The 'Humanities Across Borders' (HAB) book series aims to trigger discussions on the relevance of normative, top down, and institutionalised standards of knowledge production and transmission in the academy. As conventional models and... more
The 'Humanities Across Borders' (HAB) book series aims to trigger discussions on the relevance of normative, top down, and institutionalised standards of knowledge production and transmission in the academy. As conventional models and modes of understanding lose their capacity to explain the human condition in the new global era, the multitude of voices, lives, locales, and journeys emerge as windows into the past and present to give a fresh, more expanded meaning to the Humanities.
Comprising monographs as well as edited volumes, the HAB book series focuses on methodological experiments and reflections across disciplinary, institutional, ideological, national, and sectoral borders. The series will:
Interrogate prevailing, often dominant, conceptual frames and categories.
Posit uncommon entry points to inquiry that bear meaning in the everyday lives of people and are relevant for interrogating wider global issues.
View quotidian knowledge-practices as valuable sources of experiential knowledge (and pedagogies) unfolding over time and space.
Encourage dialogue ‘across borders’, in the spirit of inter-cultural scholarship and educational justice.
Seek collaborative institutional and/or programmatic arrangements that re-invigorate the civic embeddedness and global connectedness of university-based curricula.
Comprising monographs as well as edited volumes, the HAB book series focuses on methodological experiments and reflections across disciplinary, institutional, ideological, national, and sectoral borders. The series will:
Interrogate prevailing, often dominant, conceptual frames and categories.
Posit uncommon entry points to inquiry that bear meaning in the everyday lives of people and are relevant for interrogating wider global issues.
View quotidian knowledge-practices as valuable sources of experiential knowledge (and pedagogies) unfolding over time and space.
Encourage dialogue ‘across borders’, in the spirit of inter-cultural scholarship and educational justice.
Seek collaborative institutional and/or programmatic arrangements that re-invigorate the civic embeddedness and global connectedness of university-based curricula.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, African Studies, Asian Studies, Latin American Studies, Comparative Literature, and 15 moreAnthropology, Political Philosophy, Art History, Media Studies, Research Methodology, Sociolinguistics, Heritage Studies, Environmental History, Atlantic World, Urban Studies, Humanistic Geography, Indian Ocean World, Political Economy and History, History and Archeaology, and Science and Technology Studies
About the Book "Our thread is different from the thread of the brahmin. They have the Vedas, we have weaving." We Who Wove is the first in-depth ethnographic study of the Telugu-speaking Padma Saliyars of Tamil Nadu, who claim a high... more
About the Book
"Our thread is different from the thread of the brahmin.
They have the Vedas, we have weaving."
We Who Wove is the first in-depth ethnographic study of the Telugu-speaking Padma Saliyars of Tamil Nadu, who claim a high status among hereditary weaving castes. The Padma Saliyars consider themselves ‘on par’ with brahmins, claiming difference through their ‘thread’ and the divinely ordained work of weaving. Their origin myth as recorded in the Bhavanarishi Puranam pronounces weaving as a divine boon, referring to their longstanding recognition and status as those who wove with lotus thread. Approaching community not as a closed and unchanging world but as a dynamic one, the study contributes to the growing scholarship on re-articulations of caste in South Asia. Using methods of both history and ethnography, it reveals the ‘hidden histories’ of artisan caste affirmation and community belonging in mobilising for production.
The author beautifully reconstructs the organisation of the weaver household and the meticulous work that goes into producing a Kanchipuram silk sari, highlighting the unity of the work, the loom and the weaver. She explores handloom weaving in light of the different regimes of value—craft (as opposed to machine) aesthetic, traditional technology, cottage industry and embodied work—that define its lived reality in South India. She also addresses the need for a new approach to the subject of artisans in India, given the lack of critical anthropological and historical works on the subject.
Providing descriptions and analyses of hitherto unpublished material supplemented with photographs, this volume will be a valuable addition to the fields of ethnography, anthropology and sociology.
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
Foreword by Prasannan Parthasarathi
Author’s Preface and Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
1. Claims of Community
2. Reform and Revival: Making of a Handloom Tradition
3. Sustaining Production: Leadership and Cooperative Conflicts
4. Weaving as Sacrament
5. Reproductive Household: Work, Loom and the Body
6. Mobilising Value: Authentic and Auspicious Design
7. Concluding Reflections
Bibliography
Appendix
Index
"Our thread is different from the thread of the brahmin.
They have the Vedas, we have weaving."
We Who Wove is the first in-depth ethnographic study of the Telugu-speaking Padma Saliyars of Tamil Nadu, who claim a high status among hereditary weaving castes. The Padma Saliyars consider themselves ‘on par’ with brahmins, claiming difference through their ‘thread’ and the divinely ordained work of weaving. Their origin myth as recorded in the Bhavanarishi Puranam pronounces weaving as a divine boon, referring to their longstanding recognition and status as those who wove with lotus thread. Approaching community not as a closed and unchanging world but as a dynamic one, the study contributes to the growing scholarship on re-articulations of caste in South Asia. Using methods of both history and ethnography, it reveals the ‘hidden histories’ of artisan caste affirmation and community belonging in mobilising for production.
The author beautifully reconstructs the organisation of the weaver household and the meticulous work that goes into producing a Kanchipuram silk sari, highlighting the unity of the work, the loom and the weaver. She explores handloom weaving in light of the different regimes of value—craft (as opposed to machine) aesthetic, traditional technology, cottage industry and embodied work—that define its lived reality in South India. She also addresses the need for a new approach to the subject of artisans in India, given the lack of critical anthropological and historical works on the subject.
Providing descriptions and analyses of hitherto unpublished material supplemented with photographs, this volume will be a valuable addition to the fields of ethnography, anthropology and sociology.
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Publisher’s Acknowledgements
Foreword by Prasannan Parthasarathi
Author’s Preface and Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration
1. Claims of Community
2. Reform and Revival: Making of a Handloom Tradition
3. Sustaining Production: Leadership and Cooperative Conflicts
4. Weaving as Sacrament
5. Reproductive Household: Work, Loom and the Body
6. Mobilising Value: Authentic and Auspicious Design
7. Concluding Reflections
Bibliography
Appendix
Index