Humanitarian handicraft: History, materiality and trade, c. 1870-1980

This book uncovers the overlooked history of artisanal textiles in projects aimed at social uplift and moral reform. The contributors ask what the implications of this form of gendered craft production are for our understanding of the humanitarian imagination, relations of humanitarian production and the generation of meaning and social and artistic value. It also opens a dialogue with contemporary socially-engaged textile artists to engender critical reflection on the socially-situated meaning of textile craft in past and present humanitarian contexts.