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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 selfexpression 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.
Senior lecturer in the Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Sophie Dulucq (Editor)
Professor of History at the University of Toulouse and a former director of IFAS-Recherche in Johannesburg (Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud).
Marie Opplert (Editor)
Research project manager at the French Research Centre of South Africa, IFAS-Research.
Brenda Schmahmann (Editor)
Brenda Schmahmann is Professor in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg.
Jonathan Botes (Editor)
PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Linda Chernis (Editor)
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 (Editor)
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 (Editor)
Social anthropologist and Research Associate at Humboldt University, Berlin.
Patricia Gérimont (Editor)
Independent researcher, author and director of two documentary films, Images en bibliothèques (2014) and Pères blancs, Prêtres noirs (2018).
Philippa Hobbs (Editor)
Senior research associate with the SARChI Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg.
Rachel Dixon Kabukala (Editor)
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 (Editor)
Independent researcher, writer and curator with a particular interest in material culture approached from an interdisciplinary position.
Fatima Leveque (Editor)
Master craftswoman specialising in textile design who was born in Morocco and worked between Morocco and France. She founded her company, La Métisse, in 1999.
Myriem Naji (Editor)
Social anthropologist and Honorary Fellow at University College London specialising in North-African textiles, dress, the body and gender.
Shonisani Netshia (Editor)
Lecturer in painting in the Department of Visual Art, Faculty Art, Design & Architecture at the University of Johannesburg.
Line Relisieux (Editor)
PhD candidate at the London School of Economics’ Department of Geography and Environment.
Christopher Richards (Editor)
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 (Editor)
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 (Editor)
Research assistant and research affiliate at Humboldt University, Berlin.
Bonke Sonjani (Editor)
Heritage practitioner and human rights activist at the human rights organisation, Iranti.
Natalie Swanepoel (Editor)
Natalie Swanepoel is an archaeologist at the University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Vanessa Tembane (Editor)
South African-born artist with a Mozambican heritage who currently resides and works in Johannesburg.