Textiles have been a highly valued and central part of the politics of human societies across culture divides and over millennia. The economy of textiles provides insight into the fabric of social relations, local and global politics, and diverse ideologies. Textiles are a material element of society that fosters the study of continuities and disjunctions in the economic and social realities of past and present societies. From stick-loom weaving to transnational factories, the production of cloth and its transformation into clothing and other woven goods offers a way to study the linkages between economics and politics. The volume is oriented around a number of themes: textile production, textiles as trade goods, textiles as symbols, textiles in tourism, and textiles in the transnational processes. Textile Economies appeals to a broad range of scholars interested in the intersection of material culture, political economy, and globalization, such as archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, economists, museum curators, and historians.
Introduction Part I. Creativity and Value Chapter 1. Exchange without Brokers: Weaver-Client Relationships in Senegal Laura L. Cochrane Chapter 2. Heritage and Authorship Debates in Three Sumatran Songkets Susan Rodgers Chapter 3. Creativity, Place, and Commodities: The Making of Public Economies in Andean Apparel Industries Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Jason Antrosio, and Eric C. Jones Chapter 4. Tivaivai and Value in the Cook Islands Ritual Economy: The Creation of Value, Values, and Valuables in a Diasporic Community Jane Horan Chapter 5. The Political Economy of an Art Form: The Akotifahana Cloth of Madagascar Sarah Fee Part II. The Power of Cloth and the Sanctity of Power Chapter 6. Textiles and Chimu Identity under Inka Hegemony on the North Coast of Peru Cathy Lynne Costin Chapter 7. Late Classic Maya Textile Economies: An Object History Approach Christina T. Halperin Chapter 8. Hohokam Cotton: Irrigation, Production, and Trade in Perhistory Robert C. Hunt Chapter 9. Neighborly Ties and Sohbet: Global Capitalism and the Work of Weaving in Konya, Turkey Damla Isik Chapter 10. Sanctity, Social Distance, and the Price of Cloth in a Moroccan Suq John A. Napora Part III. (Re)invented Traditions in Transnational Context Chapter 11. Good Hands: Silk Weaving and Transnational Artisan Partnerships in Cambodia Susan Falls and Jessica Smith Chapter 12. Recommunitizing Practice, Refashionizing Capital: Artisans and Entrepreneurship in a Philippine Textile Industry B. Lynne Milgram Chapter 13. The Decline of a Weaving Cooperative in Western Turkey Kimberly Hart Chapter 14. Made in Italy: Metaphors for Merchandising Textiles in a Global Economy Joan Weibel-Orlando Chapter 15. Creating Fame and Fortune from the Ruins of Handloom in Kerala, Southern India Lucy Norris