FRAMES OF REFERENCE: Cloth, Community, and Knowledge Ideology in Morocco

Abstract

This paper explores how one type of traditional Moroccan cloth comes to be known through different epistemological frameworks or “knowledge ideologies.” The case in question involves a rural women’s weaving cooperative and Moroccan state strategies to rationalize cloth production, which here takes the form of technical training and product development workshops. A struggle over the right to determine the present and future of cloth-making manifests in part as differing perspectives among weavers and government officials about legitimate quality assessment criteria and methods, and the appropriate color of the local cloth. At the center of these competing ways to evaluate or define traditional cloth is the question of authority: who has the right to assess quality and what aspects of their identity should factor into this right? The case of traditional weaving in Morocco underscores how “knowing” and “knowing what’s best” are thoroughly entangled in the domain of cultural heritage and its management.