fashion, anti‐fashion, and heteroglossia in urban Senegal

This article focuses on the language of dress among women in urban Senegal and on the social uses of cloth that it entails. Using Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia as an organizing concept, it examines the social construction of hegemony as manifested in the practice known as sañse , dressing up or dressing well. The social practices of dress and the production and decoration of textiles embody a dialogue between dominant and subordinate or oppositional voices and between what Bakhtin calls centripetal and centrifugal impulses. This dynamic is analyzed in terms of the concepts of anti‐language and multiaccentuality. [Senegal, cloth, clothing, heteroglossia, anti‐language]