The goal of this paper is to analyze the organization of the tailoring of a traditional form of men's winter overcoat (qashshabiyya)' in the Tunisian town of Testour.' The principal theoretical issue raised is the articulation of the modes of production, for tailors are in many ways interstitial between capitalist and precapitalist modes of production in Testour, whereas the town as a whole seems to be in transition from one mode to the other A concern with the articulation of two modes of production is a recent development It emerges from the effort to define the nature of the concept "mode of production" and to determine the reference of this concept. This effort was largely stimulated by the work of In the course of this paper I show how the penetration of the craft of tailoring by capitalist relations of production is transforming it from a "handicraft" to a "manufacture" (Marx 1967: 322-368). To some extent a pattern of evolution within the precapitalist structures of Testour has been superseded by the economic control of the local tailors by capitalists from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia and the nearest city. Some aspects of the evolution from handicraft to manufacture in Testour resemble the great transformation of English industry described by Karl Marx, that ethnographer of nineteenth-century capitalism. These similarities underline the theoretical significance of the case I shall present.The pattern of unequal exchange has been chiefly analyzed at the national level, and yet structurally similar processes are also present in the kind of community discussed in thisThe tailoring of winter overcoats is a prosperous craft in the Tunisian town of Testour. This paper investigates the social organization of production and the economic situation of the craft. I t pays special attention to changes in workshop organization, credit, wages, and prices, and in marketing and its relationship to Tunis dealers. The paper provides some reffections on the articulation of domestic and capitalist modes of production and on the evolution of tailoring from a handicraft to a manufacture through a reformulation of the mode of cooperation.
american ethnologist
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.