The recently published special issue of the Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice (volume 9, issue 3) is the second collaboration between the Textile Society of America and the Journal. The editors—TSA board members Karen Hampton and Lee Talbot—selected the articles from papers presented at the TSA’s 17th Biennial Symposium. In line with the symposium theme Hidden Stories/Human Lives; the TSA’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and historic events that brought racial and social justice to the forefront of the national dialogue in 2020, the Journal features six essays that discuss textile histories and practices of American communities traditionally underrepresented in the political, academic, and cultural landscape.
Three articles on Native American textile arts—by Jennifer Byram, Annabelle Camp, and Vera Sheehan—embrace decolonized academic models that encourage community-based research and the prioritization of Indigenous traditions and knowledge systems in object studies. Kelli Barnes uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines Black feminist-womanist theories, methodologies of material culture studies, and archival research to examine embroideries made by Black schoolgirls in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Transdisciplinary weaver John Paul Morabito combines anecdotes from art history, stories of their immigrant family, and reflections on Queerness to create a deeply personal ontology of tapestry. In the last essay, Ọmọlará Williams McCallister and Valeska Populoh discuss the founding and development of the Natural Dye Initiative (NDI), a multi-agency project that centers Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in examining the cultural and economic impacts of natural dye cultivation and use in the Baltimore area.
Offering approaches and insights that often challenge mainstream academic discourse and longstanding frameworks of knowledge, these articles underscore the plurality of textile histories, producers, and purposes while advocating for alternative, more inclusive methodologies in textile studies.
Several of the authors will be featured as speakers in the TSA’s upcoming colloquium series (re)claiming futures, which launches on April 26.
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Also refer to Special Discounted Rates for TSA Members to Routledge Textiles Journals:
https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/membership/journals
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