Culture

Empowering Indigenous Mexican Groups Through Fostering the Practice of Traditional Textile Crafts

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Abstract

In a world where globalization and technology are at their peak, indigenous Mexican communities are struggling between the pull of their ancestral traditions and modernity. They are caught between two antagonistic practices; those of mass produced and traditional hand-crafted textiles. This paper explores strategies to foster traditional textile crafts amongst indigenous Mexican communities with the purpose of empowering indigenous Mexican groups. The creative outcome of the research discussed in this paper is a swimwear collection created in collaboration with indigenous Mexicans artisans. Each piece not only conveys indigenous Mexican craft authentically, but through the creation process, I was able to outline some safe guidelines to effectively nurture the practice of traditional textile crafts in Mexico. Given that traditional textile crafts practiced by other indigenous communities are striving to survive too, the findings of this study provide some guiding principles to preserve other cultural legacies of traditional textiles crafts.

How to Cite:

endo portillo, h. & navarro, h., (2018) “Empowering Indigenous Mexican Groups Through Fostering the Practice of Traditional Textile Crafts”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 75(1).