Tuesday 4 November 2025, 4.00-6.00pm (GMT)
This is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gBjqg1U5ShGkZXl1l1jmlw
Strategies of female entrepreneurs in southern Morocco:
degrees of visibility and processes of visibilisation
Speaker:
Myriem Naji, anthropologist, Department of Anthropology, University College London
Discussant:
Claire Nicholas, anthropologist and curator, University of Oklahoma
Abstract:
In the south of Morocco, weavers have been manufacturing carpets for the international market since the colonial era. From the 1990s, new aesthetic trends have emerged as a result of the dynamic interplay between the market and weavers. This female-driven economy, grounded in highly skilled expertise, has become one of the primary sources of livelihood for many rural communities in the Sirwa region. Nevertheless, weavers continue to be “invisible”. This is partly due to the gatekeeping practices of male dealers who exploit the physical and social distance between weavers and international buyers, as well as local gendered and ethnic power structures.
This seminar will focus on the trajectories and aspirations of several women entrepreneurs in the Sirwa and other regions who strive to sustain a livelihood through their craft, both face-to-face and online. It will explore the strategies they deploy to access the market and to become more visible. Additionally, the seminar offers an opportunity to address questions relating to the nature of this visibility and to situate it within initiatives such as the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) or this seminar series. It will consider how these women negotiate the tensions between the digital performance of one’s expertise and the local gender norms within a neoliberal heritage context.
Biographical note:
Myriem Naji is an honorary research fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University College London, where she earned a PhD in 2008. She is interested in productive and creative processes and their significance for livelihood, identity and ways of living. Her current project, for which she received a grant from the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP), aims to research textile knowledge systems in southern Morocco. She is interested in the impact of craft and heritage on livelihood and knowledge transmission. In prior research on organic farmers in the south of France she also explored the relationship between production, economy and activism.
Claire Nicholas is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Assistant Curator of Ethnology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma. She employs ethnographic and historical methods to study the everyday practices and politics of making, displaying, and interpreting material and visual culture. Claire has conducted fieldwork on design, development, and heritage in locations ranging from Moroccan textile workshops to North American university architecture studios. She holds a PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from Princeton University, a DEA from EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris), and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Material Culture & Design Studies in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta.
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Artistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans, running 2024–2026
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute
Organisers: Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand
This seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and, more broadly, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities.
Find all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
