For the love of fashion in Africa : creolisation as an alternative to pro-local or pro-global culture

Abstract

Unprecedented levels of globalisation have transitioned the world's fashion industry from a predominantly Euro-centric monocultural playing field to a multicultural marketplace. With an influx of international retailers entering African markets, it is essential to understand the cultural complexities on the continent in order to develop successful international marketing strategies so as to mitigate threats and maximise opportunities presented by globalisation. Within this context, creolisation provides a possible consumer cultural blending lens from which to examine this multi-layered, non-linear, culture creation process. This study explores how creolisation manifests itself amongst consumers in Africa as an acculturation alternative to pro-local versus pro-global orientations towards globalisation which have been well-examined and empirically tested within current international marketing literature. Since the concept of creolisation has not been clearly defined or well explored within this literature, a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews, with a sample of nine professional consumers and 11 fashion experts in Africa, was utilised. The findings show that culture creation is more complex than the binary view suggested by pro-local versus pro-global consumer dispositions towards global culture. Instead creolisation manifests in numerous ways whereby local culture is infused into global culture (or vice versa) or through multiple cultural exchanges to create something new. Cultural blending is also tied to African consumers' desire for agency in creating their own unique identities through fashion.