Consumption, Identities, and Agency in Africa: An Overview

Abstract

Consumption in Africa has been an overlooked issue for a long time. In history as well as in sociology and cultural anthropology, African societies have been seen as providers of globally circulating raw materials, goods, and commodities (like rubber and ivory, but also art and slaves), but rarely has the role of consumers in these societies been considered. Even during the last years, when consumption in Africa became a major topic with regard to increasing fuel consumption and emerging environmental problems, individuals and households in Africa were still marginalized; they were not considered consumers with their own agency and culturally defined patterns and preferences. Although the level of consumption in Africa is quite low, it matters. Increased knowledge on the subject will probably not reveal a specific “African consumption pattern,” as different societies on the continent with different levels of wealth have quite divergent consumption preferences. The relevance of consumption in Africa is instead based on the extremely wide range of different needs and desires there, and on the necessity to adapt the goods available to local preferences. Perhaps the one and only particular aspect of consumption is the obvious refusal of producers worldwide to provide specifically adapted goods for markets in Africa. With few exceptions (cloth, beads) the localization of commodities in Africa has been realized through the consumers’ own agency. This agency can be linked to the most recent theories of “prosumers” and, as this chapter argues, the appropriation of goods in Africa may become a tool for the further development of current consumer theories.