ABSTRACT
Today in Lusaka, infl uences “from outside,” as Zambians refer to the world away from home, are more present, and more visibly evident, than they have ever been. Five shopping malls have opened since 1995 when Samuel Ngoma wrote this feature article. Increasing interaction across space and the consciousness of such processes are due to globalization understood broadly in Ida Susser and Jane Schneider’s words, as an “integrated phenomenon bringing all the world’s cities into a single interconnected life” (2003: 2). In this view, cities like Lusaka are stages for the translation of globalization into local terms. When we trace the secondhand clothing commodity chain all the way to places like Lusaka, as I have done in my work (Hansen 2000b), we will realize that it is African consumer demand and specifi cally the desire to be well dressed that drives this industry. In short, we must bring the local geography of consumption, with its spaces, agents, and performances, into the global story in which dressed bodies become the point of contact between local knowledge and the broader global context. It is from this angle that I approach my discussion of dress practice, including of secondhand clothing, in Lusaka, with specifi c focus on young people (Figure 7.1).
