resources and maintain control. They fostered production of groundnuts and cotton "where appropriate conditions were present and imposed taxation as a means of inducing participation in the cash economy." No African middle class emerged. The French system was harsher, more centralized, and left no room for African accumulation.

Portugal controlled its African territories for over 400 years. Portuguese colonialism was notoriously extractive and repressive, lasting until the mid-1970s, well after Lewis published his model. The Portuguese did not develop industry in their colonies. They extracted raw materials, including cotton, using forced labor systems that were only abolished late in the colonial period.

Belgium's Congo was a textbook case of extraction without transformation. Under King Leopold II and later the Belgian state, the Congo's rubber, copper, cobalt, and diamonds were extracted using forced labor, mutilation, and terror. No industrial base was built. No capitalist sector emerged.

The Netherlands, through companies like Vlisco, created a different but related structure. Dutch wax prints have been sold to West African markets since 1846, predating Lewis by over a century. The Dutch did not industrialize Africa. They industrialized a product for Africa, produced in Europe, and sold back. African consumers shaped the demand. African labour never entered the "capitalist sector" of production.

What Lewis did was provide an economic model that made this structure appear natural and efficient. By assuming an "unlimited supply of labour" that would move voluntarily if wages were higher, he allowed European powers to claim they were following market principles while ignoring the violence, coercion, and political control that actually maintained the system.

THE SAHEL EXCEPTION

Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, three landlocked Sahelian nations formerly colonized by France, are in the process of taking direct control of their natural resources, particularly gold, uranium, and other minerals. Under the leadership of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), these countries have broken from traditional Franc-afrique arrangements where French companies controlled mining concessions, tax regimes, and currency reserves.

The key shift: resource revenues are increasingly being directed toward domestic infrastructure, factories, and industrial development rather than being extracted and repatriated to France.

Mali has asserted control over its gold mining sector, renegotiating contracts and increasing state ownership in mining operations. The government has redirected mining revenues toward infrastructure projects, including road construction and energy generation. Burkina Faso has increased state control over mining concessions and is channeling resource revenues into industrial development, including textile and manufacturing sectors. Niger, one of the world's largest uranium producers, has moved to reduce French control over its uranium mines and reorient resource revenues toward domestic development priorities.

These nations have severed military ties with France. They have expelled French diplomats. They are building infrastructure with their own resources. They are not waiting for permission.

And they are being punished. Suspended from ECOWAS. Threatened with sanctions. Accused of moving toward "authoritarianism." The interstice is being weaponised against them. The message to other African leaders is clear: if you try to leave, you will be isolated.

The Sahel nations are proving that the interstice is survivable. They are not collapsing. They are not being reinvaded. They are not starving. They are building roads, refineries, and factories with their own gold. The interstice is not an abyss. It is a workshop.

THE FEAR OF THE INTERSTICE TODAY

The fear of the interstice paralyses the African Union and most heads of state. They see the Sahel nations punished. They draw back. They stay within the lines. They negotiate for scraps.

The vacuum is not the absence of Western systems. The vacuum is the absence of African systems to replace them.

The interstice is not a void. It is a printing chamber. It is the hollow where new realities are imprinted before they emerge. It is the threshold between worlds. It is the balance of opposing forces.

The Kongo understood this. They called the hollow (oco) the most primitive form that emerged from the bottom of the first matter, dark matter (ndobe/piu), which is the "printing chamber" of all realities. The source states: "The hollow (oco) is the most primitive form that emerged from the bottom of the first matter, 'dark matter' [ndobe/piu], which is the 'printing chamber' of all realities… A 'printing chamber' for realities that were and realities to come."

The Akan understand the space between wiase (the corporeal world) and asamando (the land of the ancestors). These two worlds are not strictly separated. The source states that the spiritual world of the ancestors is "in no sense another world, but rather a part of this world." The space between them is a permeable threshold that souls cross during birth and death. This is the interstice that cannot be filled because it is the condition for the migration of souls.

The Yoruba understand the Odu, the 256 signs of the Ifá system that map the balancing of polarities, expansion and contraction, light and darkness. The source states: "Most systems of metaphysics are based on the belief that the primal polarity that sustains the physical universe is the tension between expansion and contraction. In Ifa this polarity is usually described as the relationship between darkness and light. This relationship is not considered a conflict between the forces of 'good' and the forces of 'evil.'"

Ubuntu understands the distance between persons as part of relation. The source makes a critical clarification: "The African aphorism incorporates both relation and distance." The space between persons cannot be eliminated. It must be accepted.

The West calls it a vacuum. They panic. They rush to fill it. They cannot tolerate the interstice because their logic demands that every space be occupied, measured, controlled by them. African metaphysics has always understood that the interstice is the condition for creation, recreation, liberation.

THE INTERSTICE IS NOT A PUNISHMENT

The West will not fill the interstice for us. They cannot. Their logic does not know how. The interstice is the one thing they cannot objectify, cannot control, cannot extract.

The Sahel nations are proving that the fear is a lie. They are not collapsing. They are not being reinvaded. They are not starving. They are building roads, refineries, and factories with their own gold. The interstice is not an abyss. It is the printing chamber.

Ghana is processing its own cocoa. Zimbabwe is processing its own lithium. The textile mills collapsed because the interstice was not prepared. They collapsed because the leaders were afraid to step into the gap and build while the gap was open. They invited foreign capital to fill it instead. And when the foreign capital left, the mills closed, the workers were dismissed, and the cotton continued to leave raw.

The interstice is not a punishment. It is an opportunity. It is the space where African systems can grow. But only if we are brave enough to step into it.

The fear of the interstice is the fear of our own capacity. It is the fear that we cannot build what we need. It is the fear that the gap will swallow us. The Sahel nations prove otherwise. Ghana and Zimbabwe prove otherwise. The textile mills collapsed not because the interstice was impossible, but because the leaders refused to enter it.

We can survive the interstice. Let's be brave enough to step into it.

REFERENCES

Lewis, W. Arthur. "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour." The Manchester School, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1954, pp. 139-191.
Lewis, W. Arthur. Report on Industrialisation and the Gold Coast. Government Printing Department, Accra, 1953.
Best, Lloyd. "Outlines of a Model of Pure Plantation Economy." Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1968, pp. 283-326.
Beckford, George. Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World. Oxford University Press, 1972.
Girvan, Norman. "The Caribbean Economy: The Lewis Model and the New World Group." Lecture at the University of the West Indies, 2008.
Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, 1972.
Rodney, Walter. "The Groundings with My Brothers." Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, 1969.
Deguchi, Akira. "A Structural Analysis of Myth: The Mandari of South Sudan." Essays in Northeast African Studies, Senri Ethnological Studies No. 43, 1996, pp. 255-274.
Various sources on Akan cosmology, Kongo metaphysics, Yoruba Ifá system, and Ubuntu philosophy.
Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association. Director-General Alhaji Hamman Kwajaffa interview, 2026.
Kwajaffa, Hamman (Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association). Interview 2026. Cited in ThisDay Living newspaper.
Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (Nigeria). "National Cotton, Textile and Garment Policy." 2025.
ECOWAS Commission. "Adoption of Common External Tariff for Textiles." 2024.
African Development Bank. "Textile Sector Revival Strategy." 2025.
UNCTAD. "Economic Development in Africa Report 2024: Reimagining Industrialization."
International Trade Centre (ITC). Ethical Fashion Initiative Annual Report 2025.
International Trade Centre (ITC). "How to Invest in a Viable Textile and Cotton Value Chain in Africa." April 2025.
Johnson, Philip. "The Collapse of Nigeria's Textile Industry." Journal of African Political Economy, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2024.
Kwajaffa, Hamman. "The State of Textile Industry in Nigeria." ThisDay Living, April 2026.
Lawal, Tola. "Reviving the Nigerian Textile Industry: A Policy Framework." African Economic Review, March 2026.
Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association. "Annual Report and Economic Outlook for CTA Sector." 2025.
Tesfay, Goitom. "Creating & Capturing Value in the Apparel Global Value Chain." 2025.
Business & Human Rights Centre. "Lesotho Garment Sector Update." 2025.
Wikipedia. "Textile industry in Nigeria."
Wikipedia. "Industrialisation in Africa."
Gates, Henry Louis. "In Conversation with Marc-Christian Rousset." UNECE, 2023.
Wall Street Journal. "The Rise and Fall of African Textiles." August 2022.
ThisDay Newspaper (Nigeria). "The Great Nigerian Textile Collapse." 2020.
University of Johannesburg. "Deindustrialization in Southern Africa." 2021.
African Union. "Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want." Addis Ababa, 2015.
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. "Economic Governance Report." 2022.
World Bank. "Structural Adjustment Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa." 2022.
International Monetary Fund. "Trade Liberalization and the African Textile Sector." 2020.
WTO. "African Cotton: Market Access and Development." 2019.
International Labour Organization. "Decent Work in the African Textile Sector." 2023.
UNIDO. "Industrial Policy for Structural Transformation." 2024.
African Development Bank. "Cotton-to-Clothing Value Chains." 2024.
ECOWAS. "Supplemental Act on Textile Sector Development." 2022.
NEPAD. "Textile and Apparel Sector Development Strategy." 2023.
AfCFTA Secretariat. "Textile and Clothing Sector Strategy Paper." 2024.

The Woven Web of Soft Power: Detecting External Influence Through Textiles

There is a word that diplomats and academics use. Soft power. Let me translate.

Soft power means getting what you want without using force. You do not send soldiers. You do not impose sanctions. Instead, you make people want what you have. You make your culture, your products, your values seem attractive, modern, and desirable.

When a young person in Lagos saves money for months to buy a Louis Vuitton bag made in France, that is soft power. When a fashion designer in Accra studies pattern-making at a Chinese university and returns to teach Chinese cutting methods, that is soft power. When a family in Abidjan chooses Dutch wax prints for a wedding because "that is the real fabric," that is soft power.

No one forced them. They were attracted. The attraction is the instrument.

I am not stating it is wrong for Africans to learn new techniques in textiles. That is not what this post is about. The exchange of knowledge across cultures is not the problem. The problem is the asymmetry. External actors have strategies, budgets, and coordinated frameworks. They study our markets, our tastes, our vulnerabilities. We do not fund research into how their strategies operate. We do not train diplomats in textile diplomacy. We do not build shields. The result is not cultural exchange. It is extraction wearing a friendly face.

External actors have been using textiles to project soft power into Africa for centuries. The Dutch have done it since 1846. The French do it through luxury brands. The Chinese are doing it now through cheaper fabrics and cultural centres. The Americans have done it through trade agreements, development programmes, and diplomatic initiatives.

They all have strategies. They all have budgets. They all study African markets, African tastes, and African vulnerabilities.

We have not funded research into how these strategies operate. We have not trained diplomats in textile diplomacy. We have not built shields.

This post is an attempt to change that. Not to adopt their frameworks. To understand them, translate them, and help us build our own systems as a shield. We do not need to copy what they have built. Their systems serve their interests, not ours. What we build will look different. It will be rooted in our own logic, our own values, our own ways of organising knowledge. The shield is not a replica. It is a response.


What Soft Power Is and What It Can Achieve

Soft power was coined by Joseph Nye in 1990. He defined it as "the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments."

When a country possesses soft power, it does not need to make concessions or trade-offs to achieve its goals. It simply gets its way "softly." Soft power operates through the accumulation of "political capital"—the ability to rally others around its objectives.

Soft power can generate favourable perceptions of a country's people, culture, and policies, facilitate greater cooperation between nations, help change target countries' policies or political environments, and prevent, manage, and mitigate conflicts.

But soft power also constrains. A reputation for honour, coherence, and values dictates unpalatable political choices. Sudden deviance from a country's projected image leads to loss of trust. This is why external actors invest so heavily in maintaining consistent, attractive cultural narratives. They cannot afford to be exposed.

Soft power originates from three primary sources: culture (both "high brow" and popular forms like art, fashion, music, film, and textiles), political values (democracy, human rights, individualism, freedom, as projected internationally), and foreign policies (perceived as legitimate, multilateral, and having moral authority).

In the context of fashion and textiles, soft power operates through luxury branding that positions certain aesthetics as aspirational, the global dominance of certain design vocabularies that become "neutral" or "universal" while erasing their origins, educational and exchange programmes that train designers in foreign frameworks, and museum exhibitions that canonise some textile traditions while marginalising others.


How to Recognise Soft Power When You See It

You do not need a degree. You need to ask four questions.

  1. Who profits? If the fabric is worn in Accra but the company is registered in Amsterdam, the profit leaves. That is soft power at work.
  2. Who frames the story? If a luxury house calls a bag "a modern homage to the global traveler" but does not mention the expulsion of migrants that gave the bag its name, they are controlling the narrative. That is soft power.
  3. Who sets the standard? If Chinese universities train African designers in Chinese cutting methods, and those designers teach those methods to their students, soon the "right way" to sew will be Chinese. That is soft power.
  4. Who defines "quality"? If Dutch wax prints are considered "real fabric" and locally made textiles are considered "traditional" or "not for business," the definition of quality has been captured. That is soft power.

These four questions are your detection framework. Use them.


External Soft Power Actors – How They Operate

The Netherlands: Vlisco and 180 Years of Market Dominance

The Dutch company Vlisco has been producing wax prints for West and Central Africa since 1846. Nearly 180 years. The fabric is designed in the Netherlands, registered in the United Kingdom, and given popular names by African women traders called "nanas." The power dynamic is clear: European designs, European profits, African naming, African consumption, African cultural meaning attached to a European product.

The Vlisco story is the same pattern traced in our "Research is national security" series. African capital tried to buy the company. The bid was higher. It was rejected. The company remains European-owned. The soft power continues to flow outward.

France: Luxury Branding and the Capture of "Taste"

French perfumes constructed a "fashionable ethos" that positioned France as the arbiter of taste globally. This is soft power through scent and packaging—textile-adjacent because fashion and perfume are marketed together and signify the same aspirational lifestyle.

In 2021, Louis Vuitton released a Kente-inspired menswear collection designed by Virgil Abloh (American of Ghanaian descent). The suits sold out globally. No credit to Ghanaian weavers. In 2025, they released the "Ghana Must Go" bag—a luxury version of the woven polypropylene bag used by West African migrants. The bag is named after a painful chapter in Ghanaian history—the 1983 expulsion of Ghanaians from Nigeria. Louis Vuitton markets it as "a modern homage to the global traveler." The original bag was a symbol of displacement. They turned it into a $3,000 accessory.

Ghanaian journalist and Kente Ambassador Amma Prempeh analysed this: "Both collections treat West African aesthetics as visual motifs rather than cultural inheritances. They do not credit local makers or designers for their sources. Instead, they use broad themes like 'heritage' and 'migration,' detaching designs from their sociopolitical roots."

The soft power works. The profits leave. The original creators are not credited.

China: Gradualism, Affordability, and Cultural Centres

Chinese wax prints initially entered the market as counterfeits of Dutch designs. Today, brands like Hitarget, Phoenix, and Binta Wax compete directly. Not because they are superior. Because they are cheaper. Affordability is soft power when it shapes what people can buy, what they consider "good enough," and which factories stay open.

Nigerian researcher Sandra Oliver‑Mbonu has documented how the China Cultural Centre Nigeria uses fashion shows to strategically stage Chinese textile heritage alongside Nigerian fabrics. They showcase China's sartorial expertise while fostering supposedly "transcultural" dialogue. Off the runway, Nigerian designers incorporate Chinese aesthetic elements into everyday garments.

But here is the warning. These exchanges are not neutral. They invoke historical memories of colonial dress politics. They generate ambivalent responses that reveal post‑colonial tensions between authenticity and cosmopolitan aspiration.

Fairuzah Atchulo, a Ghanaian PhD candidate, is documenting another layer of this infiltration. Her research focuses on how sizing systems in global fashion exclude African bodies. She asks: why are there no "African sizes" on international platforms? Her answer is "the entangled histories of colonialism in global sizing systems" – a form of neo‑colonial control imposed through fabric and fit.

China's approach favours gradualism, where subtle changes tweak preexisting styles. In Mozambique, consumers balance these influences, seeking a "novidade" (novelty) that is neither fully foreign nor fully local. The term is "not too African, not too Chinese."

The United States: Trade Agreements, Development Programmes, and Economic Leverage

US soft power in textiles operates primarily through trade and development initiatives rather than cultural branding. The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been the central instrument since 2000, offering duty-free access to the US market for over 6,000 product lines from eligible sub-Saharan African countries. The apparel provisions, including the transformative third‑country fabric allowance, became the backbone of export success stories in Lesotho, Kenya, and Madagascar.

The impact has been significant. Kenya's apparel exports to the United States under AGOA grew from $55 million in 2001 to $603 million in 2022, constituting 67.6 per cent of the country's total exports to the US.

However, this soft power comes with conditions. In 2025, when AGOA expired and new US tariffs were introduced, the consequences were severe. Lesotho, where textile and apparel products made up over 85 per cent of its $2.37 billion exports to the US, saw its garments facing 15 per cent tariffs. The result: young people's unemployment rose to 50 per cent, and the Lesotho government declared a two‑year state of emergency.

The US also uses grants and co‑investment to shape the African apparel industry. In 2021, the West Africa Trade & Investment Hub, funded by USAID, provided a $1.35 million grant to establish a model garment factory in Ghana, creating 800 fair‑wage jobs with at least 70 per cent going to women. The stated goal was to demonstrate that "ethical garment manufacturing can be the norm."

But here is the warning. These initiatives are not charity. They serve US strategic interests, including diversifying supply chains away from Asia and creating favourable conditions for American buyers. The soft power message is: the US helps Africa build industry. The intended audience is not just Africa but the world watching. The result is favourable perceptions of the US as a benevolent partner—even as tariff policies simultaneously undermine the same industries in other African countries.


The Recognition Gap – How African Soft Power Is Systematically Undervalued

The Global Soft Power Index 2026 ranks the United States first, China second, Japan third, and the United Kingdom fourth. No African country appears in the top tier.

This ranking matters. It shapes global perceptions of "value." When Chinese silk, French luxury, and Italian leather are ranked as "high soft power," they command premium prices. When African textiles are not ranked, they are perceived as "commodities," not "brands."

The Index reveals a structural problem. The metrics used to measure soft power – familiarity, reputation, influence, governance, culture, education, business environment – were designed in the Global North. African textile systems are not measured because the frameworks were not built for them.

This is the same pattern we have traced across our work. The patent system was not built for collective knowledge. The legal frameworks were not built for traditional knowledge. The soft power metrics were not built for African cultural influence.

We do not need to seek recognition from these frameworks. We need to understand them so we can protect ourselves from them. And we need to build our own ways of organising, valuing, and projecting our knowledge, based on our own logic, not theirs.


African Counter‑Soft Power – The Shield Already Exists

The response to external soft power is not rejection. It is projection. Building African soft power that operates on African terms.

Ghana has demonstrated how this works. At the 2026 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ghanaian ministers wore traditional smocks (Batakari/Fugu). The result: foreign ministers from across Africa requested their own smocks in national colours. Ghana is now planning a "fugu and kente" exhibition in Zambia, and its ambassadors have been instructed to organise "Fugu and Kente Fairs" for national day celebrations.

Lagos State is doing the same. Governor Sanwo-Olu's administration is explicitly investing in Adire as "a strategic driver of diplomacy, innovation, and economic growth" – turning "heritage into an engine for diplomacy and economic growth."

Historically, Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar (1886) used handwoven silk textiles as diplomatic gifts to US President Grover Cleveland to challenge US recognition of French colonization. The Bamileke people of Cameroon used ndop cloth as gifts among elites across chieftaincies, with geometric designs conveying royal hospitality, diplomacy, and sacred knowledge.

Africans have always understood textiles as tools of diplomacy and influence. The difference is that our ancestors did not call it "soft power." They just did it.


What We Must Do – Building the Shield

We do not advocate rejecting external textiles or closing markets. The shield is not a wall. The shield is awareness plus our own systems.

Awareness means ordinary people can recognise soft power when they see it. They know why Louis Vuitton named a bag after an expulsion. They know why Chinese wax prints are cheaper. They know why US-backed factories in Ghana produce for American brands. They make informed choices.

Our own systems means African governments investing in textile diplomacy. Not copying the structures of France, China, or the US. Not replicating their metrics or their methods. Building what works for us.

What our systems will look like:

· They will be rooted in African logics, not Western frameworks
· They will centre collective knowledge, not individual patents
· They will be accountable to African communities, not foreign shareholders
· They will measure success by African priorities, not global rankings designed elsewhere

African governments must:

  1. Train ambassadors in textile heritage. Use locally made fabrics for state gifts. Mandate local fabrics for official functions. Require cultural centres abroad to feature African textiles.
  2. Establish textile diplomacy units within foreign ministries. Deploy textiles as strategic gifts at bilateral meetings. Embed textile promotion in trade missions.
  3. Fund African scholars documenting soft power. Sandra Oliver‑Mbonu and Fairuzah Atchulo are doing rigorous, timely, African-led research. They should be scaled, funded, and placed at the centre of national security research.
  4. Build intentional educational pipelines. Ensure students who study design abroad also study local textile systems. Fund apprenticeships with master weavers alongside university degrees.
  5. Use the AfCFTA to harmonise textile standards and create a continental market for African-designed, African-produced, African-branded textiles. Not to replicate European standards, but to set our own.
  6. Measure what matters to us. Track what we value: community wellbeing, cultural continuity, ecological sustainability, local ownership. Use data to inform our own decisions, not to seek validation from external rankings.

External soft power is not a conspiracy, It is strategy, It is funded, It is coordinated, It works.

We have not funded the counter‑research, not built the shield. We have left ourselves exposed to attraction without awareness, desire without understanding, and market dominance without local capacity.

We do not need to adopt their frameworks. We do not need to replicate their systems. We need to understand them so we can recognise when they are operating on us. And we need to build our own systems—based on our own logic, our own values, our own ways of organising knowledge—as a shield.

The first step is awareness. The second step is our own systems, not copies, not replicas bud responses.

Ghana showed what the shield looks like at the AU Summit, Lagos State is building its own shield and the scholars are doing the research. The weavers are also doing the work. We must fund this work, scale it, and protect it. The shield is not a wall rather it is awareness plus our own infrastructure.


References

· Atchulo, Fairuzah M. "Standardized size and sizing systems and neo-colonialism in global fashion." ERC Project "China Africa Fashion Power" (CAFP), University of Amsterdam.
· Brand Finance. "Global Soft Power Index 2026."
· Eicher, Joanne and Erekosima, Tonye. "Cultural authentication" framework for Sino-African fashion.
· Lemire, Beverly. The Force of Fashion in Politics and Society. 2010.
· Nye, Joseph S. Jr. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Public Affairs, 2004.
· Oliver‑Mbonu, Sandra Ifunanya. "Soft power in stitches: China's fashion projection in Nigeria." MA Thesis, University of Victoria, 2025.
· Prempeh, Amma. "Louis Vuitton's Kente and Ghana Must Go: West African aesthetics as visual motifs." 2025.
· USAID West Africa Trade & Investment Hub. "Model garment factory in Ghana." 2021.
· Various news reports. Ghana's "smock diplomacy" at 39th African Union Summit, February 2026.
· Various news reports. Lagos State Adire diplomacy and cultural soft power investment, June 2025.

Heritage knowledge is infrastructure. Research as extraction, Research as counteragent.

You have read the five‑part series. You have followed the evidence. The RMRDC loom, patented and forgotten. The mycelium innovation, celebrated and exposed. The Vlisco bid, higher and rejected. The pattern is undeniable.

But you have not yet heard the deepest lesson.

Research into African communities has been used to infiltrate us, map our vulnerabilities, and destabilise our nations. External actors studied us—not to help, but to exploit. And when the damage was done, our own governments never invested in the research that could rebuild.

This is not paranoia. This is documented history. And it is happening in a field you might least expect: arts and textiles.


The Destruction of Knowledge: Timbuktu and the Colonial Library

In 2013, as French military jets bombed northern Mali, a group of African scholars gathered in Dakar for a CODESRIA conference. The topic was the "colonial library"—the vast archive of Western knowledge that has shaped how Africa is studied, understood, and governed.

Then the news came. Islamist rebels had set fire to the Timbuktu manuscript libraries. Thousands of priceless texts—centuries of West African scholarship—were feared lost.

The conference panicked. Speakers demanded that France, the former coloniser, intervene to "save" the manuscripts.

Then a scholar named Zubairu Wai stood up. He asked a question that should have stopped everyone in the room. Why are we calling the arsonist to put out the fire?

France, through NATO's destabilisation of Libya, had helped create the very crisis that now threatened Timbuktu. Yet the research infrastructure that had studied these manuscripts for decades—funded by European institutions, catalogued in European languages, validated by European credentials—had conditioned African scholars to see France as the protector, not the perpetrator.

The colonial library had done its work. Research was weaponised to create dependency, shape perception, and erase the structural violence of the very actors being called upon to intervene.

When a Western researcher arrives to document your community's textile traditions, they extract knowledge. They publish it in journals your community does not read. They build careers on it. The community is never consulted again. The solution is not to ask for better consultation. The solution is to build our own research institutions that answer to our own communities.


The Hollow State: Why African Governments Never Funded the Counter‑Research

If research can be weaponised, then counter‑research must be deployed. But African governments have failed to invest in the knowledge systems that could detect, resist, and rebuild.

Jeremiah Arowosegbe, a Nigerian scholar, has documented the reality. The post‑colonial state is authoritarian, dependent, non‑developmental, and subversive. It undermines knowledge production instead of nurturing it. Research is chronically underfunded. What little exists is shaped by donor priorities, not national needs.

Samwel Oando, a Kenyan researcher, has shown how Indigenous knowledge and women's voices are systematically excluded from Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) frameworks. The consequence is clear: interventions fail because they do not speak to local realities. The very knowledge that could stabilise communities is ignored.

While external actors study African communities for their own purposes, African governments leave the tools of rebuilding on the shelf.


The Weapon That Could Rebuild: Textiles as Resistance and Repair

The frameworks already exist. They are not in Western textbooks. They are encoded in thread.

Dr. Precious Wapukha of Kibabii University in Kenya has documented how Samburu women use beadwork as a sophisticated system of coded messaging for conflict resolution. The colours carry meaning. Blue represents water and blessings. White means harmony. Red symbolises blood, connection, and strength. Green stands for healing and fertility.

These are not ornaments. They are a language. Women use beadwork to facilitate dialogue, express reconciliation, and reinforce communal bonds. They gift intricately designed necklaces and bracelets to rival clans as symbols of goodwill.

This is not "craft." This is peace‑building technology. And it works.

Wapukha's research demonstrates that Indigenous women's peace initiatives are more context‑friendly and effective than state‑centric models. But without government funding, without institutional support, without recognition that textile knowledge is national security knowledge, these frameworks remain isolated and unable to scale.


Thread as Compass: The Counter‑Weapon That Worked Without a Single Written Word

Now consider what the enslaved built in America. While European enslavers documented their transactions in ledgers, signed their names on manifests, and recorded their property in bound volumes, the enslaved constructed a counter‑intelligence network using thread and cloth.

They stitched escape routes into quilts. They coded directions into patches and patterns. They passed information in plain sight—hung on clotheslines, draped over fences, displayed in windows—while the enslavers saw only fabric.

This was a successful counter‑weapon. Quilt codes guided enslaved people north to freedom. The system worked. It was not written. It was not patented. It was not archived in any institution that the colonizers controlled.

Now consider the demand that followed. European frameworks require written evidence. They dismiss oral tradition. They question memory. They demand documentation produced by the very people who benefited from the system of enslavement. This is not neutrality. This is a trap.

The enslaved did not leave written records of their escape codes. As scholar Raymond Dobard, a history professor at Howard University, has stated: "The code was a way to say something to a person in the presence of many others without the others knowing. It was a way of giving direction without saying, 'Go northwest.'"

But the European framework demands the written word. It demands the signed document. It demands the paper trail. When that paper trail does not exist, the system declares the knowledge invalid.

The same educational systems that colonizers enforced on Africa do the same. Students are taught that if something is not written, it is not reliable. If it is not documented in a European language, it is not credible. If it is passed down through oral tradition, it is suspect.

This instills doubt into generation after generation. African children learn to distrust the knowledge of their own grandparents. They learn that their ancestors' intelligence—woven into thread, stitched into quilts, coded in beadwork—does not count as real knowledge because it was never written in a book.

The asymmetry of the archive is the violence. The colonizers had paper. The enslaved had thread. The colonizers built universities. The enslaved built escape routes.

The quilt code worked. It succeeded. It freed people. That is enough. The knowledge does not need the permission of the system that was designed to imprison its creators.

The task is not to make European frameworks recognise this knowledge. The task is to build our own systems where this knowledge takes central space in our societies. To build universities that teach quilt codes alongside calculus. To build archives that centre oral tradition. To build patent systems designed for collective, embodied knowledge.

The Niger Bend wool textiles, the algorithmic logic of Kuba cloth, the peace‑building technology of Samburu beadwork, the escape codes stitched into quilts—these knowledge systems stand on their own. They do not need validation from the institutions that dismissed them. They need African institutions built to hold them.


Detecting Infiltration: How Fashion Reveals Soft Power Operations

If textiles can heal and textiles can liberate, they can also be used to infiltrate.

Sandra Oliver‑Mbonu, a Nigerian researcher at the University of Victoria, has produced a groundbreaking study on China's soft power projection through fashion in Nigeria.

Her research reveals how the China Cultural Centre Nigeria uses fashion shows to strategically stage Chinese textile heritage alongside Nigerian fabrics. They showcase China's sartorial expertise while fostering supposedly "transcultural" dialogue. Off the runway, Nigerian designers incorporate Chinese aesthetic elements into everyday garments. This is bottom‑up negotiation and local agency.

But here is the warning. These exchanges are not neutral. They invoke historical memories of colonial dress politics. They generate ambivalent responses that reveal post‑colonial tensions between authenticity and cosmopolitan aspiration.

African governments should be funding this research. Not to reject cultural exchange, but to understand it. To detect when influence operations are at work. To negotiate from a position of knowledge. And to ensure that African designers, weavers, and artists are not merely the subjects of others' soft power strategies.

Oliver‑Mbonu's work is rigorous, timely, and African. It should be scaled.


From Weaponization to Reconstruction: A Call to Action

Timbuktu Research and Design is in a unique position. It is not an outsider studying African textiles from a distance. It works directly with weavers, reconstructs looms, and retrieves knowledge that has been dismissed as "craft."

Timbuktu Research and Design has already shown that the Niger Bend wool textiles are engineered. Algorithmic. Mathematical. Rule‑based. It has shown that the Tellem textiles encode generative logic. It has shown that the Dinka, the Yoruba, the Zulu, and the Xhosa share a metaphysical framework that Western binary logic could never grasp.

Now we must show that this knowledge is not just heritage. It is infrastructure.

The same frameworks that study how beadwork mediates conflict can be adapted to rebuild communities after destabilisation. The same frameworks that study how quilts encoded escape can be adapted to resist surveillance. The same frameworks that study how fashion projects soft power can be adapted to counter it.

This is not a metaphor. This is methodology. And we are the ones who will build it.


What Governments Must Do

African governments must fund the documentation of Indigenous textile knowledge. Not as folklore. As technology. Wapukha's beadwork research should be expanded, not left to isolated academics.

They must establish research programmes on cultural soft power. Oliver‑Mbonu's work should be replicated across the continent, studying how external actors use arts and culture to project influence.

They must integrate Indigenous knowledge into national security frameworks. Oando's critique of CVE must be heeded. Beadwork, weaving, quilt codes, and textile symbolism should be recognised as legitimate tools for conflict resolution, escape, and community rebuilding.

They must protect the knowledge that is already there. The Timbuktu manuscripts were nearly lost not because of rebels alone, but because the infrastructure to protect them was dependent on external actors. African governments must build their own archives, their own digitisation projects, and their own legal frameworks.

They must reform their educational systems. The colonial curriculum that teaches African children to distrust oral tradition must be replaced. Students must learn that knowledge encoded in thread is as valid as knowledge encoded in text.


The Closing

Research was weaponised against African communities. External actors studied our vulnerabilities, mapped our resources, and used that knowledge to infiltrate and destabilise.

African governments never invested in the research that could rebuild what was broken.

But the frameworks exist. They are encoded in thread, in beadwork, in quilts, in manuscripts, in the logic of our textiles. African scholars are documenting them. Practitioners are reviving them.

The quilt code worked. The beadwork works. The textiles have always been technology.

The same knowledge that was weaponised against us can be the knowledge that rebuilds us. The difference lies in building our own systems. Our own research agendas. Our own funding. Our own institutions. The framework exists. It has always existed. Now we must build the infrastructure to hold it.

Build. Protect. Or lose it.


References

· Arowosegbe, Jeremiah O. "Postcolonial state and knowledge production in Africa." (Current research)
· Dobard, Raymond, and Tobin, Jacqueline. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2000.
· Dobard, Raymond. Interview statements on the quilt code. Howard University archives.
· Molins Lliteras, Susana. "The dysfunctional copy: 'Mali Magic,' loss and the digital remake of the Timbuktu archive." Social Dynamics, 2024.
· Musumba, Levis. "Stitching Bonds, Weaving Peace." LinkedIn, 2023.
· Oando, Samwel. "CVE and the exclusion of indigenous knowledge." In Local Perspectives on Countering Violent Extremism, Taylor & Francis, 2024.
· Oliver‑Mbonu, Sandra Ifunanya. "Soft power in stitches: China's fashion projection in Nigeria." MA Thesis, University of Victoria, 2025.
· Wai, Zubairu. "The colonial library and the 2013 military intervention in Mali." CODESRIA conference proceedings, 2013.
· Wapukha, Precious. "The Art of Peace: Beauty, Beadwork and Democracy in Indigenous Conflict Resolution in Samburu Culture, Kenya." Democracy in Africa, 2025.