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About Saliamo
Saliamo was a research volunteer in TURNING POINT (London) heritage programme’s ‘Sunday Best’ – sewing skills and heritage research workshop.
Saliamo is a development researcher and practitioner who recently completed her MSc in Global Development at SOAS University of London. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, her African heritage informs the decolonial lens through which she approaches the world. Intersectional feminism is also a significant part of her political praxis, enabling her to engage themes of gender, race and class with careful nuance in her research.
Summary
Saliamo (volunteer) has explored how clothing connects to culture, history, and identity within Afro-Caribbean communities. She navigates how cloth can carry family memories, skills, and traditions passed down through generations. She explores how fashion became a way to express identity but also exposes how Black designers were often overlooked. Her research talks about how decolonial fashion challenges this, recognising diverse fashion histories and making space for voices erased from history, turning fashion into a tool for storytelling and resistance.
Fashioning the Diaspora: Afro-Caribbean dress and the politics of belonging
The relationship between cloth, culture and race is one that is laden with meaning for daily and ceremonial rituals. The cloth becomes a vessel of institutional memory for family keepsakes; crafting techniques and traditions being passed down inter-generationally – this is especially true for Afro-Caribbean communities whose histories interweave across vast geographies. How do Afro-Caribbean communities become cultural bearers throughout their journeys in a way that foregrounds the natural collision and exchange that happens with other cultures while acknowledging the nuances of ever-evolving identities? More importantly, how can we recenter indigenous knowledge systems as legitimate sites of knowledge production? In the words of Trinidadian political activist, poet and publisher, John La Rose, “sense mek before book” meaning knowledge does not only reside in the academy; it resides in the everyday, in the streets, in homes and in the lives that people create.
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