Kashmir’s Crafts Women: Tacit, Embodied Knowledge and its value in Post-conflict Reconstruction

Abstract

When violence occurs, it displaces people, ideas, histories and cultures, it erases practices, it shifts ideas and it slowly fades those practices which shape the idea of human dignity. This essay captures material practices of shawl-making in Kashmir within a contemporary frame. It documents practices and their subtle shifts in response to the fragility of the space they are present in. It also maps the entry of new makers, those with tacit knowledge, and those with a desire to shift their economic standing in face of an intractable conflict. This essay captures the value and role of traditional practices of making to fragile conflict affected spaces, especially to the women who make them, indicating resilience of ideas and ambitions in the crisis. It incorporates the work of a five-year GCRF UKRI Gender, Justice and Security Hub research project.