By Georgia Conover
Reuters recently reported on the launch of the Afro-centric, on-line magazine called Ladybrille (for brilliant lady) as making African fashion and entertainment accessible to women living in the United States and Europe. The woman’s magazine, published by Ladybrille Media Group, Inc. is dubbed AfriChic, and covers a range of topics from news and business, to music, film and fashion from the African continent. According to the Reuters story, Ladybrille magazine is being hailed as a way to bring culture from Africa into the mainstream.
The Reuters story is interesting in two parts, first because it features a magazine that challenges western-centric constructions of culture by elevating cultural practices in Africa. Second, because it acclaims Ladybrille as making African news, fashion and entertainment accessible to the “mainstream,” suggesting that western preferences are the norm, to which African societies are compared and, thanks to a new magazine, made accessible. The news coverage of this magazine launch de-centers “the West,” at the same time that it reproduces ideas about the West as the cultural norm.
Read the Reuters article online
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Geography Directions 