Textile Center Research Articles

Blóm + blóð

Video stills from the 8-minute video, entitled, blóm + blóð, produced during a residency at the Icelandic Textile Centre (Blönduós) in September 2016. blóm + blóð presents performance as embodied research, in the landscape as laboratory/studio. The artist navigates the autumnal terrain of Norðurland vestra, collecting natural dye and fibre stuffs, using landscape elements as tools for making, and experimenting with flora and fauna in the creation of a textile work. The end (textile) result is never shown, the emphasis being on process as the creative work in focus, and the acquisition of new knowledge as one of the results. Utilizing the landscape as a laboratory means more than simply the outdoor acquisition of art/craft materials – it mobilizes human empathy (through experiential learning) in gaining an ecological awareness of the source of materials one works with, fostering a working relationship with the environment and its agents. The video plays with notions of temporality and labour, but also with ideas of material agency, in terms of Jane Bennett’s, Vibrant Matter, where “efficacy or agency depends on the collaboration, cooperation, or interactive interference of many bodies and forces.” In the video, a deliberate romanticization of landscape (as within the landscape tradition in art, as well as touristic notions of place) is disrupted by the practical necessities of Icelandic life, such as the sheep slaughter. Likewise, engagement with the messiness of the body is embraced as necessary on the path towards aesthetic outcome. The hegemonic notion of studio space, as isolated and hidden rooms where masterpieces are hatched, is subverted as the creative process is literally exposed.

The Impact Of Leadership Behavior On The Business Growth Through The Organizational Innovation And Managerial Practices

The main objective of this empirical study is to determine the affect of leadership behavior with the organizational innovative techniques and managerial practices on the businesses’ growth in Pakistan particularly in textile sector. Firstly, the study discusses the relationship between leadership behavior and organizational innovation, between organizational behavior and managerial practices. Furthermore, this relationship is also measured between organizational innovation and business growth and between managerial practices and business growth. Secondly, the study investigates that these relationship are strongly reinforced in the firm with the support of theoretical evidences made but not determined theoretically in the prior literature. Managerial practices take place in textile community for interaction in which organizational cognition is developed and expanded dynamically between the cognitive and behavioral changes. Organizations with greater organizational acquisition and practices create a learning network that will become easier to learn that what they use to learn and to initiate, enabling the firm to preserve its effective and competitive aversion as a textile technological center. Nomothetic research method is applied to test the hypothesis, developed for this study. The research examined a sample of one hundred ten textile firms with sample unit of senior managers, executives, administrative and other-level managers. A research model is formulated for the study and hypotheses are tested with the use of structural equation model. This study purposes that the leaders of firms initiate a transformational role, which facilitate organizational innovation and managerial performances and consequently enhance the business growth especially in textile firms.

Reviving the Lost Place Identity of Batu Pahat, Johor

In the past, Batu Pahat was well known as a textile center to the locals and visitors. The paper aims to discuss the place identity of Batu Pahat, the factors that contribute to the loss of the identity and the possible ways in reviving the place identity. The research was conducted through the reading of past documents and records, observation, and interview of the locals. Several factors contributed to the loss of place identity. Possible solutions in reviving the place identity were to upgrade the waterfront, revitalize the old buildings, and to include a textile center. Keywords: place identity; textile; shop ISSN: 2398-4287© 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

Die Rolle des Ghetto Litzmannstadt (Łódź) bei der Versorgung der Wehrmacht und der deutschen Privatwirtschaft mit Kleidung (1940 bis 1944)

Abstract The Role of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt (Łódź) for the Clothing Provision of the German Armed Forces and Private Firms (1940 to 1944) Shortly after the establishment of the Ghetto in Łódź, the German administration set up a textile and clothing department. As Łódź was the leading Polish textile center, many ghetto inhabitants had basic or advanced skills in the textile and clothing business. After several months it became clear for the Jews that working for the Germans was the only chance to making themselves valuable and to avoid or postpone being deported to extermination camps. The textile and clothing department soon became the largest sweatshop in the ghetto and was also an important provider of textiles, clothing and leather goods for the German economy. Previous research followed the claim of the department's head that the German military took over 90 per cent of its production. We show for the large textile and clothing department that the share of production for civilian purposes was much higher, around 50 per cent. Moreover, we analyze the business relationship between the ghetto administration and German firms.

The Location of the Textile Industry in England and Wales, 1813–1820

This article utilises male occupational data recorded in the baptism registers of England and Wales, 1813–1820, to locate the geographical distribution of the textile manufacturing industry at that time. By comparison with female and male occupations abstracted from the 1851 census, it shows that the location was set at least as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century, and before the introduction of steam power or the mechanisation of weaving could have played significant roles. By 1813–1820, the once great regional textile centres of East Anglia and the West Country were no more. Approximately sixty-six per cent of fathers employed in the textile industry lived in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Moreover, textile manufacturing was further concentrated into a small number of parishes. Two-thirds of fathers lived in thirty-six parishes, and fifty per cent resided in only nineteen parishes. An association between the location of the main textile parishes and the proximity of the coal measures is evident. The registers contain a large number of entries for male spinners, reflecting the extent of uptake of Samuel Crompton’s spinning mule. The data confirm that the mule was dominant in cotton spinning within at least thirty years or so of its introduction. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, cotton spinning by hand was a redundant occupation.

New Bedford Resurgent

This essay analyzes the influence higher education has had on the “creative economy” of New Bedford, Massachusetts, once one of the leading textile centers in the United States. In my analysis, I assess how New Bedford’s cultural and historical legacy informed artistic education in the city. In addition, I explore the impact that a single institution of higher education (the Swain School of Design) has had on New Bedford’s current cultural and economic revitalization.

Height and Industrialisation in a City in Catalonia During the Nineteenth Century

Drawing on anthropometric information, this article investigates the evolution of the biological standard of living in nineteenth-century Catalonia. We focus on the city of Igualada, one of Catalonia's main textile centres in the early part of the century. The results show a decline in the height of males born between the 1830s and the 1860s, the period in which factory-based industrialisation emerged and became consolidated. The article also suggests that height inequality rose during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The empirical evidence gathered provides further support for the pessimistic view of the evolution of the standard of living during the early stages of industrialisation.

Prescribing patterns of a garment medical centre in Bangladesh

Objectives: The aim of the study was to audit the prescription and dispensing pattern in a garment medical center to observe the rational use of drug. Irrational use of medicine is a global problem. Polypharmacy, injudicial use of antibiotics, unnecessary use of vitamins are commonly seen in Bangladesh. To find out the current status of the prescribing and dispensing practices and identify factors underlying irrational prescription writing in a Garment medical center for factory workers in Gajipur and to sensitize the future prescribers about the rational prescriptions, this study was carried out. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out to analyze the patterns of prescriptions by using World Health Organization , WHO/INRUD- core drug prescribing indicators and some additional indices. Place and period of study: A total of 300 prescriptions of the patients (garment workers) who had attended in Hannan Textile and Garment Medical Centre, Board Bazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh in between January and November’2008 were considered for analysis. Results: The average number of drugs per prescription was 3.1 and no single drug was prescribed by generic name. Use of antibiotic (50% of encounters) was frequent. Only 50.75% drugs were prescribed from national essential drug list (EDL). Percentage of encounters with an antiulcerant, a NSAID and a multivitamin & multimineral prescribed were 41.67%, 46.67% and 23.67% respectively. Conclusion: This study revealed some of irrational practices like poly pharmacy, overuse of antibiotics and vitamins, no use of generic names, and less prescribed from essential drug list. It is suggested that the periodic evaluation of prescribing practices at the healthcare facilities should be done by proper involvement of physician, nurse and pharmacist for the rational use of medicine. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/updcj.v3i1.17978 Update Dent. Coll. j: 2013; 3 (1): 07-11

Mallorcan merchants in the medieval Maghrib: mercantile strategies in the port of Hunayn in the mid-fourteenth century

By the end of the Middle Ages, the Maghrib had become one of the largest suppliers of wool in the western Mediterranean. Its produce was soon forwarded to the marketplaces of the Crown of Aragon, where it would be redistributed to the textile centres of southern Europe. The boarding of a massive shipment of wool belonging to almost 100 Mallorcan merchants in a North African port gives us an insight into the procedures applied by the League of Hunayn in its attempts to monopolize the wool export trade in the sultanate of Tlemcen. This is the first record of a mercantile operation carried out by this association and sheds light on the mechanisms at work in the supply and transport of goods to the port of Mallorca. This wide-ranging commercial activity, which renewed trade with the Maghrib after the War of the Straits, required the chartering of a large ship from Barcelona which was used to cover the Sicilian and overseas routes, skippered by Arnau Espaer and Romeu d'Olzinelles. The particular details of this commercial undertaking are enriched by the ship's accounting records.

Audit of Typical Prescription Format Among the Prescribers of a Garment Medical Centre in Bangladesh

Objective: To audit the typical prescription or general format according to WHO guidelines for good prescription writing.Materials and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted after collecting data from medical records to observe standard of prescriptions and identify factors underlying inappropriate prescription writing.Place and period of study: A total of 300 prescriptions of the patients (garment workers) who had attended in Hannan Textile and Garment Medical Centre, Board Bazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh in between January and November’2008 were considered for analysis. Results: Audit of the prescription pattern revealed that most of the prescriptions did not conform to the pattern of a typical prescription. The patient’s identity was mentioned in all prescriptions (100%). Date of the prescription and superscription symbol (Rx) were also mentioned in all prescriptions (100%). Inscription which includes name of the drug, dosage form and total amount of medication prescribed was mentioned in all prescriptions (100%) but dose and duration of treatment were mentioned in 66% and 70% prescriptions respectively. In this study, about 91.67% instructions to the pharmacist and 50% special instructions to the patient regarding the dosage form and total amount to be dispensed were found adequately. Almost 100% of the prescriptions adequately mentioned the dosage schedules and also precautions/warnings about the drug therapy. Almost 100% of the prescriptions were signed by the doctors mentioning their full name, address with qualification and registration number. But telephone/mobile number of the doctors was not found in all prescriptions (100%). Most common diagnosis among garment workers was ARI (19.33%). Most commonly prescribed group of drug was antiulcerent (17.13%) and most commonly prescribed antibiotic was amoxicillin (13.67%). Most of the drugs were prescribed in oral form (97.77%). No single drug interaction (0%) was found in any prescription. The fixed dose-drug combinations (FDCs) accounted for 67% drugs prescribed. The most commonly FDC was multivitamin and multimineral which was not included in essential medicine list (EML).Conclusion: Large numbers of prescriptions did not conform to ideal pattern and lack in their rationality. This study revealed a lot of scope for educating the prescribers to improve prescribing practices.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/updcj.v1i2.13979 Update Dent. Coll. j. 2011: 1(2): 07-12

Management Lessons for Information Age Leaders from an Industrial Age Strike

Between January and March of 1912, the Bread and Roses strike in the textile center of Lawrence, Massachusetts, captured the attention of the nation. While the strike was sparked by a decrease in pay; the issues of the strike were more complex and entailed conflict over economic power, working conditions, workplace dignity, diversity, and corporate social responsibility. This paper considers those issues both from a historical and current perspective identifying lessons that organizational leaders can use today.

Charlotte, NC: the global evolution of a New South city

The rapid evolution of Charlotte, North Carolina, from backwater to globally ascendant city provides stark contrasts of then and now. Once a regional manufacturing and textile centre, Charlotte stands today as one of the nation's premier banking and financial cores with interests reaching broadly into global markets. Once defined by its biracial and bicultural character, Charlotte is now an emerging immigrant gateway drawing newcomers from Latin America and across the globe. Once derided for its sleepy, nine-to-five uptown, Charlotte's centre city has been wholly transformed by residential gentrification, corporate headquarters construction, and amenity-based redevelopment. And yet, despite its rapid transformation, Charlotte remains distinctively southern--globalising, not yet global. This book brings together an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars and local experts to examine Charlotte from multiple angles. Their topics include the banking industry, gentrification, boosterism, architecture, city planning, transit, public schools, NASCAR, and the African American and Latino communities. United in the conviction that the experience of this Sunbelt city--centre of the nation's fifth-largest metropolitan area--offers new insight into today's most pressing urban and suburban issues, the contributors to Charlotte, NC: The Global Evolution of a New South City ask what happens when the external forces of globalisation combine with a city's internal dynamics to reshape the local structures, landscapes, and identities of a southern place.

The formation of companies for dyeing cloth. Cocentaina in the fifteenth century

This article studies the woollen industry in Cocentaina, one of the most important textile center of kingdom of Valencia during the XVth century. The creation of companies for dyeing cloth was one of the most prominent aspects of this industry in Cocentaina. These companies were formed not only by dyers but also by artisans and cloth merchants who wanted to control the process of regional production and trade of wool fabrics.

<i>Mine Towns: Buildings for Workers in Michigan’s Copper Country</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Mine Towns: Buildings for Workers in Michigan’s Copper Country Jack Williams (bio) Alison K. Hoagland Mine Towns: Buildings for Workers in Michigan’s Copper Country Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. 328 pages. 115 black-and-white illustrations. ISBN 978-0-8166-6566-2, $75.00 HB ISBN 978-0-8166-6567-9, $25.00 PB America’s industrial landscapes contain many evocative clusters of subsidized housing built by a parent company for its workers. Usually peripheral to a company’s manufacturing or mining structures, these modest worker dwellings serve as physical reminders of the difficult and sometimes dramatic struggles of their inhabitants for dignity and equality. Often these clusters are all that remain after the demolition of the main industrial structures. Their at times monotonous similarity renders them intelligible within an often grim and marginalized context. Even individualized changes over time, such as porch additions or wrappings of vinyl or asphalt siding, cannot disguise their once standardized construction and simple site plans. Familiar examples exist in most regions of the United States, like the alphabetized streets of the mill community of Whitinsville, Massachusetts, or the unrelenting streets of repetitive housing forms in the mining towns of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region. Mill communities in the South such as Monroe, Georgia, have row upon row of “shot-gun” houses whose tiny pedimented entrances front tree-lined streets. Southern New England’s larger former textile centers have entire neighborhoods of ubiquitous “triple deckers,” long blocks of matched multifamily dwellings. The discovery of these forgotten fragments of replicated worker housing reveals other deeply hidden layers of history. The most famous, and beautiful, example is the failed social experiment of Pullman, Illinois, south of Chicago. Pullman’s attractive brick row houses and hierarchical streets and squares make a harmonious urban composition envied today by planners and architects, in spite of its deeply flawed paternalism. The repetition of housing forms in these and other examples suggest a complex urban ambiguity. On the one hand, repetition negates individuality, reducing inhabitants to faceless cogs in the vast impersonal machinery of nineteenth-century industrial capitalism. Yet these same forms also tell a different story—of individuals joined together into communities that offered hope and resilience. The resolution of the tension between repetitive parts that perhaps constitutes a larger whole and the expression of the individual though his or her private dwelling is the essence of successful urbanism. In this thoughtful, rigorously researched book, Alison K. Hoagland addresses this ambiguity through discovery and discussion of unique company towns in Michigan’s northern peninsula. She finds her evidence in housing and other aspects of the area’s material culture—schools, churches, libraries, and other communal structures—and weaves a fascinating tale of immigrant workers that brings alive the people and communities that labored in the region’s copper mines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because Hoagland describes modest buildings that have often been demolished, the book relies heavily on plans and historic photographs. Mine Towns is unusually rich and graphically complete, with many illustrations that are well explained and thoughtfully integrated with the text. The author’s grasp of the subtleties of architectural spaces inferred from plans is remarkable and rewards a close study of her thorough research. After a brief introduction to the Copper Country of the upper Michigan peninsula, Hoagland discusses the different typologies of the region’s worker housing, such as “saltboxes and T-plans.” By interpreting historic plans and photographs, her writing exposes the daily lives of immigrant families and their different living arrangements. Poignant photographs capture the sparseness of the interior furnishings of these homes; Hoagland’s writing explains the incredible crowding. The density of boarders within such limited spaces recalls the conditions of New York’s Lower East Side tenements. She notes that workers may have shared the same beds in shifts corresponding to their working hours. In “Acquiring Conveniences” (chapter 4), she elaborates housing modernizations such as interior plumbing, central heating, and electrical services in fascinating detail and provides an insightful history of the conveniences we take for granted today. As many of these [End Page 103] changes to the interiors of dwellings took place within...

Piezoelectric fibers for energy harvesting.

Most energy harvesting devices rely on traditional piezoelectric materials integrated in structures subjected to mechanical vibrations. A new kind of commercially available composite sensors consists of several PZT fibers embedded in a passive polymer matrix with interdigitated electrodes deposited on the polymer. The main advantage of these sensors is that they combine the large transduction capabilities of PZT with the mechanical flexibility of polymers. The present study evaluates the performance of single PZT fibers, with electrodes directly deposited onto the ceramic and with individual polymer jackets. This approach should optimize the amount of electrical energy available from the material by placing the electrodes on its surface and by maximizing the active piezoelectric volume. Fibers with tubular and “crimped” cross‐sections were electroded, poled, and glued to a vibrating cantilever beam equipped with a strain gauge. The performance of the fibers was compared to that of the composite sensors, and the influence of the polymer jacket on the strain transmission to the fiber was also evaluated. A potential application is to incorporate these fibers into fabrics that would be capable of harvesting mechanical energy from the environment (wind, currents) or from human motion. [Work supported by the National Textile Center.]

Synaesthesia and Textile Analogies in Fourteenth-Century Music Theory

Modern investigations of synaesthetic phenomena defined as associations of individual musical pitches with specific colors focus almost exclusively on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century instrumental music. Practically no exploration of medieval understanding of synaesthesia exists in published form. Early fourteenth-century theoretical tracts on music reveal that the conjoining of heard or imagined sound and the sight of silk cloth (as well as the implied touch of both silk and highly processed woolens) was consequential in defining reactions to contemporary vocal polyphonic sound, as well as providing the basis for comprehension of music theory concepts. In analogical discourse of the early fourteenth century involving music and textiles, density, smoothness, embellishment, and reflective attributes were essential. Analogies of this type appear to be mostly used by Jacques of Liège and Engelbert of Admont, both music theorists who can be associated with European textile centers that either produced or traded in luxury goods.

Registration of ‘Raider 276’, a High‐Yielding, Improved‐Quality Upland Mutant Cotton Cultivar

Journal of Plant RegistrationsVolume 1, Issue 2 p. 115-116 Cultivar Registration of ‘Raider 276’, a High-Yielding, Improved-Quality Upland Mutant Cotton Cultivar D. L. Auld, Corresponding Author D. L. Auld [email protected] Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Corresponding author ([email protected]).Search for more papers by this authorE. Bechere, E. Bechere Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorM. Krifa, M. Krifa International Textile Center, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-5888Search for more papers by this authorH. Kebede, H. Kebede Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorE. Hequet, E. Hequet International Textile Center, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-5888Search for more papers by this authorR. Wright, R. Wright Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorS. Misra, S. Misra Dep. of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2132Search for more papers by this author D. L. Auld, Corresponding Author D. L. Auld [email protected] Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Corresponding author ([email protected]).Search for more papers by this authorE. Bechere, E. Bechere Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorM. Krifa, M. Krifa International Textile Center, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-5888Search for more papers by this authorH. Kebede, H. Kebede Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorE. Hequet, E. Hequet International Textile Center, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-5888Search for more papers by this authorR. Wright, R. Wright Dep. of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2122Search for more papers by this authorS. Misra, S. Misra Dep. of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX, 79409-2132Search for more papers by this author First published: 01 September 2007 https://doi.org/10.3198/jpr2007.01.0059crcCitations: 9 All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permission for printing and for reprinting the material contained herein has been obtained by the publisher. This publication was produced by Texas Tech Univ., College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources as publication number T-4-583 Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume1, Issue2September 2007Pages 115-116 RelatedInformation

In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 (review)

Reviewed by: In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960–1995 Jeanne Garane Elizabeth Harney . In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960–1995. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2004. xxv + 316 pp. In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 examines the relationship between the visual arts and government patronage in Senegal from the beginnings of this patronage in the early 1960s under the leadership of Senegal's first president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, to the development in the late 1970s of an anti-Negritude "avant-garde" that distanced itself from the so-called Ecole de Dakar, the school "mainly associated with the teaching mechanisms and visual productions of the government-endowed art academy and textile center"(10). In this study, Elizabeth Harney thoroughly examines the ways in which Senghor, the co-founder, practitioner, and theorist of Négritude, used his understanding of a philosophy that he famously defined as "the assembly of the values of black civilization" (qtd. in Harney 21) as the basis for a national arts patronage system in Senegal that was intimately tied to a nationalist canonization of his vision of "Africanité," or "authentic African essence." In reference to the title of this valuable study, Harney demonstrates that Senghor's legacy casts "a long shadow over debates about the role of the artist, the structure of the art market, and the relationship between formations of identity and artistic practice" in contemporary Senegal (5). In order to trace the impact of Senghor's philosophy of Négritude on the contemporary Senegalese "art world" (using the work of Arthur Danto and Pierre Bourdieu, the author defines this term as a space where agents such as producers, consumers, patrons, critics, collectors, dealers, curators and art historians use symbolic, cultural, and economic capital to compete for resources and interests, [54-5]), Harney carefully and meticulously retraces the history of Negritude, from its beginnings in Paris as a literary movement and its connection to writers of the Harlem Renaissance, to Senghor's elaboration of his particular brand of Négritude as a philosophy of "universal humanism" (versus, for [End Page 352] instance, Martinican co-founder Aimé Césaire's own understanding and use of the term as a coming to consciousness and acceptance of the legacy of slavery in the French West Indies). She explains that in Senghor's view, the arts were to serve as a tool for advancing his cultural, political, and economic development plans, with "the artist as representative of and advocate for a new nation"(5). In addition, and most helpfully, Harney also reminds the reader of Senegal's historic ties to France and the history of Senegal's four communes (Dakar, Saint Louis, Rufisque, and Gorée), whose inhabitants held French citizenship rights. So doing, she lays the groundwork for explaining the contentious relationship between the French colonial policy of assimilation, Senghorian Négritude, and European modernism in her investigation of artistic practices in the Dakarois art world. Even as Harney investigates the role of Senghor's nationalistic Négritude policies in the production of modernist Senegalese art (defined as co-terminous with the art produced in Dakar after independence in 1960 and as a term that complements the word "contemporary" to refer to arts produced in the same period [17]), she also reassesses European and North American formulations of modernism in this study of so-called "parallel" or "alternative" modernities (5). She writes, "new ways of thinking about authenticity, cosmopolitanism, and hybridity move beyond . . . exoticized provincialism to consider . . . the contemporary cultural productions of non-Western artists under a more nuanced rubric of criticism"(8). Indeed, Harney critiques Western discourse on the visual arts that has "aesthetic modernism as the sole property of Western artists . . . artists living within the former third world have never been afforded the status either of contributing members to the modernist canon or of participants in a global modern matrix"(17). Harney shows that even after Senghor's resignation in 1980 and dwindling state support for the arts resulted in a shift from state-sponsored art to independent production, the international marketplace continues to evaluate...

Le musée de Bourgoin-Jallieu ou le mariage exemplaire de l'industrie et du patrimoine

Musée de Bourgoin-Jallieu, or an exemplary combination of industry and heritage. The town of Bourgoin-Jallieu made a name for itself in the 19th century as a major textile centre. In the 1960s it set about preserving this heritage and several projects, of varying size, took shape despite the difficult economic conditions. However it was only in 1992 that the combined efforts of local people, industry and the town council succeeded in defining a clear identity associated with the textile industry. At the same time the muséums collection was enlarged and a programme of research and outreach was launched. Since its relaunch in 2000 the Bourgoin-Jallieu museum has confirmed the relevance of its cultural and scientifîc project. However, the collapse of the textile industry raises new questions about the museums place in the community.

Ein Laboratorium der Revolution: Städtische soziale Bewegungen und radikale Reformpolitik im mexikanischen Bundesstaat Veracruz, 1918–1932

Recent research on urban social movements in cities such as Mexico City, Monterrey, and Veracruz has deepened our understanding of the Mexican Revolution and, in some cases, even challenged agrarianist interpretations. German historian Benedikt Behrens makes an important contribution to the literature with this exhaustive study of urban movements and radical reform in the state of Veracruz between 1918 and 1932. Originally a University of Hannover dissertation, Behrens’s monograph analyzes the rise and fall of radical labor (i.e., port-, rail-, and textile-workers’ unions) and the movements of renters and colonos in the port of Veracruz and the textile center of Orizaba. Though aspects of this story are already well documented (most recently in Andrew Wood’s fascinating account of the Veracruz renters’ strike and Bernardo García’s work on Orizaba), the merit in Behrens’s study is its wide chronological and geographical scope and massive documentation, especially from national and state Labor Department archives. Behrens considers the rise of a radical urban social movement in Veracruz not merely the result of the political space created by the state’s revolutionary avant-garde but also as part of a generalized supraregional “cycle of protest.” Behrens’s useful theoretical discussion of urban and labor studies argues that Latin Americanists (certainly Mexicanists) have neglected urban movements and overemphasized the centrality of peasants. He also attacks the corporatist-authoritarian thesis prevalent in earlier Mexican labor history, which stressed organized labor’s dependence on government and internal authoritarian structures.Instead, Behrens studies unions and social movements as crucial independent players. The 1917 constitution and Jacobin politicians paved the way for progres sive labor reform and significant workers’ participation in Veracruz politics. Thus, the first half of the 1920s saw the rise of a radical and, argues Behrens, essentially independent labor movement. In Orizaba, ten thousand textile workers affiliated with the national labor confederation (CROM), which came to dominate city politics. In Veracruz, anarcho-syndicalist, anarchist, and communist proclivities characterized the unions of longshoremen and sailors. Union representatives gained access to the state and national congresses.Then, in 1922 a burgeoning anarchist renters’ movement demanding rent reduction erupted on the port scene and spread, with less success, to other towns. Behrens’s take on the gendered nature of the renters’ movement is of interest. He considers the spontaneous and predominantly female participation in direct action a reflection of women’s exclusion from the public sphere. He makes comparisons with early modern European food riots, in which women—inspired by a collective “female consciousness” and a moral economy based on their role as guardians of the family—took to the streets to defend their children’s right to subsistence. Although this approach may shed some light on women’s motivations, it runs the risk of portraying them as prepolitical and thus underestimating their degree of politicization.At the height of its power, the influence of the Veracruz labor movement reached well beyond state boundaries. Presidents Obregón and Calles both felt compelled to intervene repeatedly in local labor conflicts. The rise of Callismo and the emergence of a CROM union signaled the beginning of the end for labor militancy in the port, where the mayoralty fell under control of nonunion politicos. In Orizaba, institutionalized labor relations replaced militancy, while workers suffered from the 1927–28 textile crisis. Anticommunist campaigns succeeded in purging communists from the union by 1928. Behrens concludes that declining radicalism, increased state intervention, and a marked trend toward the institutionalization of labor relations characterized the second half of the 1920s. The renters’ strike was over by 1927, in part due to Calles’s military repression but primarily as the result of a similar institutionalization of tenant relations and the rise of a massive squatters’ movement that transformed renters into property owners. Women, so prominent in the renters’ movement, lost power in the new clientelistic organization of the colonos. The later decline of Callismo led to the rapid loss of CROM’s power in the port, though CROM maintained one of its last bulwarks in Orizaba until the second half of the 1930s.Though to a large extent a traditional political union history that centers on state-labor relations, Behrens’s study is rich in detail and will be of great interest to specialists in Mexican labor and urban history. One can only hope that it will be translated into Spanish and that in the future the author will produce a sequel covering the crucial Cardenista years and the 1940s, an era that witnessed new cycles of mobilization and demobilization.