Abstract
AbstractThe role of skills has been eclipsed in the transition from an agrarian-craft economy rooted in hand-labour in small households to a modern political economy where productive work takes place outside the household, in offices and factories. Yet the ideological erasure of skilled work should not be confused with its actual disappearance. Precisely because such work was typically construed as private and unimportant, the embedded hierarchies and skills that shaped the handloom weaving industry in the North Indian province of United Provinces under colonial rule could escape systematic conversion to capitalist structures. Skill as human capital constituted the capitalist labour processes in the modern handloom industry, not as an abstract act, but as a historical experience. Handloom workers were reproduced, generationally, socially, and hierarchically, through the passing on of skilled labour within the unorganized informal sector of handloom weaving. Thus the stuff of community skills should move beyond its projection as either ‘endangered’ or ‘regressive’ to explore its access to capitalist structures and the exploitative networks that contain, transmit, and enable the production of skills.
Highlights
Ever since scientific knowledge produced between 1650 and 1850 has figured in definitions of the rise of modernity, ‘making’ and ‘knowing’ have been viewed as belonging to different types and orders of knowledge
The nature of household space for work ensured that informality in the production process remained untouched, yet skills were so interconnected with division of labour that the following categories of labourers and weavers evolved:[50]
If a Chamar emerges as a worker in a leather factory or a handloom weaver becomes a mechanic in a powerloom factory, the particular identification with work may continue without a change in social identity due to the already existing social categorization identifying them with these tasks
Summary
Ever since scientific knowledge produced between 1650 and 1850 has figured in definitions of the rise of modernity, ‘making’ and ‘knowing’ have been viewed as belonging to different types and orders of knowledge. The argument is that skills did not disappear with mechanization and were, critical to the survival of, first, handloom weaving and, power-loom weaving in twentieth-century India Even before identifying these issues one needs to remember that the work culture of South Asian craft communities has been shaped by external influences and internal changes since their interface with modernity. The province was not known for raw silk production, so the required quantities were mostly imported from foreign countries through the seaport at Bombay, with this shift being taken over by modern textile firms.[45] The subsequent loss of traditional skills, changing patterns of cloth consumption and use of raw material, and the rise of grihastas, along with a corresponding new hierarchy among producers need to be understood in this context. The nature of household space for work ensured that informality in the production process remained untouched, yet skills were so interconnected with division of labour that the following categories of labourers and weavers evolved:[50]
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