3 - Daboya weavers: relations of production, dependence and reciprocity

Summary

The weaving yard is a rectangular open area sloping down to the river bank, with the three Bakarambasipe compounds framing one long side, and waste ground on the other. The two weaving sheds are set back-to-back in the centre, the warps of the looms in the first shed stretching 10, 20, 30 yards up the rise, those of the second extending down the slope. The clacking of shuttles, each with its own tempo, sets a complex, restless rhythm to which the elders – sewing, silent and almost immobile on the mosque porch – seem oblivious. ‘It must be some kind of a factory’ is one's first thought.

In terms of the scale of production, and the fact that cloth is mainly sold to traders rather than directly to consumers, one may speak of the Daboya textile industry rather than artisan or petty-commodity production. But what sort of an industry is it? What is the nature of the division of labour? How is this articulated? Is specialization organized by a merchant-middleman as in the classic putting-out systems? By an entrepreneur who distributes raw materials, pays the equivalent of wages for the finished component, and then passes this on to the next specialist, thus owning the product at all its stages of production and finally selling it to retailer or consumer? Or is specialization mediated by the market – with the components of each stage of production bought and sold by a series of producers? These are the two obvious Western proto-industrial models for organizing the cooperation between specialists made necessary by the division of labour.