Weaving Cloths: Research Design in Contexts of Transformation

Abstract

Africa is a place of many beautiful cloths. Bright, textured and varying, most are hand woven. The threads are constructed using a variety of raw materials through the labour of many people. The cloths are woven on many different (usually hand-made) weaving looms, which shape the cloths which often carry cultural and symbolic significance (Blauer, undated). Increasingly this enterprise is becoming highly mechanised in the major textile producing centres in Africa, influenced by the importation of machines and technologies produced elsewhere in the world. Labour processes change to managing the machines instead of spinning, selecting and weaving the thread, a change which affects the texture, quality, historical and cultural significance of the cloth.