The Infrastructure of a Local Weaving Practice: Community Relationships for a Participatory Capacity

Abstract

The women in Karşıyaka village in Turkey weave rugs and bags together in the streets to contribute to the shared social convention of preparing dowries. From assembling looms to distributing woven goods, weaving in the village is a cooperative designing and making process that is deeply intertwined with social and material relationships. This article explores embodied knowledge in these women’s weaving practices, and the different forms of relationships that enable participatory and cooperative capacity among the group. To consider these relationships, we bring together two frameworks: the ecological approach (examining practices as relational entities that are co-constituted through social, material, and cultural environments) and participatory design, particularly in terms of community-building and infrastructuring (the design and arrangement of socio-technical resources that engage and establish the network of relationships). This article demonstrates a local understanding of building participation and cooperation through co-constitutive and interdependent relationships between social and material elements of making, and of the facilitation of cooperation.