Rövid leírás:
This book looks at the economic history of south Asia from a fresh perspective, through a detailed study of the handloom industry in colonial south India.
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Hosszú leírás:
Weaving Histories looks at the economic history of South Asia from a fresh perspective, through a detailed study of the handloom industry of South India between 1800 and 1960, drawing out its wider implications for the Indian economy. It employs an unusual array of sources, including paintings and textile samples as well as archival records, to excavate the links between cotton growing, cleaning, spinning and weaving before the nineteenth century. The rupture and re-configuration of these links produced a sea-change in the lives of ordinary weavers. Weaving Histories examines the configuration of forceslocal, regional, national and globalthat drove this transformation, and uncovers its effects on different groups of weavers.
The handloom industry is used as a case study to throw light on the historical emergence of the ‘informal sector’ in India, and to re-examine contemporary debates about industrialisation and economic development.
In Weaving Histories, Karuna Dietrich Wielenga mobilizes an impressive range of sources to show that for at least south India many of the truisms often repeated are, if not incorrect, then surely imprecise. To understand the important revisionist work of this book, the author provides a careful analysis not just of weaving but also of raw cotton cultivation and spinning.
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Tartalomjegyzék:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Geography of Weaving: South India in the Early Nineteenth Century
Statistics, Looms and People: The Changing Contours of the Handloom Industry
From Cotton to Cloth: The Linking Threads
Weaving: Changing Structures
Caste and Work
Solidarity and Action
The State and the Weaver
Conclusion
Appendix: Note on the Loom Tax
Bibliography
Index
