Malawi is an excellent case in point, as social life is marked by experiments in style that can trigger suspicions expressed through levelling mechanisms which subtly target budding distinctions. While witchcraft accusation and dispossession are two of the more familiar techniques in this area of the world, more subtle and productive forms are sure to emerge which complement more coercive and cirminal methods. During the writing of this review, for instance, a wave of urban street vendors in Malawi’s three main cities reportedly went ‘ on a rampage undressing women and girls wearing trousers, leggings, shorts and mini-skirts... claiming that the President had sent them to clean the streets of women dressed inappropriately ’. 6 This action did not happen in isolation, and there is no easy way to account for it, but it does underscore the high stakes at play in projects associated with identity management and class formation, particularly within the context of gender. Keeping a critical eye on how fashion and style evoke some of the flights and paradoxes at work in emergent geographies of rural urbanism offers insight into the directions that broader social and historical forces may take as architects of time and space. Insofar as Malawi 2010 encourages us to do so, van de Merwe’s series is successful and, in this context, original. –
1 Malawi 2010 : http://www.arjen-van-de-merwe.nl/ 2 See Gaurav Desai's Subject to Colonialism (2001). 3 See James Ferguson's Expectations of Modernity (1999). 4 See Abdou Maliq Simone's For the City Yet to Come (2004)
5 Simmel, Georg. ‘Fashion’ American Journal of Sociology 62(6): 541-58. (1957) 6 See Claire Ngozo's report, ‘Malawi: Street Vendors Lose Customers after Stripping Women Naked’ http://ipsnews.net/text/news.asp?idnews=106541
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arjen van de merwe
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