This beautifully crafted book explores needlework - encompassing sewing, embroidery, weaving, quilting, tattooing and more - as a lens for understanding gendered and marginalised histories and identities. Through case studies from across Africa, it highlights the work of fashion designers, weavers, seamstresses, LGBTQI+ activists and artists. Their work reveals how needlework shapes and challenges identities, gender roles and social structures, offering a platform for self-expression and historical storytelling. This collection also shows how embroidery, specifically, has enabled economic agency. Far from trivial, needlework serves as an alternative archive, uncovering voices often sidelined. The book examines how practices like beadwork, tapestry and crochet reflect complex ideas of gender, identity and belonging in African contexts. Each chapter illustrates how these crafts empower makers to tell their stories, blending artistry with cultural and historical significance. With striking visuals, this volume invites readers to see needlework anew - not as mere craft, but as a vital tool for documenting and reimagining history. It challenges assumptions about its importance, showing how these everyday acts of creation amplify marginalised perspectives. Needlework in Africa is an engaging read for those interested in how textiles and craftsmanship weave powerful narratives of identity and resilience.
Annie Devenish is a senior lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Sophie Dulucq is Professor of History at the University of Toulouse and a former director of IFAS-Recherche in Johannesburg (Institut Francais d'Afrique du Sud). Marie Opplert is a research project manager at the French Research Centre of South Africa, IFAS-Research. Brenda Schmahmann is a Research Professor and the South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg. Jonathan Botes is a PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Linda Chernis is a South African archivist and heritage practitioner who has worked in museums and archives for the past 20 years. She is the archivist at the GALA Queer Archives in Johannesburg. Francisca Gigante Godinho da Silva is a PhD candidate in Art History at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and an independent curator of international solo and group exhibitions and performances across Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Japan. Laurence Douny is a social anthropologist and Research Associate at Humboldt University, Berlin. Patricia Gerimont is an independent researcher, author and director of two documentary films, Images en bibliotheques (2014) and Peres blancs, Pretres noirs (2018). Philippa Hobbs is a senior research associate with the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg. Rachel Dixon Kabukala is Associate Curator of African Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and African Studies Program at Indiana University. Nessa Leibhammer is an independent researcher, writer and curator with a particular interest in material culture approached from an interdisciplinary position. Fatima Leveque is a master craftswoman specialising in textile design who was born in Morocco and worked between Morocco and France. She founded her company, La Metisse, in 1999. Myriem Naji is a social anthropologist and Honorary Fellow at University College London specialising in North-African textiles, dress, the body and gender. Shonisani Netshia is a lecturer in painting in the Department of Visual Art, Faculty Art, Design & Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. Line Relisieux is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics' Department of Geography and Environment. Christopher Richards is the Director of Women's and Gender Studies and an Associate Professor of African Art History at Brooklyn College, New York. He is the author of Cosmopolitanism and Women's Fashion in Ghana (2022). Elisha Renne is Professor Emerita at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Cloth that Does Not Die (1995) and co-editor of Textile Ascendancies: Aesthetics, Production, and Trade in Northern Nigeria (2020). Salif Sawadogo is a research assistant and research affiliate at Humboldt University, Berlin. Bonke Sonjani is a heritage practitioner and human rights activist at the human rights organisation, Iranti. Natalie Swanepoel is a senior lecturer in Archaeology at the University of South Africa. She co-edited Five Hundred Years Rediscovered: Southern African Precedents and Prospects (2008). Vanessa Tembane is a South African-born artist with a Mozambican heritage who currently resides and works in Johannesburg.
Introduction - Annie Devenish, Sophie Dulucq, Marie Opplert and Brenda Schmahmann Part I: Histories of cloth Chapter 1 Threads of Life: Women and Spinning in West Africa 1000-2000 CE - Natalie Swanepoel Chapter 2 The Shape of Cloth: Assembling Social Relations among Marka-Dafing Cloth Makers in Burkina Faso - Laurence Douny, Myriem Naji and Salif Sawadogo Part II: Clothing and gender politics Chapter 3 Which Are Better? The Gender Politics of the Embroidery and Sewing of Robes in Zaria, Nigeria - Elisha Renne Chapter 4 Needle Resists in Traditional Dyeing in Mali: A Woman's Art? - Patricia Gerimont Chapter 5 'A Lion Does Not Need to Roar': The Enacted Feminisms of Chez Julie's Fashions - Christopher Richards Chapter 6 Wearing Pride: Queer Activist T-shirts from the 1990s to the 2020s - Jonathan Botes, Annie Devenish, Linda Chernis and Bonke Sonjani Part III: Diasporic narratives Chapter 7 Interwoven Narratives: Migration, Diaspora and Local Weaving Stories in the Works of Zarina Bhimji, Otobong Nkanga, and Michael Armitage - Francisca Gigante Godinho da Silva Chapter 8 Graca and Vanessa Tembane: Capulanas and a Refabrication of History - Vanessa Tembane and Philippa Hobbs Chapter 9 Contemporary Art and 'Ouvrages de Dames': Or How to Fight Social Hierarchies and Gender Inequalities as a Diasporic Artist - Fatima Leveque and Sophie Dulucq Part IV: Between private and public histories Chapter 10 Fact within Fable: Historical References in the Tapestries of Allina Khumalo Ndebele - Nessa Leibhammer Chapter 11 From Trepidation to Hope: Representations of Covid-19 by the Mapula Embroidery Project in South Africa - Brenda Schmahmann Part V: Gender, identity and agency Chapter 12 'Embroideresses of Kasai': Agency and Identity Among Kuba Women Textile Artists, Past and Present - Rachel Dixon Kabukala Chapter 13 Performing Disrespectability: Kuhlonipha Challenged in Sanelisiwe Nkonyane's Work - Shonisani Netshia Chapter 14 A Collective Self Expression? How Prison Tattoos Challenge Double Standards in Post-Apartheid South Africa - Line Relisieux Contributors Index
Examines sewing, embroidery, weaving, tattooing and related practices as vital acts of self-expression, identity formation, and agency, offering fresh perspectives on African cultural histories.
