Conveners: Rebekah Lee and Doris Okenwa
Speaker: Ekaette Ikpe (King’s College London)
African fashion reveals intersections between upgrading, manufacturing and internationalization alongside expanding cultural, political and social influence. Yet global value chain analyses of the industry reinforce a core-periphery dynamic with the location of lead firms in the Global North (GN) and actors lower down the value chain in the Global South (GS). This disappears GS actors in the creative economy, including fashion designers, who innovate, design and cultivate the brand followership associated with lead firms. We analyze fashion producers in Lagos and Nairobi as economic, cultural and social value creators and therein lead firms from below (LFfB). We conceptualize this dynamic, with a focus on lead firms within the global value chain framework that combines elements of conceptual interventions on state capitalism to offer the LFfB framework. The framework is used to analyze primary data from fashion design firms in two key hubs, Lagos and Nairobi. Findings demonstrate the significance of synergies between key areas of LFfB operation (research and development, inputs, distribution, sales and product design) and state capitalism’s support (and challenges) for production, trade and finance, as well as returns through international cultural recognition and national profile building.
Eka Ikpe is Professor of Development Economics in Africa and Director of the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London. Eka’s research offers a critical understanding of socio-economic transformation that centres spaces in Africa and parts of the Global South across the fields of economic development and peace. Current interests include state capital, industrialisation, creative economies, peacebuilding and reconstruction. Her research has supported the work of UNECA, ECOWAS, UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Africa, UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, UK FCDO and global NGOs, among others. She co-leads two Africa-Europe (African Research Universities Alliance-The Guild) Clusters of Research Excellence (CoRE) – CoRE on Creative Economies in Africa and CoRE on Interdisciplinary Peace.
