From “South” to “South”: The Glocalized Imaginations of Made-in-China Clothing in the Global South

JIN Shengjun

Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2025, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (11) : 136-159.

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Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2025, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (11) : 136-159.
International Communication Research

From “South” to “South”: The Glocalized Imaginations of Made-in-China Clothing in the Global South

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Abstract

Fashion culture is liable to be overlooked in academic research due to its pervasive everydayness and prominent practicality. With the deepening of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has become a major supplier of everyday fashion in the Global South, and fashion products have emerged as a primary medium through which cultural individuals in the Global South imagine Chinese popular culture. This study takes the circulation of “Made in China” clothing in the Global South as its research entrance, employing fieldwork research conducted in Guangzhou and Nairobi to explore how the Global South understands and imagine Chinese fashion culture. This study finds that the “localized imagination” of Chinese everyday fashion mainly encompasses three dimensions: the imagination of authenticity, the imagination of creativity, and a de-platformized imagination. Compared to the process of Northern cultures entering Southern countries, South-South transcultural communication should prioritize the following steps under pragmatism-driven conditions: (1) a reciprocity-based culturalsynergy imagination grounded in everyday survival needs, (2) a community-level synergy imagination of shared destinies built upon limited cultural knowledge, and (3) an openness imagination derived from rooted cosmopolitanism.

Key words

The Global South / fashion culture / transcultural communication / glocalized imagination / clothing

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JIN Shengjun. From “South” to “South”: The Glocalized Imaginations of Made-in-China Clothing in the Global South[J]. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2025, 47(11): 136-159

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Footnotes

1. 此处根据中国海关HS编码61及62的数据统计。

2. 克里奥尔化(Creolization)原指欧洲语言与殖民地语言混合形成新语言的过程。该术语现扩展至文化研究领域,描述的是不同文化在同一地区相遇、碰撞、融合后,形成的一种既与源文化紧密相连又独具特色的、杂糅化的全新文化形态。

3. 以B15为例,他是一位收入水平较高、供职于本土官方媒体的高级记者,他也时常会到Gikomba market挑选好的二手服装,“我很开心你去过那儿(Gikomba market),我在那儿买了很多年,我身上穿的这件也是在那里买的,它看起来是不是不太像是二手的,款式也比较新(B15)”。尽管B15在二手服装市场购买衣服可能出于消费惯习的影响,但不可否认的是,二手服装已经嵌入到本地人日常时尚体系之中,成为本土时尚的一种重要表现形式。因此本研究不仅关注一手服装,亦需关注二手服装。

Funding

78th batch of China postdoctoral science foundation(2025M783488)
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