Presents the first extensive treatment of Madagascar's textile traditions giving a systematic overview of the woven products of each part of the country

A lively and innovative collection of new and recent writings on the cultural contexts of textiles The study of textile culture is a dynamic field of scholarship which spans disciplines and crosses traditional academic boundaries. A Companion to Textile Culture is an expertly curated compendium of new scholarship on both the historical and contemporary cultural dimensions of textiles, bringing together the work of an interdisciplinary team of recognized experts in the field. The Companion provides an expansive examination of textiles within the broader area of visual and material culture, and addresses key issues central to the contemporary study of the subject. A wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the subject are explored—technological, anthropological, philosophical, and psychoanalytical, amongst others—and developments that have influenced academic writing about textiles over the past decade are discussed in detail. Uniquely, the text embraces archaeological textiles from the first millennium AD as well as contemporary art and performance work that is still ongoing. This authoritative volume: Offers a balanced presentation of writings from academics, artists, and curators Presents writings from disciplines including histories of art and design, world history, anthropology, archaeology, and literary studies Covers an exceptionally broad chronological and geographical range Provides diverse global, transnational, and narrative perspectives Included numerous images throughout the text to illustrate key concepts A Companion to Textile Culture is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, instructors, and researchers of textile history, contemporary textiles, art and design, visual and material culture, textile crafts, and museology.

This collection examines cloth as a material and consumer object from early periods to the twenty-first century, across multiple oceanic sites—from Zanzibar, Muscat and Kampala to Ajanta, Srivijaya and Osaka. It moves beyond usual focuses on a single fibre (such as cotton) or place (such as India) to provide a fresh, expansive perspective of the ocean as an “interaction-based arena,” with an internal dynamism and historical coherence forged by material exchange and human relationships. Contributors map shifting social, cultural and commercial circuits to chart the many histories of cloth across the region. They also trace these histories up to the present with discussions of contemporary trade in Dubai, Zanzibar, and Eritrea. Richly illustrated, this collection brings together new and diverse strands in the long story of textiles in the Indian Ocean, past and present.

The Handbook of Natural Fibres, Second Edition, Volume One: Types, Properties and Factors Affecting Breeding and Cultivation covers every aspect of natural fibers, their breeding, cultivation, processing and applications. This volume features fundamental discussions of each fiber, covering different stages of breeding and cultivation. Natural fibrous resources, both lignocellulosic and protein ones, are renewable, biodegradable, and nontoxic, making them an important source of sustainable textile solutions. A broad range of natural fibers are covered in this book, including cotton, jute, kenaf, flax, hemp, sisal, ramie, curaua, pineapple, bamboo, coir, sheep wool, and more. - Provides detailed instructions for how to carry out the latest scientific methods for identifying natural fibers - Explains properties of natural fibers that will be of interest to readers in growth fields like biocomposites and nanofibers - Includes a rare overview of emerging natural fibers and their uses, along with sources of further information

This book reveals the hitherto hidden history of inter-missionary dispute that split the first LMS mission to Madagascar. Focussing on David Griffiths, whose pivotal role was concealed by the LMS, it suggests that Welsh-English rivalry moulded the mission’s destiny.

African Textiles Today illustrates how African history is read, told, and recorded in cloth. All artifacts or works of art hold within them stories that range far beyond the time of their creation or the lifetime of their creator, and African textiles are patterned with these hidden histories. In Africa, cloth may be used to memorialize or commemorate something - an event, a person, a political cause - which in other parts of the world might be written down in detail or recorded by a plaque or monument. History in Africa can be read, told, and recorded in cloth. Making and trading numerous types of cloth have been vital elements in African life and culture for at least two millennia, linking different parts of the continent with each other and the rest of the world. Africa's long engagement with the peoples of the Mediterranean and the islands of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans provides a story of change and continuity. African Textiles Today shows how ideas, techniques, materials, and markets have adapted and flourished, and how the dynamic traditions in African textiles have provided inspiration for the continent's foremost contemporary artists and photographers. With a concluding chapter discussing the impact of African designs across the world, the book offers a fascinating insight into the living history of Africa.

Winner of the Penang Book Prize 2019 Nusantaria – often referred to as 'Maritime Southeast Asia' – is the world's largest archipelago and has, for centuries, been a vital cultural and trading hub. Nusantara, a Sanskrit, then Malay, word referring to an island realm, is here adapted to become Nusantaria - denoting a slightly wider world but one with a single linguistic, cultural and trading base. Nusantaria encompasses the lands and shores created by the melting of the ice following the last Ice Age. These have long been primarily the domain of the Austronesian-speaking peoples and their seafaring traditions. The surrounding waters have always been uniquely important as a corridor connecting East Asia to India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. In this book, Philip Bowring provides a history of the world's largest and most important archipelago and its adjacent coasts. He tells the story of the peoples and lands located at this crucial maritime and cultural crossroads, from its birth following the last Ice Age to today.

The Indian Ocean World was an idea borne out by researchers in economic history and trade in the 1980s in response to the compartmentalization of specific area studies within the wider rubric of Asian civilisations and culture. Professor Kirti N. Chaudhuri’s books Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company (1978), and then Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean (1985), figured amongst the forefront of this new movement in historical thinking, undertaking detailed historical analysis, first of the English East India Company, and then a comparative cultural history of Asian material life and civilisation. Today, historians continue to hold on to the idea of an Indian Ocean world, although studies now follow a number of different threads, from themes like linguistics and creolization, to the seeds of national consciousness. By presenting a number of studies here, gathered into the themes of ‘Intermixing,’ ‘The World of Trade’ and ‘Colonial Paths,’ it is hoped we can render tribute to one of the outstanding historians in this field and reflect the plenitude of current research in this subject area.

This book is a snapshot of the current state of the art of research and development on the properties and characteristics of silk and their use in medicine and industry. The field encompasses backyard silk production from ancient time to industrial methods in the modern era and includes an example of efforts to maintain silk production on Madagascar. Once revered as worth its weight in gold, silk has captured the imagination from its mythical origins onwards. The latest methods in molecular biology have opened new descriptions of the underlying properties of silk. Advances in technological innovation have created silk production by microbes as the latest breakthrough in the saga of silk research and development. The application of silk to biomaterials is now very active on the basis of excellent properties of silks including recombinant silks for biomaterials and the accumulated structural information.