The Economics of Embroidery

Speaker: Dr. Samia Al-Botmeh
Sunday, June 24| 14:00 – 15:00


The history of embroidery has always been connected to a market of sale, not least through the trade of textiles and the production of fabrics. In Palestine, however, its labour tended to be personal: historically, embroidery was hand made by a woman for her own wear. The Nakba significantly altered the structure of embroidery’s production. Although there were embroidered items made for the market before 1948, the Nakba split rural women from their self-sufficient livelihoods in agriculture, forcing them to seek waged work instead. After the Nakba, many charities were established to constitute the pillars of political resistance by supporting women and their families through providing them with jobs. However, this was the outcome of integrating women into the labour market, which led in turn to the governing of embroidery’s production through capitalist modes. Nowadays, Palestinian embroidery is prevailing as a commodity for consumption, and this fact stirs complex questions concerning the nature of embroidery as a product. 

We will discuss with Dr. Samia Butmeh, assistant professor of economics at Birzeit University, the transformations in the production modes of embroidery and the political and social dimensions that resulted from such transformations. The lecture will draw on how these shifts affected both the reality of Palestinian women and the essence of embroidery, taking into consideration that the production of embroidery is time-consuming and requires extraordinary manual skills to generate unique and enduring pieces. The discussion panel will raise questions such as: what is it like to import embroidered pieces from China as opposed to the intimate process of hand crafting them in Palestine?

The talk will be in Arabic.
To register, please fill the online form here.