SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This essay discusses the weaving trade carried out by women in a pastoral village of central Sardinia. It pays particular attention to the past and recent history of this activity and the way it has adapted itself to the demands of changing economic paradigms on both the local and the international level. With women as sole protagonists, not only in the production and continuity of rug-weaving but also in its commercialisation and sale, the focus of interest is not so much business-centred as family-centred. These family-values, however, do not impose restrictions on women but see them assuming an assertive role outside the home and village, as local entrepreneurs and mediators with the external world. The essay concentrates on the ethnographic presentation and life-stories of three weavers belonging to different generations and gives an account of the recent history of weaving, particularly since 1950, when regional bodies were created to promote local handicrafts. The essay originated within the context of broader research on gift-giving in the village of Nule, central Sardinia. Since women are the main agents behind the imbiatu-gift, they felt obliged to communicate their experience and testimony as weavers. Weaving constituted the locus where women would consolidate social ties and their skills made them knowledgeable of the ‘social fabric’. Many instance of the imbiatu-gift occur also within the practice of weaving.