Weaving Community: The Manual Loom as Metaphor for Rupture and Repair

Authors

Farrah Cato
Prerana Choudhury

Date of this Version

2024

Document Type

Proceeding

Citation

Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium

Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event

Comments

Published by the Textiles Society of America

Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission

Abstract

The manual loom anchors women’s community and creative life in rural Assam. We explore this apparatus by extending definitions of the ‘digital’ and reconsidering the loom’s role as metaphor for both (dis)rupture and repair within the culturally diverse and bioculturally rooted lives of indigenous women in Assam. Our methods are based primarily on participatory research, community living, and slow travel undertaken by Prerana to remote parts of this northeastern state of India, juxtaposed with Farrah’s practical and theoretical approaches to technology. United by the recognition of how significant women’s lived histories and material production are, we reconsider the loom’s liminal potential in understanding textile (and tactile) cultures for women of Assam. How might various factors, such as gendered divisions of labor and physical positioning of the loom, operate as integrated strands that afford opportunities of reading the loom as a metaphor for the community itself ? We do not argue that the manual loom is a perfect tool for creative labor or liberation, especially when utilizing female labor within larger patriarchal structures - such ‘ruptured’ elements need repair. Instead, we identify the moments of disruption its usage encourages, such as the possibilities of identity assertion and preservation of sociocultural heritage. Situating the manual loom as a site of repair in rural Assam, we consider how its continued use and the spaces in which it occurs provides opportunities for women to engage collaboratively, perform agency, and sustain their communities in ways that may help us weave together more promising futures.