Between the Folds: Stories of Cloth, Lives, and Travels from by Jill Forshee

By Jill Forshee

Textiles have lengthy been critical to the social existence and cosmology of the folks of East Sumba, Indonesia. In contemporary many years, the Sumbanese have entered a bigger international financial system as their textiles have joined the commodity stream of a world "ethnic arts" industry, motivated by way of Indonesia's vacationer exchange. As Sumba's villagers reply to an immensely improved trade of their fabric, tensions and ironies emerge among historic and cutting edge kinds in either textile and lives. utilizing a story strategy, Jill Forshee takes readers into various lives, together with these of villagers touring to Bali and travelers traveling Sumba, and follows their adventures alongside a number of routes over the years. via own tales of these serious about the modern construction and alternate of neighborhood textile, a brilliant account emerges of the interior workings of a so-called "traditional" society and its arts responding inventively to many years of foreign accumulating. those tales extend anthropological thoughts of the obstacles of areas and the certainties of cultures in ways in which are tangible and quick to the reader. in addition, the e-book illuminates a few previously unexplored stipulations of creative provenance.

Show description

Read or Download Between the Folds: Stories of Cloth, Lives, and Travels from Sumba PDF

Best polymers & textiles books

Synthetic fibres: Nylon, polyester, acrylic, polyolefin

Man made fibers account for approximately 1/2 all fiber utilization, with purposes in each box of fiber and fabric expertise. even supposing many periods of fiber in line with artificial polymers were evaluated as very likely priceless advertisement items, 4 of them - nylon, polyester, acrylic and polyolefin - dominate the marketplace.

Fundamentals of Polymer-Clay Nanocomposites

"Written for graduate scholars, researchers, and practitioners, this e-book offers an entire advent to the technological know-how, engineering, and advertisement functions of polymer-clay nanocomposites. beginning with a dialogue of common innovations, the authors outline particular phrases utilized in the sphere, delivering newbies with a powerful origin to the realm.

Polyampholytes: Synthesis, Characterization and Application

So as to adapt the houses of dwelling fabrics to their organic services, nature has constructed precise polyelectrolytes with amazing actual, chemical and mechanical habit. specifically polyampholytes should be appropriate components to version protein folding phenomenon and enzymatic task so much of organic macromolecules because of the presence of acidic and simple teams.

Failure of Plastics and Rubber Products - Causes, Effects and Case Studies Involving Degradation

A desirable perception into why polymer items fail, and the way we will examine from the errors of the earlier. This e-book describes a number of the mechanisms of polymer degradation, and illustrates every one failure mechanism with a couple of case stories. This publication was once written with the help of the united kingdom division of exchange and undefined.

Additional info for Between the Folds: Stories of Cloth, Lives, and Travels from Sumba

Example text

Tensions between people and perplexities of life play out in a shuttling between worlds most differentially marked by gender. There is poten- 23 FABRICSCAPES 24 tial power in mobility, in securing or altering one’s place in the world by extending influence within it. Yet there is also power in resisting unwanted shifts in location and controlling limits that others might not violate. Adventure threatens to bring pollution or destruction, and human mobility challenges the stability of social life in Sumba.

These patterns often resemble simplified abstractions of flowers (habaku) or butterflies (karihu) defined by lines and dots. Many people refer to such forms —which often appear in the central sections of hinggi, perhaps as counterbalances or mediations to newer designs within the cloths—as the most ancient symbols of local powers. An ancient image in Sumbanese fabrics involves a front-facing human figure (tau). Similar figures appear in cloth across Indonesia, and some researchers have considered these as Figure 10.

Such ideas of place persist with many villagers; yet as people increasingly move about the island by way of public transport, travel away from Sumba, or encounter foreigners, their “grids” become less consistent. 15 Nonetheless, there is tenacious conviction among people in East Sumba in the powers of specifically local spirits and natural omens, as well as ubiquitous fear of malign magic (mamarung) inflicted by mortals. Insidiously afflicting people’s lives, such human spells are often borne by liquids and powders.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.25 of 5 – based on 8 votes