IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB785454816

Spinners' Hands, Imperial Minds: Migrant Labor, Embodied Expertise, and the Failed Transfer of Silk Technology across the Atlantic (October 2021)

Bertucci, Paola (Author)

Technology and Culture
Volume: 62
Issue: 4
Pages: 1003-1031
Publication date: October 2021
Language: English

URI: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/819770

DOI: 10.1353/tech.2021.0152

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Artisans Embodied knowledge Technology transfer Expertise Migration Labor and laborers Crafts and craftspeople Silk and silk industry 18th century Georgia (U.S.)

In the eighteenth century, the British Empire attempted to transfer silk reeling technology from Piedmont in Italy to its colony of Georgia in America. The initial scheme involved the Piedmontese spinner Jane Mary Camuse, who, after a few years in Georgia, refused to cooperate as expected. According to the colonial authorities, her insolent behavior was the main reason for the scheme's slow progress. This article exposes this narrative as a self-serving distortion of the colonial archive and reframes the Georgia scheme in light of the embodied expertise of Piedmont's spinners. I argue that Piedmont's legal system acted on spinners' bodies and constructed them as experts, yet this expertise got lost in migration. The notion of technology transfer proves insufficient to account for the effect of displacement on migrant workers' expertise. By situating embodied expertise in the history of technology transfer, this article argues that the history of machines is incomplete without the history of labor.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB785454816

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article W. Walker Hanlon; (Winter 2018)
Skilled Immigrants and American Industrialization: Lessons from Newport News Shipyard (/p/isis/citation/CBB299819581/)

Article Yuting Dong; (January 2022)
Red Brick Imperialism: How Vernacular Knowledge Shaped Japanese Colonial Expertise in Northeast China, 1905–45 (/p/isis/citation/CBB335679263/)

Chapter Hendriksen, Marieke M. A.; (2021)
From Ingenuity to Genius and Technique: Shifting Concepts in Eighteenth-Century Theories of Art and Craft (/p/isis/citation/CBB087213622/)

Book Asha Shukla Choubey; (2022)
Crafts and Craftsmen in Pre-Colonial Eastern India: Technology and Culture (/p/isis/citation/CBB317005179/)

Article Bertucci, Paola; (2013)
Enlightened Secrets: Silk, Intelligent Travel, and Industrial Espionage in Eighteenth-Century France (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320536/)

Article Solà, Àngels; (2010)
Silk Technology in Spain, 1683--1800. Technological Transfer and Improvements (/p/isis/citation/CBB001252246/)

Article Thamarai Selvan; (March 23, 2021)
Panrutti Kattai: Crafting Taste and Sound (/p/isis/citation/CBB861075946/)

Article Kenneth M. George; Kirin Narayan; (2022)
Technophany and Its Publics: Artisans, Technicians, and the Rise of Vishwakarma Worship in India (/p/isis/citation/CBB205826789/)

Book Richard J Oosterhoff; José Ramón Marcaida; (2021)
Ingenuity in the Making: Matter and Technique in Early Modern Europe (/p/isis/citation/CBB106045508/)

Article Reith, Reinhold; (2005)
Know-How, Technologietransfer und die Arcana Artis im Mitteleuropa der Frühen Neuzeit (/p/isis/citation/CBB000640029/)

Book Liliane Pérez; (2013)
La pièce et le geste: Artisans, marchands et savoir technique à Londres au XVIIIe siècle (/p/isis/citation/CBB324783644/)

Book Roberts, Lissa Louise; Schaffer, Simon; Dear, Peter Robert; (2007)
The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773338/)

Article David Wittner; (April 2022)
A Tale of Two Mills: Socio-Technological Integration in Meiji Japan, 1868–1912 (/p/isis/citation/CBB963876628/)

Article Gang Wu; (2024)
Mapping Byzantine Sericulture in the Global Transfer of Technology (/p/isis/citation/CBB155501505/)

Article d'Almeida, André Corrêa; (2009)
Skilled Migrants' Dynamics, Institutions, Innovation, and Diffusion: A Conceptual and Analytical Framework to Assess Patterns of (Re)integration (/p/isis/citation/CBB140308755/)

Article Counihan, Christopher; (2009)
"Going Global": Why Do Multinational Corporations Participate in Highly Skilled Migration? (/p/isis/citation/CBB044614191/)

Article Chen, Jack Yong-Jie; (2008)
Notes from the Field: Migration and economic development in China (/p/isis/citation/CBB797787569/)

Article Sabet, M. Gamal; (2008)
Notes from the Field: Scientific researchers and mobility in the Asia-Pacific region (/p/isis/citation/CBB443278394/)

Article Woolley, Richard; Turpin, Tim; Marceau, Jane; Hill, Stephen; (2008)
Mobility Matters: Research Training and Network Building in Science (/p/isis/citation/CBB080736029/)

Article Klingner, Donald E.; (2009)
In This Issue: Symposium on Human Migration and Technology Transfer, Part 2: Globalization, Human Migration, and Technology Transfer (/p/isis/citation/CBB040637767/)