10 Entangled histories of craft and conflict
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Cristin McKnight Sethi
Abstract
An often-quoted line from the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib and attributed to the Sikh spiritual leader Guru Nanak, proclaims ‘when you embroider your own blouse, only then will you be considered an accomplished lady.’ The close connection between textile labor, particularly hand embroidery, and constructions of gender is well known and in South Asia has persevered beyond Guru Nanak’s sixteenth-century declaration. Recent craft revival initiatives and income generation projects geared towards female makers use textiles as a focal point, further solidifying this connection between textiles, ideas of femininity, social activism, and economic development. This chapter explores these themes by examining the case of embroidered textiles known as phulkaris which were historically made in pre-Partition Punjab. Now actively produced in both India and Pakistan, these textiles have become icons of Punjabi identity and remain deeply connected to histories of women’s work and constructions of gender. From recent phulkari revival initiatives by women’s cooperatives in both India and Pakistan, to the incorporation of phulkari imagery in the Slaves of Fashion series by the UK-based artist The Singh Twins, phulkaris have emerged as potent symbols that offer insights into new ways of thinking about textiles, social activism, and gender.
Abstract
An often-quoted line from the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib and attributed to the Sikh spiritual leader Guru Nanak, proclaims ‘when you embroider your own blouse, only then will you be considered an accomplished lady.’ The close connection between textile labor, particularly hand embroidery, and constructions of gender is well known and in South Asia has persevered beyond Guru Nanak’s sixteenth-century declaration. Recent craft revival initiatives and income generation projects geared towards female makers use textiles as a focal point, further solidifying this connection between textiles, ideas of femininity, social activism, and economic development. This chapter explores these themes by examining the case of embroidered textiles known as phulkaris which were historically made in pre-Partition Punjab. Now actively produced in both India and Pakistan, these textiles have become icons of Punjabi identity and remain deeply connected to histories of women’s work and constructions of gender. From recent phulkari revival initiatives by women’s cooperatives in both India and Pakistan, to the incorporation of phulkari imagery in the Slaves of Fashion series by the UK-based artist The Singh Twins, phulkaris have emerged as potent symbols that offer insights into new ways of thinking about textiles, social activism, and gender.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xv
- Introduction 1
- I Fashioning identity 23
- 1 Wearing a gendered tree 25
- 2 Women for cotton and men for wool 47
- 3 Gendered blue 72
- 4 Bhutanese women and the performance of globalization 92
- 5 Weaving and dyeing the ideal of reproduction among Shidong Miao in Guizhou province 113
- II Gendering creative agency 133
- 6 Soft power 135
- 7 Investigating female entrepreneurship in silk weaving in contemporary Cambodia 158
- 8 (Re)crafting distribution networks for contemporary Philippine textiles 180
- 9 Women weaving silken identities and revitalizing various Japanese textile traditions 207
- III Creative voices for change 229
- 10 Entangled histories of craft and conflict 231
- 11 The politics of wastefulness and ‘the poetics of waste’ 258
- 12 Made in Rana Plaza 284
- Index 312
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors xv
- Introduction 1
- I Fashioning identity 23
- 1 Wearing a gendered tree 25
- 2 Women for cotton and men for wool 47
- 3 Gendered blue 72
- 4 Bhutanese women and the performance of globalization 92
- 5 Weaving and dyeing the ideal of reproduction among Shidong Miao in Guizhou province 113
- II Gendering creative agency 133
- 6 Soft power 135
- 7 Investigating female entrepreneurship in silk weaving in contemporary Cambodia 158
- 8 (Re)crafting distribution networks for contemporary Philippine textiles 180
- 9 Women weaving silken identities and revitalizing various Japanese textile traditions 207
- III Creative voices for change 229
- 10 Entangled histories of craft and conflict 231
- 11 The politics of wastefulness and ‘the poetics of waste’ 258
- 12 Made in Rana Plaza 284
- Index 312
