For over a century, French colonial and Moroccan postcolonial state-building efforts have tethered cultural identity to the preservation and "modernization" of artisanal craftwork. Twenty-first-century heritage development initiatives have aimed to turn the "traditional" know-how of skilled textile producers into "modern" knowledge, reeducating, reorganizing, and reorienting artisans with new markets in mind. These efforts obscure artisans' own perspectives on their labor, reducing makers and the iconic embroidered and woven textiles they create to romantic stereotypes about "traditional craft." Threading the Needle seeks to correct these cliches. Drawing on analysis of policy documents and archives, media and heritage representations of craft, and nearly two years of fieldwork, this historically grounded ethnography brings readers into the everyday lives of Moroccan textile artisans and other craft experts. Author Claire B. Nicholas foregrounds the diversity of artisans' voices and experiences as they practice patience (sabr) in learning their trades, managing their lives, and navigating state-led efforts to promote craft heritage. Even as artisans participate in training programs and cooperative forms that resemble those of the colonial era, they accomplish parallel objectives that sustain personal and community values. The result is the continuance of local categories of belonging, authority, and sociality, alongside the extension of state influence over the future of craft. With close attention to the practices and possibilities of living heritage in postcolonial Morocco, Threading the Needle reveals the interwoven relationships between tradition, culture, craft, and political authority.
Claire Nicholas is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Assistant Curator of Ethnology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma.
Note on Translation and Transliteration Introduction: Threading the Needle 1. Handicraft and Policy Craft 2. Capitalism and Craft 3. Practicing Patience 4. Cooperation in Parallel 5. From Textiles to Texts 6. Color of Tradition Conclusion: Handicrafts, Next Generation? Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
"The power of this book is not only its ethnographic thickness but also the visual richness that accompanies the different sections of the book and highlights the voices of the informants. Accompanying weavers, embroiderers, and artisans through fairs, workshops, and daily life, Nicholas captures the complexities of their struggles and successes, revealing a multifaceted social history."-Aomar Boum, author of Undesirables: A Holocaust Journey to North Africa "Nicholas's analytical prowess is evident in her use of the metaphor of "double weave" cloth to highlight the colonial residues that emerge in present day development schemes and state-led promotions of craft and tradition. Bringing together careful archival research and long-term ethnographic engagement with weavers and embroiders, the book contributes powerfully to our understanding of how heritage, tradition, and craft emerged as colonial artifacts."-Kedron Thomas, author of Regulating Style: Intellectual Property Law and the Business of Fashion in Guatemala
