Kashmir’s crafts women tacit, embodied knowledge and its value in post‑conflict reconstruction

Much has been written about Kashmiri crafts: their history and provenance, their value to the community that makes and sells them, and about those who buy into the notion of handcrafted. What is seldom examined, however, is the changing nature of these crafts and how they remain at the centre of Kashmiri culture, identity and economy even in times as turbulent as the present. Due to an intractable conflict, fed by ethnic and religious differences, along the Line of Control, which is the de factor border of Indian Kashmir with Pakistan, many generations of Kashmiris have grown up with a ringside view of violence. The conflict in Kashmir has resulted in limited investment and development, and the region risks falling into a spiral of poverty, unemployment and turmoil. Reconstruction is a long and arduous road. According to the World Bank, there are two main objectives: to facilitate transition from war to sustainable peace and to support the resumption of economic and social development, where post‑conflict reconstruction entails rebuilding institutions and jump-starting the economy (Kreimer 1998). In this chapter, I argue that culturally embedded practices playing a key role in identity creation should also have a role in the reconstruction. Crafts in Kashmir are rich in social significance and cultural value, employ many people and generate significant revenue, which can potentially contribute to economic reconstruction.

In this chapter, I discuss the history of the famous Kashmiri shawl and examine the changes it has undergone over the last few decades, focusing on gendered conflict‑driven shifts in the practices of making. I draw on empirical data from two decades of engagement in Indian Kashmir, district Srinagar; all names have been changed to protect identities of Kashmiri women (Raina 2009). Unless stated, all interviews and observations are from my own fieldwork since 2001. I attempt to tell the story of changing craft traditions and to capture the dynamic culture of making in the context of conflict in Kashmir. There is a vast body of historical work about the Kashmiri shawl (Ames 1997; Lévi‑Strauss 1986; Rehman & Jafri 2006) and a significant body of work on the politics of Kashmir (Bose 2021; Schofield 2021). However, these works rarely examine the cultural practices of the region or consider them as key to its future. This chapter will reveal deeper insights into how conflict, craft, and gender overlap, and what it means to make a Kashmiri shawl in 2023.

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