Threading the Needle

Craft, Cloth, and Development in Postcolonial Morocco

Claire Nicholas (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

312 Seiten

2026
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
978-0-253-07643-4 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. September 2026)
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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 clichés. 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

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.9.2026
Reihe/Serie	Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa
Zusatzinfo	49 color illus., 9 b&w illus., 1 map
Verlagsort	Bloomington, IN
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Handarbeit / Textiles
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-253-07643-9 / 0253076439
ISBN-13	978-0-253-07643-4 / 9780253076434
Zustand	Neuware