The Good of Cloth: Bringing Ethics to Market in India's Handloom Textile Industry.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the tension between doing good and doing well in the context of institutional efforts to revitalize the handloom textile industry in India. It is based primarily on ethnographic research undertaken in Delhi and two sites in Madhya Pradesh, namely, the commercial city of Indore, once famous for its textile mills, and the town of Chanderi, where two-thirds of the roughly 30,000 residents are either practicing weavers or work in directly related industries (e.g., as traders, dyers, and yarn-sellers). These sites each form part of the corporate geography of Fabindia, which is the largest private retailer of craft in India and, in the context of this dissertation, also serves as an occasion for the analysis of market ethics and their institutionalization. Drawing on archival as well as ethnographic material, I begin by tracing the history of Fabindia from the historical and global contexts in which it was established in 1960 to its more recent efforts to realize a vision of “inclusive capitalism” through the creation of a network of “community-owned companies” in which artisan-suppliers own shares. Rather than presupposing the nature of market ethics, instead, this becomes the focus of my inquiry. I examine market ethics as they are constituted through interactions and transactions that shape the broader contexts in which Fabindia operates and where the material qualities of cloth—but also looms, account books, and brand labels—enabled certain projects while impeding others. These instances of ethical contestation and construction reveal diverse efforts to define the goodness of handloom cloth as well as profit. The chapters of the dissertation are organized around four interrelated themes: (1) the purification or, alternatively, resolution of humanitarianism and capitalism; (2) the materiality and morality of market transactions; (3) community and family as they come together with corporate enterprises; (4) forms of ownership and the legal and extra-legal protection of property.