"Once you have the habit you don't feel the pain anymore". En etnografisk studie av vävning som lönearbete.

Sammanfattning: The aim of the thesis is a multidisciplinary approach to how traditional handicrafts interplay with social relations, such as gender, on several geographical scales. The study is an ethnographic fieldwork in Uttarakhand, India, at an organization working with weaving. The material is interviews, observations and field notes. The interviews were conducted with women working as weavers at the main centre and one of the field centres of the organization. The theoretical framework draws from feminist standpoint theory and an experimental attempt with the ethnographic concept of Thinking Through Things, using the practice of weaving as an ontological starting point. Weaving is understood as a community of learning and is discussed as both a local traditional skill, but also as an introduction to wage labour. The analysis is structured around the themes: “learning”, “weaving”, “working” and “changing preconditions”. The introduction of weaving as waged labour is changing and reformulating gender relations. The analysis show that the weavers are, even after several years of practice and training, considered low skilled workers. The mobility of the weavers, that are connected to the globalized world through wage labour, have not changed. Wage labour can enable empowerment, but it is conditioned and situated. The concluding discussion touches upon local and global interconnectedness through place, modernity and global capitalism.