Laura Cochrane
    The social process of arts production: tapestry weaving in Senegal

 

In urban northwestern Senegal , tapestry weaving has become an elite craft. Both the material processes of weaving and the producers have such status. Weavers, their patrons, and their clients, however, each consider themselves of a superior status with respect to their relationship to weaving. They create their ideas of status by attributing specific social values to the craft, including valuations of producers themselves, the products they create, and their techniques and styles.

Social values are then factors in determining economic values: weavers and clients use their ideas about the craft's social valuations in debates over pricing and payments. Debates arise because weavers and their clients often have different ideas of these social and economic values. By building relationships with each other, and talking about specific values of the work, they are better able to come to a more mutually satisfactory agreement on payment.

To study these relationships and processes of weaving, I conducted fieldwork in two towns, Thiès and Poponguine. Thiès, 80 kilometers inland from Dakar, Senegal 's capital, is one of most populous cities in Senegal. Thiès is home to a state-sponsored tapestry factory and a large number of independent household-based workshops. Poponguine is a smaller town on the coast, south of Thiès and Dakar . Along with fishing and tourism, two private association-based weaving workshops are contributors to the town's economy. Through interviews, participant observation, and a weaving apprenticeship, I worked with administrators and weavers at the state-sponsored tapestry factory in Thiès, two private workshops in Poponguine, and independent weavers in both Poponguine and Thiès. Each workshop specializes in a particular genre of weaving: different weavers attribute different social and economic values to each genre.

In my next research project, I will continue to work with the same groups of weavers in northwestern Senegal but add to my study sample a weaving cooperative located east of Thiès. With these groups, I will explore the ways weavers use moral and religious ideas in their work, and also the ways that they involve themselves in local and national political movements.