CARPETS, MARKETS AND MAKERS CARPETS, MARKETS AND MAKERS: CULTURE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE TIBETO-NEPALESE CARPET INDUSTRY BY TOM O'NEILL B.F.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School ofGraduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment ofthe Requirements for the degree Doctor ofPhilosophy McMaster University ©Copyright by Tom O'Neill, September, 1997 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (1997) McMaster University (Anthropology) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Carpets, Markets and Makers: Culture and Entrepreneurship in the Tibeto­ Nepalese Carpet Industry. AUTHOR: Thomas O'Neill, B.F.A.(York University), M.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor William R. Rodman NUMBER OF PAGES: viii, 249 11 ABSTRACT This dissertation is an ethnography of local entrepreneurship in the Tibeto­ Nepalese carpet industry in Kathmandu, Ward 6 (Boudha) and the Jorpati Village Development Committee, Nepal. This industry achieved dramatic growth during the last decade, after European carpet buyers developed with Tibetan refugee exporters a hybrid 'Tibetan' carpet that combined European design with Tibetan weaving technique. As a result, thousands ofTibetan and Nepalese entrepreneurs came to occupy a new economic niche that was a creation ofglobal commercial forces. This study is an analysis ofsurvey and ethnographic-data from among three hundred carpet manufactories. My primary research consultants were the entrepreneurs (saahu-ji) who operated at a time when the industry was subject to international criticism about the abuse ofchild labour. Many earlier reports claimed that up to one halfofall carpet labourers were children, but I found that by 1995 they were employed only infrequently, as a market downturn placed a premium on skilled weavers. The 'off season', as this market reduction is locally known, and the problem ofchild labour provides a temporal frame for this analysis. For a theoretical framework, Pierre Bourdieu's 'economy ofpractices' is used to interpret the data; in particular, I use the concept ofsocial capital to explore the reproduction ofethnic, regional and kinship-based networks in the carpet weaving labour market. Carpet entrepreneurs view weaving labour as a risky resource that requires socially legitimate expertise to master. Child labour is often thought to be such a resource in developing craft industries, but in this case child labour was more an artifact ofEuropean demand than a traditional exploitative practice. 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people provided assistance and inspiration during the research and writing ofthis dissertation, and I would like to acknowledge them here. My first impressions of Nepal, Nepalese culture and the social transformations that the country began to bear in the 1990s came while I was a volunteer teacher in the Sherpa village ofChaurikharka, a position organized by Canadian Crossroads International and, in Nepal, by Puma Lama, Phurba Gyaltsen Sherpa and Chungba Temba Sherpa. I am grateful for that first opportunity to live and work in Nepal, and for the continuing relationships that it began. After my first visit to Nepal I entered the graduate program in anthropology at McMaster University with the encouragement ofDrs. Ellen Badone and William Rodman. Dr. Rodman (Bill) has been my principal advisor ever since, and has been a dependable and trusted supporter, even as ,he adjusted to the sometimes tempestuous change in my research interests. Drs. Matthew Cooper and Trudy Nicks were the other members ofmy thesis committee, and both provided supponive but critical commentary on my work. I was fortunate to have a committee who worked so easily with me; this dissertation contains the mark oftheir influences, and I am indebted to all ofthem. Also at McMaster, Dr. Ann Herring has been a consistent friend and supporter whose sense of humour encouraged me to see the joy in academic life. Many people in Nepal deserve mention. Krishna and Bhim Kumari Thapa, Perna and Mira Lama, and Puma Lama helped me to establish myself in Boudha, and were competent 'culture brokers' when I most needed them. At Tribhuvan University, Mangala Shrestha ofthe Research Division provided much needed institutional support, and Nirmal M. Tuladhar ofthe Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS) provided IV v coffee and advice. Chabi S. Sharma ofthe Central Carpet Industries Association assisted me with the first survey, and Ted Worcester, who exports some very fine carpets, provided me with documents that greatly enhanced this dissertation. My Nepali language teacher and later research assistant, Radheshyam Duwadi, spent painstaking hours transcribing tapes, translating documents and suffering my endless questions on the nuances ofthe Nepali language. Radheshyam, his wife Nanu, and their family were close friends throughout our time in Nepal, and we consistently enjoyed their generosity. Bishnu Dhital and Jagadish Thapa did the enthusiastic work on the research census that made it a success. Special mention ought to be given to our good friend Phurba Gyaltsen Sherpa, trekking and carpet entrepreneur, who, although not officially a consultant to my research, was an enormous inspiration for it. My father-in-law, John Moffat, helped me out ofseveral potentially disastrous computer crashes that jeopardized both my mental health and the completion ofthis document. My own parents have unconditionally supported this endeavour as they have many others throughout my life. Finally, and most importantly, my wife, Tina Moffat, accompanied me into the field even though that meant finishing her pre-fieldwork exams with breathtaking speed. She was my companion, collaborator, sometime rival and constant comfort. Her critical but compassionate mind challenged both ofus to question the assumptions in our work, and the depth ofunderstanding I was able to accomplish is in part due to her. This dissertation is a product ofthe labour oflove we shared in Kathmandu. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. ........................................ .. 1 The Fieldwork Process. 8 The Dissertation. 16 A Note on Language and Transliteration. 21 CHAPTER 2: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND NEPALESE HIERARCHY " 22 Entrepreneurship and Risk in Emerging Craft Markets. 24 Caste and Community 38 Conclusion: Places and Progress. 53 CHAPTER 3: THE LIVES OF THE TIBETO-NEPALESE CARPET. ........... .. 59 Carpets and the Tibetan Tradition. 61 The Tibetan Carpet in Exile. 71 The Tibeto-Nepalese Carpet Boom 83 Conclusion. 94 CHAPTER 4: ANATOMY OF A DUAL MARKET. ........................ .. 96 Carpet Production as a Contemporary Cottage Industry. 100 Exporting and Subcontracting. 11 0 Weaving for Program; Weaving for Stock 118 Child Labour in the Dual Market. 125 Conclusion. 131 CHAPTER 5: ETHNICITY AND ENTERPRISE. ......................... .. 134 Tibetan Co-religion and Nepalese Entrepreneurial Communities 137 Community Reciprocity and Entrepreneurial Accumulation. 151 Regional Affiliation and "Community Based Production". 162 Conclusion. 171 CHAPTER 6: WEAVING AND CHEATING. ............................ .. 175 Weavers, Piecework and Peskii. 179 Saahu-ji, Thekadaar and Naazke. 190 Weaving Discourse for Outsiders. 201 Conclusion. 207 VI Vll CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION: WEAVING FOR THE WORLD. ............. .. 212 Legitimating Benefit. 216 Closed Spaces and Open Fields. 225 Conclusion: New Markets, New Carpets, New Makers. 234 REFERENCES. ................................................... .. 237 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Boudha as seen from Tinchuli 56 Figure 3.1: Traditional Tibetan carpets in use 66 Figure 3.2: 'Open Field' carpet on loom 79 Figure 3.3: Nepalese Carpet Exports 86 Figure 4.1 and 4.2: Type and Size ofCarpet Manufactory 105 Figure 4.3: Sketch Map ofCarpet Manufactories 106 Figure 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4: Carpet Sl1ahu-ji by Jaati I.. .••••....•.....••.. .. 139 Figure 5.5 and 5.6: Labour Sources by Region 170 Figure 6.1: Weaving team at loom. ........' 188 Vlll CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...the knowledge ofwhere a rug was made, suggesting the class ofpeople who wove it, adds immeasurably to our interest. When, for instance, we look at an old piece ofKurdish weave with its nomadic designs and shaggy nap, on which a Moslem savage as an Apache often rested fully halfa century ago, there is called up a picture ofthe dark-visaged tribesman, fearless and untamed as were his ancestors who contested the march ofXenophon over two thousand years ago. We see him wandering with his flocks over the hills while he watched for a chance to fall upon an unsuspecting stranger. We picture to ourselves the hut of brush upon the mountain side where a slender barbaric girl bends to tie, with wonderful patience, the knots one by one. So ifwe would enjoy our Oriental rugs, we should know what people made them, and whence and how they journeyed, before they reached our fireside. Walter A. Hawley, Oriental Rugs: Antique and Modem (1913) The oriental carpet, historically, h~ been a class ofcommodity that is distinguished by a systematic knowledge about the origin and nature ofits maker. Persian, Turkish, Caucasian, Central Asiatic, Indian and Chinese carpets have long embodied, in border and field, what Edward Said called the "schematic authority" of a knowledge ofthe Orient based on presumptions ofprofound cultural difference (1978: 93). The exotic places and tribal origins ofcarpets rigorously defined in the taxonomies ofthe collector and connoisseur constitute a body ofknowledge about different kinds of people, represented by what they make. While there may be as many taxonomies as there are collectors, there too is a tendency