Abstract

Kanga cloths have been central to the lives of east Africans for over a century, serving primarily as affordable wrappers for the majority of women. Existing scholarship on kanga design has focused on the communicative potential of texts on these affordable, printed cloths (Yahya-Othman 1997; Beck 2000, 2001, 2005; Parkin 2000, 2003; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). Discussions of design are largely anecdotal and do not chronicle change over time (Trillo 1984; Amory 1985; Spring 2005; Zawawi 2005; Bijl 2006; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). This essay utilizes over 5,000 examples of full-cloth kanga cloth, chronicling the design and production of Vlisco, the Dutch textile printer in Helmond, the Netherlands (Figs. 1a–b). Specific regional demands, changing text script, and innovations such as commemorative, advertising, and overtly political kanga can be dated. Women's unceasing demand for new designs is often repeated anecdotally; this study offers analysis of representative designs alongside growing numbers of imports to give specificity and weight to these assertions across the colonial period.Port cities of the Swahili coast have long been cosmopolitan in nature, with global links increasing in frequency across the nineteenth century (Arabindan-Kesson 2014; Meier 2009, 2016; Longair 2018). Kanga cloth developed and flourished in this Swahili world, and the cities of Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Dar es Salaam served as coastal entrepot for inland distribution of kanga. These cities can be used to determine differing regional demands within east Africa, as each belongs to different political regions during the colonial era, ca. 1880s–1960s. Mombasa was part of British East Africa (1895–1920); then the Protectorate of East Africa, administered by the British (1920–1963); then independent Kenya (1963–). Dar es Salaam was part of German East Africa (1885–1919); then Tanganyika Territory, administered by the British (1916–1961); then independent Tanganyika (1961–1964); then union with Zanzibar to form Tanzania (1964–). Zanzibar is an island previously ruled by the Omani sultanate (1698–1897, with a resident sultan from 1832 or 1840), until it became a British protectorate in 1890. Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964 following the Zanzibar Revolution, and today remains a semiautonomous region within Tanzania.Such varied colonial rule enabled textile printers working through changing merchant-converter firms and local Indian kanga designers and sellers to flourish. In the case of Tanzania, for example, between 1890 and 1914, German merchant converters such as Hansing & Co. handled kanga imports to German East Africa, commissioning Dutch textile printers in greater numbers than British. Leading Dutch textile printers at this time included Vlisco (P.F. van Vlissingen), HKM (Haarlemsche Katoen Maatschappij or Haarlem Cotton Company), and LKM (Leidsche Katoenmaatschappij or Leiden Cotton Company). This shifts to parallel the changing political and administrative rule: between 1920–1949, the British imported more kanga than Dutch printers, through the hands of British merchant converters such as Smith Mackenzie Ltd.At midcentury, however, the Japanese dominated the kanga trade. From 1950 through 1981, Japanese printers such as Daido Senko imported vastly greater numbers than European printers. They did so through Japanese merchant converters, such as C. Itoh and H. Nishizawa Shoten, Ltd. Such Japanese success was made possible by working with local kanga designers and sellers of Indian descent, such as Kassamali Gulamhussein Peera. These locals often surveyed coastal women for their preferences; paid women in kanga for their ideas, especially for new sayings; and used a reservation system to presell new designs before delivery.1 Designers employed by textile printers may have physically drawn kanga designs, but they did so on the ideas, suggestions, and guidance of local experts. Kanga sellers of Indian descent maintained close consultations with women consumers, who were the ultimate arbiters of success (Ryan 2018a).2Dutch printer Vlisco continued to work with British merchant converters, such as Smith Mackenzie, who in turn collaborated with local Indian merchants such as Jiwan Hirji (also spelled Jivan Hirji). The British ceased kanga production in the late 1950s, followed by the Dutch in the late 1960s, when domestic kanga production commenced in Tanzania in support of socialist rule, called ujamaa. Tanzania with investment from China founded Urafiki (or Friendship) Textile Mill in 1967, which is a vertically integrated cotton processing, spinning, weaving, and printing manufacturer in Dar es Salaam that still exists today. Protectionist policies led to Japan serving as the sole importer of kanga, though at reduced numbers, throughout the 1970s. When first president Julius Nyerere abandoned socialist policies in 1985 and voluntarily stepped down, a new era of importers filled the demand for kanga from the late 1980s and beyond.This essay uses kanga import numbers specific to Tanzania and focused analysis of the production of one printer, Vlisco. These limitations restrict large, overarching conclusions of all kanga design. For example, Japanese kanga imports dwarfed Dutch imports to Tanganyika/Tanzania in the 1950s and 1960s, with Japan responsible for over 13 million at its peak in 1955, compared with about 1 million Dutch kanga printed in the same year.3 It is possible that each manufacturing nation, textile printer, commissioning merchant-converter firm, or local Indian merchant designer had their own style. At the very least, the production run of multiple printers as well as import numbers to multiple destinations would be necessary to gain a fuller picture. But the survival of entire production histories is rare when printers shut down, making Vlisco's archive an invaluable resource. Today, Vlisco continues to produce wax and fancy prints for the West and Central African markets and the diaspora. They retain their previous production runs as part of the company archive. Vlisco printed kanga for the east African market from 1876–1971 and holds over 5,000 full-cloth samples from 1895 until production of new kanga cloth designs ceased in 1967.4 Utilizing their historic kanga designs presents opportunities for insight; such object-based analysis deepens our understanding of design trends and evolution to today's designs conventions.Kanga cloths display colorful, graphic designs and are a common sight today across wide swaths of east Africa. This essay focuses on Tanzania and Kenya, where the textiles are referred to as kanga in Tanzania and leso in Kenya (Fig. 2). These cloths, typically wrapped when worn, serve as staple items of women's attire and household use. Kanga textiles are mass-produced, industrially printed cloths (Fig. 3). They are sold in pairs of identical cloths, each measuring about 66” × 44”, which largely adhere to a standard composition: a central graphic image (mji, or town, in Swahili) surrounded by a wide, continuous border (pindo), completed with a Swahili phrase (jina, or name). Swahili phrases often reproduce familiar proverbs, provincial wisdom, benevolent blessings, or at times defensive warnings. Some women use these phrases to communicate beyond the bounds of appropriate verbal discourse with family members, friends, and rivals (Yahya-Othman 1997; Beck 2000, 2001, 2005; Parkin 2000, 2003; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). Designs are rendered with crisp lines enclosing large expanses of color. Subject matter ranges from decorative floral motifs, repeating geometric designs, and everyday objects to desirable commodities. Some commemorate political figures or celebrate political parties and holidays. Women carefully select each pair of kanga cloth for their applicability in text, desirable motif, flattering or meaningful color combination, and quality of material and printing (Hilger 1995; Spring 2005; Bijl 2006; Ong'oa-Morara 2014).Kanga textiles are commonly considered bearers of east African or Swahili culture by inhabitants and scholars alike, due to their ubiquity and association with critical junctures in east African women's lives (Trillo 1984; Amory 1985; Spring 2005; Zawawi 2005; Ong'oa-Morara 2014). They are often the first cloth in which a newborn baby is wrapped and the last cloth in which a deceased woman or child is shrouded for burial. In some regions of eastern Africa, kanga protect adolescent girls during initiation ceremonies and are often given to brides at kitchen parties to celebrate their upcoming weddings. Nevertheless, kanga cloths are also contemporary fashion items, with patterns and even cultural meanings that change constantly. Husbands regularly present their wives with new kanga cloth. Gifts of kanga can be used to maintain relationships, from preserving marital harmony to communicating dissatisfaction with family and friends through pointed sayings printed on kanga.In fact, kanga cloth began life as a modern icon and sought-after imported commodity (Fig. 4) (Fair 1998, 2001, 2004; McCurdy 2006; Ong'oa-Morara 2014; Meier 2019). It is a genre of industrially produced cotton cloth that emerged from longstanding trading networks and new advances in mass production that coalesced to serve the east African textile market beginning in the late nineteenth century (Ryan 2011, 2018a). Specifically, European manufacturers first printed kanga cloth in the 1870s and 1880s to meet the consumer demands of women in port cities of the Swahili coast (Ryan 2018b). Enslaved and formerly enslaved women rapidly embraced this new, imported consumer good, which enabled them to abandon previous styles of affordable cloth, whose plain color became associated with servitude. Women cast off unbleached white cloth (merikani) and dyed indigo blue (kaniki) in favor of bold, bordered designs and bright, saturated colors. Zanzibari women first sewed together six square handkerchiefs to make a bold wrapper in the 1860s. Women and local Indian merchants in east Africa also block-printed designs on plain cloth, inspiring industrial manufacturers to print cloth specifically designed with east African women's desires in mind by the 1870s (Ryan 2017a). These new cloths, called kanga, favored bold, rectangular bordered designs and bright, saturated colors by the 1880s. By the time the abolition of slavery occurred in 1897, formerly enslaved women embraced the cloth to claim new forms of identity and belonging on the Swahili coast (McCurdy 2006; Fee 2017).5While local interpretations of the cloth changed and shifted across the colonial period, demand for the cloth remained strong across the region. What started life as a fashionable way of dressing for the majority of formerly enslaved women transformed across the century and a half to become ubiquitous, everyday cloth. Women wear kanga cloths from present-day southern Somalia throughout Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, and into eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Mozambique. Furthermore, women in the Comoros Islands and Madagascar adopted closely related cloths (Spring 2005; Green 2003).6 Many women who outwardly veil wear kanga domestically or underneath their dark overgarments (Fair 2013). Others wear kanga every day, some only within the confines of their household or on special occasions such as weddings. Color symbolism is another way some women communicate indirectly through kanga (Ong'oa-Morara 2014). But changing local interpretations do not account for transformations in design or production methods. Indeed, both are useful to better understand a detailed history of this widely embraced cloth.Vlisco production of kanga for east African markets dates back to at least 1876. Business correspondence from 1875 suggests that the company pursued an expansion to the Zanzibar market so as to become less reliant on cloth exports to the Dutch East Indies; so too, information salvaged from one record book from 1876 lists a blue and white slendang, a Southeast Asian wrapper design (54 in. × 79 in.), and a reddish and blue handkerchief (30 in. × 30 in.) printed for the Zanzibar market (see Ryan 2017a: Fig. 8). Regrettably, the vast majority of Vlisco's early records were lost in a fire that devastated the Dutch textile printer in 1883 (Lintsen 1993). Although Vlisco preserved samples of cloth production from the 1880s and early 1890s in sample pattern books, they consist in only partial designs of full cloths.Vlisco's archives of full-cloth samples begins in 1895, when Vlisco were assessing the demands of east African women to ascertain what cloth designs and colorways might sell. Vlisco kanga cloths printed before World War I were all hand-stamped using woodblocks— which gave the Dutch printer an edge in swiftly adjusting designs to suit the market and made use of older women and children as a form of cheap labor (Ryan 2018b). In the first decades of the twentieth century, Dutch textile printers were the dominant suppliers of kanga cloth to German East Africa (Ryan 2017b). This trade was facilitated by German merchant converters, who managed orders, deliveries, and wholesale transactions of newly imported kanga cloth.Between 1895 and 1898, printed cloths labeled “khanga” were dark indigo blue with small, repeating central motifs, mostly geometric in shape with interlocking border designs (Fig. 5). These cloths conform to later kanga conventions with one notable exception: each possesses loose warp fringes at the two ends. This modification mimics luxury handwoven cloths long demanded by elites across east Africa and shows how early kanga design combined affordable mechanical production with color, design, and details in order to emulate more affluent cloths (Prestholdt 2004; Machado 2009; Fee 2017).Conversely, between 1899 and 1909, the Vlisco-produced “khanga” are hardly identifiable as we understand kanga today.7 They all feature two colors, repeating designs, and some sort of floral motifs, but with an Indonesian batik tumpal- (or elongated isosceles triangular) inspired border along each cloth's width (Fig. 6). The cloths dating from 1899 have dark indigo grounds with an interlocking and all-over gold-colored floral design, completed by a batik-inspired border along the short edge. No full-cloth samples exist for 1900, and in 1901, Vlisco “khanga” incorporate a myriad of batik-inspired designs, beyond the border across the cloth's width. These batik-inspired designs include small, repeating shapes; peacocks integrated within a floral motif; a doubled elongated diamond shape (common to Indonesian kemben); and interlocking botanical designs with a tumpal along the short edge (Fig. 6). In 1902, one “khanga” comprises eight-pointed stars and other geometric shapes with the familiar Indonesian-like border along the cloth's width. This holdover from Vlisco's first overseas market—the Dutch East Indies, or present-day Indonesia—reappears in subtle ways throughout the design history of kanga textiles (Ryan 2017a).Vlisco likely found success between 1910 and 1919, judging from the 272 recognizable kanga designs and compositions, all produced in just one colorway—yellow, red, and dark maroon (Figs. 7a–c). They were printed by hand, as slight overlaps in the border can be seen, although pains were taken to execute continuous, compound, or integrated borders without interruption. Today, not every kanga textile carries a Swahili saying, although the appearance of a printed phase is more or less a defining feature of the cloth genre. Swahili sayings in the 1910s show a large variety across the 272 examples: some have no saying; others have Swahili text printed in Arabic script, some using Persian diacritical marks.8 Still others have block Roman-script Swahili text.9 Somewhat surprisingly, Roman-script text also appears in a combination of uppercase and lower letters and cursive or longhand.The main design elements frequently found on later kanga textiles are already present in these examples from 1910s: a border (whether continuous or equidistant, compounded with wider edges and narrower lengths, or integrated), a central motif, sometimes with inner-corner designs, and a Swahili phrase, printed in either Roman or Arabic script.10 The range of themes that appears on 1910s kanga also sets a precedent for incorporating elements that reflect global influences as experienced locally in east Africa. This cosmopolitanism has long defined the Swahili world, with global links increasing in frequency across the nineteenth century (Arabindan-Kesson 2014; Meier 2009, 2016; Longair 2018). Omani rule in Zanzibar intensified this cosmopolitanism, as did the increasing colonial presence and competition between the British and Germans near the turn of the twentieth century. While elites in the Swahili coastal world enjoyed conspicuous consumption of imported goods from around the globe, those of lesser means could also participate in smaller ways. Kanga cloth was one such affordable consumer good, marketed directly to formerly enslaved women. Women consumers dictated successful designs and demanded a constant flow of new options. Omani-inspired objects feature on kanga cloths point to the influence of the Omani Sultan and the patrician class in Zanzibar throughout this period, and the crescent-and-star motif suggests a central place of Islam in coastal east African society. The appearance of rifles and allusions to soldiers suggests the growing presence of European colonialization efforts. Desirable commodities such as umbrellas as well as animals (like peacocks) and floral designs also appear on kanga from this period. It is this confluence of subject matter that make kanga designs a mirror of cosmopolitan realities, both lived and aspirational.Vlisco-printed kanga from the interwar period show a shift in production, the incorporation of new colorways, and the continuation of three bordered compositions within the established conventions of kanga design. Dutch kanga production, however, largely fell to second behind British imports. The interwar period marks an era of British dominance in kanga production, with over 1,000,000 consistently exported to colonial Tanganyika from when itemized records begin in 1929 and continuing through 1938. Still, Dutch-printed kanga, of which Vlisco is a main printer, having seen their HKM and LKM competition fold in 1918 and 1936 respectively, exported over 1,000,000 kanga in 1929, 1937, 1938, and 1939, overtaking British production in 1938 and 1939 (Lintsen 1993; Jacobs and Maas 1996).11 Japanese kanga production increased between 1934–1936, with Japan supplying over 1,000,000 kanga to east Africa in 1938 alone (Ryan 2017b; Suzuki 2018). Dutch production remained solid in the years 1930–1936, when they exported between 100,000–999,999 kanga to colonial Tanganyika. Therefore, a closer look at Vlisco's kanga production in the interwar years allows for a snapshot of kanga demands.Vlisco's production slowed during World War I, and following the war's conclusion Vlisco shifted nearly all manufacture of kanga cloth from hand-stamping with woodblocks to machine-printing with copper rollers. (One group [#103] of eleven kanga textiles from the year 1929 were hand-stamped, but the remaining 1,170 were machine-printed using copper rollers). The compositions and inclusion of Swahili text correlate and set a standard that is generally adhered to throughout the remaining years of production of Vlisco-printed kanga, from 1920 to 1967:Vlisco-printed kanga textiles from the interwar period show a broadening in the variety of dyes and colorways and suggest subtle variations rather than dramatic shifts in design. Continuities in themes, a limited number of colors used on each kanga, and the use of both Arabic-script and Roman-script Swahili text remain similar to 1910s examples. Three distinct approaches to bordered-kanga composition solidify, and the preference for bold, graphic designs becomes clear. This distinction in bordered designs correlates with different regional preferences after production resumes following World War II. Unfortunately, Vlisco-produced kanga cloths printed between 1920 and 1939 are not individually dated, nor are the specific Swahili port city destination recorded. Instead, the 1,181 full-cloth examples labeled “khanga” are grouped by the details of their manufacture: namely, number of dyes used.A further novel development is the advent from 1935 of kanga cloth printed to commemorate events—known in the literature as “commemorative cloths” (Fig. 11).12 Commemorative cloths printed for sale to West Africa began only a handful of years before in 1929 (Faber 2010; Picton 1995; Spencer 1982).13 The first east African commemorative kanga printed by Vlisco celebrates the Silver Jubilee of King George V of 1935. Celebrating the British monarch's reign of twenty-five years would be appropriate as the major port cities of the early twentieth century—Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, and Zanzibar—were part of either a British-administered territory (Tanganyika), British colony (Kenya Colony), or British protectorate (Zanzibar). The English phrase, “God Save the King,” emblazoned where a typical Swahili phrase might otherwise be placed, is fitting, as the phrase is spoken as a respectful salute or is sung as the title and final line of the British national anthem.14 The central motif is an encircled Union flag, and smaller Union flags also adorn the inner corners of the central motif. Smith, Mackenzie & Co. and Jivan Hirji appear in the inner-corner roundels and give evidence to some of the players involved in creating, commissioning, marketing, and selling these commemorative kanga cloths. This cloth appears in at least two colorways, of red, white, and blue, though with the red and blues reversed (and thereby inverting the colors of the Union flag).A second early commemorative cloth celebrates the 1936 Silver Jubilee of the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar, Khalifa bin Harub (Fig. 12). The central motif is two crossed ceremonial swords and the curved dagger, known as hanjari in Swahili, a typical element of upper-class Swahili men's ceremonial attire, based on Omani patrician precedents. The inner-corner motifs are turbans in the peaked style reserved for the Sultan (Fair 1998, 2001; Vander beisen 2009). Again, the names of Smith, Mackenzie & Co. and Jivan Hirji are placed around each turban. The phrase is written in English, “1911–1926 Silver Jubilee of H.H. Sultan Khalifa Bin Harub.”Experimentation was not limited to new subjects. Intriguingly, some textiles labeled “khanga” from the 1930s do not conform to the increasingly standardized bordered composition of kanga; many have all-over repeating designs that favor the bold, simple shapes and clearly defined blocks of color common to kanga (Fig. 13). The examples illustrated here show an all-over leaf botanical design (center), a simple horizontal striped design (left) and a small checked design (right). A 1984 article published on the occasion of a small exhibition of kanga and kitenge textiles at the Commonwealth Institute in London helps to account for these anomalous cloths:At this time, Vlisco may have been casting out for alternate markets, either within or beyond east Africa, or attempting to introduce a new style of printed cloth based on the popularity of the style of kanga design elements. The term “khanga” was still used to describe these all-over patterned cloths by the Dutch textile printer in the 1930s, whereas by the 1960s kitenge was employed to describe all-over patterned cloth. The designs of kitenge are distinct from these kanga za mkumto and known across West and Central Africa as wax- or fancy-print cloths.One subcategory of kanga transcends these periods of design change: a design known as kisutu. Production records show that Vlisco produced it using copper rollers from 1920 to 1960. Although the lack of more precise dating does not allow the discernment of any design innovation, it is notable that this design persisted throughout this period. Kisutu is a precursor to the earliest designs of kanga textiles and latterly considered a style or specific design of kanga, still familiar today (Fig. 14). Textile historian Sarah Fee suggests that the design is based on early nineteenth-century cloth imports from India, an example of sought-after cloths demanded by name in port towns and along ivory caravan routes linking central Africa to coastal entrepot and then to the wider Indian Ocean (and global) world (Fee 2017: 55, 60–62). Known at least by the 1840s and 1850s, Vlisco hand-stamped its own versions at least by 1886 and continued through the 1890s (Ryan 2013, 2017a). Rival Dutch printer LKM even saved locally hand-stamped versions collected in east Africa in 1901 (Ryan 2013, 2017a). It should come as no surprise, then, that roller-printed versions were made from 1920 and variously printed throughout the next four decades.Although popular in Zanzibar and known in Dar es Salaam, these sixteen kisutu were intended for Mombasa. The conventional kisutu design is printed in two in colors, red and black, in equal proportion on white industrially manufactured cloth. It has a composition divided into thirds, with the inner portion comprising alternating small crosses and tangerine flowers, and the outer two portions comprising mirrored vertical strips of varying design. Generally, the motifs are small, intricate, and repeating. A slim, horizontal border at the top and bottom edges may complete the design, and no Swahili saying is incorporated. Within this group of sixteen Vlisco-printed kisutu textiles, various colorways are tried within the conventional color scheme: black-and-white, red-and-white, and blackand-red. The proportions are also toyed with, expanding the central portion and compressing the borders along the width. This early design enjoyed periodic resurgences printed by Vlisco between 1920 and 1960; indeed, the kisutu design continues to be consumed by east African women today.More generally, typical features of Vlisco-printed kanga cloths produced in the 1920s and 1930s include two relatively standardized compositions (one with continuous, even borders and one with compound borders), and Swahili phrases in either Arabic-script or all-caps Roman-script Swahili. Exceptions can be seen, such as those with uneven borders, no sayings whatsoever, and in some cases, phrases in English, but these deviations are rare. Most kanga designs were printed using between one and three colors of dye on either a dyed color or bleached white ground. A limited set of themes and designs persist, including Indonesian batik, Indian boteh or paisley, everyday objects, Omani- and European-inspired motifs. The advent of commemorative designs appears from the mid-1930s marks a notable expansion in kanga design. In most examples from these two decades, a unified or related design exists between the two major areas of kanga, the border and the central motif. This, together with correlating color combinations, unites to characterize kanga textiles as cohesive artistic designs during the 1920s and 1930s.The following twenty years mark the boom and bust of Vlisco kanga production for the east African market. While World War II interrupted Vlisco's kanga production, British printers continued to supply east Africa with kanga, though at reduced rates, dropping from over 1,000,000 before the war to between 100,000–999,999 during World War II. British production ceased by the late 1950s, ceding to Japanese and Dutch production in the postwar period. Indeed, Japanese production overtook Dutch in 1949, marking a period of fierce competition and production for both nations across the next two decades. Between 1950 and 1967, both nations supplied over 1,000,000 kanga annually to colonial Tanganyika then independent Tanzania. By the late 1960s, a flurry of Asian competition— Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and producers in Hong Kong—made up the vast majority of kanga imports (Ryan 2013, 2017b; Suzuki 2018).Dutch kanga imports to Tanganyika were interrupted by World War II, and no textiles were printed in the Netherlands for the export market between 1940 and 1945. Vlisco resumed work around 1946; and between 1947 and the end of kanga production for east Africa in 1967, Vlisco retains over 3,000 full-cloth samples in their collection and archives. Of these, around 1,000 unique designs exist, as popular designs were often printed in more than one colorway. The vast majority of these bear a Vlisco design number, a Smith Mackenzie design number, the date of production, type of production (corresponding to cloth type, number of dyes used, and method of printing), and destination. This accounts for the discrepancy between total number of samples (3,000+) and total number of designs (about 1,000). Using the date of production, the intended market, as well as visual analysis of the textiles themselves, design developments in Vlisco's kanga production after World War II can be charted to reveal demands particular to markets in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa respectively.Vlisco's postwar production can be divided into three subsections: the period between 1947 and 1952 that sees production resume following World War II; a second period between 1953 and 1959 that chronicles the boom of Vlisco kanga design and production; and a third between 1960 and 1967 that characterizes the slowing and end of Vlisco kanga design and production. With the large number of designs and colorways printed, the 1950s marks a discernible pattern in kanga demand from the Dar es Salaam and Mombasa markets. The market in Zanzibar by contrast functioned as a secondary market during this time, absorbing designs from both coastal cities. This follows urban population growth of these coastal port cities and shift away from Zanzibar as the nexus of trade and cosmopolitanism in east A