Textile Trades, Consumer Cultures, and the Material Worlds of the Indian Ocean: An Ocean of Cloth

Description

This collection examines cloth as a material and consumer object from early periods to the twenty-first century, across multiple oceanic sites—from Zanzibar, Muscat and Kampala to Ajanta, Srivijaya and Osaka. It moves beyond usual focuses on a single fibre (such as cotton) or place (such as India) to provide a fresh, expansive perspective of the ocean as an “interaction-based arena,” with an internal dynamism and historical coherence forged by material exchange and human relationships. Contributors map shifting social, cultural and commercial circuits to chart the many histories of cloth across the region. They also trace these histories up to the present with discussions of contemporary trade in Dubai, Zanzibar, and Eritrea. Richly illustrated, this collection brings together new and diverse strands in the long story of textiles in the Indian Ocean, past and present. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxv Introduction: The Ocean’s Many Cloth Pathways (Pedro Machado, Sarah Fee)....Pages 1-25 Front Matter ....Pages 27-27 Textiles and Silver: The Indian Ocean in a Global Frame (Prasannan Parthasarathi)....Pages 29-54 Cloth and Commerce: Understanding Indian Economic History ( Lakshmi Subramanian)....Pages 55-77 Handkerchiefs, Scarves, Sarees and Cotton Printed Fabrics: Japanese Traders and Producers and the Challenges of Global Markets (Seiko Sugimoto)....Pages 79-104 Kanga Made in Japan: The Flow from the Eastern to the Western End of the Indian Ocean World (Hideaki Suzuki)....Pages 105-132 A Worn Insecurity: Textiles‚ Industrialization and Colonial Rule in Eritrea During the Long Twentieth Century (Steven Serels)....Pages 133-156 Front Matter ....Pages 157-157 Distributive Networks, Sub-Regional Tastes and Ethnicity: The Trade in Chinese Textiles in Southeast Asia from the Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries CE (Derek Heng)....Pages 159-180 Textile Reorientations: The Manufacture and Trade of Cottons in Java c. 1600–1850 (Kenneth R. Hall)....Pages 181-208 ‘The Dearest Thing on the East African Coast’: The Forgotten Nineteenth-Century Trade in ‘Muscat Cloth’ (Sarah Fee)....Pages 209-252 Converging Trades and New Technologies: The Emergence of Kanga Textiles on the Swahili Coast in the Late Nineteenth Century (MacKenzie Moon Ryan)....Pages 253-286 Front Matter ....Pages 287-287 Warp and Weft: Producing, Trading and Consuming Indian Textiles Across the Seas (First–Thirteenth Centuries CE) (Himanshu Prabha Ray)....Pages 289-311 The Decline of the Malagasy Textile Industry, c. 1800–1895 (Gwyn Campbell)....Pages 313-358 Contemporary Geographies of Zanzibari Fashion: Indian Ocean Trade Journeys in the Run-Up to Ramadhan Festivities (Julia Verne)....Pages 359-383 The Fabric of the Indian Ocean World: Reflections on the Life Cycle of Cloth (Jeremy Prestholdt)....Pages 385-396 Back Matter ....Pages 397-426