Woven, Inscribed, Enfolded, Encased: Adinkra from Kumase to the British Museum

This article traces the nineteenth-century circulation of Asante material culture from Kumase to the British Museum, exploring how the intersecting imperial strategies of the Asante and British empires are manifested in collecting practices. Rather than tracing object biographies *from* Africa *to* Europe, this text foregrounds Asante imperial collecting, which appropriated diverse visual and material forms from Akan, Dagomba, Hausa, and Islamic communities as a means of asserting imperial power and cosmopolitan identity. As diplomatic exchanges gave way to looting, the Anglo-Asante Wars, and colonial possession over the nineteenth century, European museums redefined Asante material culture. This article analyzes how early nineteenth-century European museum displays and publications, especially writings by the aspiring English diplomat Thomas Edward Bowdich, constructed a reductive narrative of "African art". Additionally, by centering Asante cosmopolitanism, the article underscores the dynamic and adaptive strategies that defined Asante imperial visuality. This article is part of the series "Atlantic Worlds: Visual Cultures of Colonialism, Slavery, and Racism" in *British Art Studies*, which is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Projects in the series consider the dispersed and difficult histories of Atlantic worlds, focusing on any aspect of visual and material culture that intersects broadly with the United Kingdom and the United States. The aim is to encourage transhistorical thinking by posing questions about histories and legacies of empire, networks of trade, transatlantic slavery, and creolisation. "Atlantic Worlds" initiated a virtual residency programme at the journal that ran from 2021 to 2022, where awardees shared ideas with each other and were supported by expert interlocutors. Awardees were Adrian Anagnost, Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Mia L. Bagneris, Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Christopher Maxwell, and Adrienne Rooney. Invited interlocutors were Gaiutra Bahadur, Pamela Fletcher, Aaron Kamugisha, Catherine Molineux, José Lingna Nafafé, and Kerry Sinanan.