From the 12th to the 14th of September the three Research Units presented the initial findings since the beginning of the project at the VII Biennial Conference of the Association for African Studies in Italy (ASAI), held this year, with the collaboration of the local University, in the beautiful city of Messina. The papers presented sought to highlight African consumer demand, demonstrating that Africa’s contribution to the development of the modern global economy extended beyond its role as a provider of “commodities” in the transatlantic slave trade or as a supplier of raw materials to Western markets. As such, the study of the production, trade, and consumption of commodities can support multi-centred interpretations of global history, thereby advancing the field of “Global African Studies”.

This are the panels presented by our researchers:

• The Nineteenth-Century Glass Beads Trade in East Africa: Unequal Exchange and the Exploitation of European Women’s Labor by Alessandro De Cola;

• The Oldest Independent Market? Italian Industrial Penetration and African Demand in the Horn Region by Giorgio Tosco;

• Legitimate Trade in Central Africa. The Role of French Trading Houses in the Congo by Mariella Terzoli;

• Exhibiting Markets: Italian Colonial Exhibitions and the African Consumers by Massimo Zaccaria and Leonardo Conti;

• The Circulation of East African Cowries and the Power of African Consumers by Karin Pallaver.

Here is the link to the event on the ASAI website: https://www.asaiafrica.org/conferenze-asai/

Karin Pallaver presenting her paper