UBC Okanagan Department of History and Sociology Speaker Series

The Department of History and Sociology presents the second installment of its speaker series featuring Dr. Marius Kothor from The University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Kothor’s talk entitled West African Women Merchants and the Economics of Decolonization will focus on how a wealthy group of Togolese women textile traders, known collectively as the Nana Benz, used the wealth and influence they gained from selling batik textiles to shape the political landscape of twentieth-century West Africa.

The talk will reveal how the women leveraged their social networks and deep knowledge of regional markets to expand consumer economies during colonialism, finance the decolonization movement in Togo, and smooth the turbulent transition from independence to the military dictatorship of Gnassingbé Eyadéma.