Sticht the dress and the web: young women, fashion and digital economies in Yaounde, Cameroon

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My research focuses on how new media technologies influence gender inequalities in society, and how access to mobile phone cameras changed young Cameroonian women's future aspirations and work opportunities. During my doctorate, I worked with young women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in the capital city, Yaoundé, who were enrolled in or had completed university education, but not in the field of new technologies. I engaged in participant observation and interviewed them about the use of mobile phones, particularly their cameras, in relation to their future aspirations and work prospects. This research revealed that rather than aspiring to work in the areas they studied, young women see their futures as intimately tied to images they make with their phone cameras, in advertising and modelling, and especially in fashion.My research shows how new media technologies can alter gender inequalities in access to productive work. By displaying and sharing the images of their dress styles, young women manifest their skills and find work opportunities in their desired areas. Young women change their economic position in a gerontocratic and patriarchal society by circumventing dependence on patrimonial networks through which paths of social mobility run. Using new media technologies as channels of distribution for their images and styles, they build matronage networks. Testifying to this phenomenon, international media and business investment forecasts have highlighted African fashion as one of the top five areas to look out for in 2022. Yet even as mediatised success stories about the emergence of female African fashion brands in digital economies circulate internationally, small-scale initiatives operating locally are on precarious ground. This precarity owes, amongst other factors, to a lack of institutional support: the economic, infrastructural and promotion assistance that could compensate for the instability of matronage networks. My research shows the need to spread awareness about small-scale initiatives and their challenges, and to establish policy schemes to support young women in this new sector.During the fellowship, I will publish two academic articles that seek to influence scholarly debates on African fashion and gender. I will also organise a workshop to disseminate my research findings to audiences in Cameroon and beyond. This international workshop will focus on the transformation of African fashion through digital technologies and the impacts of this change on local female economies. The workshop will engage interdisciplinary scholars, policymakers and fashion practitioners from my research, and will be open to the public. It will be co-run with Dr Felicite Djoukouo, and hosted by the National Museum (Yaoundé), with participation by the National Ministry for Women's Empowerment, UNESCO and UN Women. I will organize the workshop in conjunction with a forthcoming exhibition at the V&A Museum on African fashion, allowing for remote online participation. The aim of the workshop will be to share knowledge and generate awareness about possibilities and challenges that digital economies in fashion create for young women, and map out ways to transform their precarity into stable sources of income.The outcomes of the workshop will be threefold. First, by highlighting local initiatives and their gendered economies, the workshop will introduce a missing perspective on African fashion for V&A Museum audiences. Second, it will result in a publication at the intersection of visual arts and academia, which will foster new debates on African fashion and female digital economies. Third, the workshop outcomes will be translated into a policy briefing on supporting female empowerment through partnerships in digital fashion. This will have a powerful role in altering the economic position of young women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.