2020 Volume 21 Issue 1 Pages 291-313
This paper explores the material agency of West African wild silks by inquiring into local conceptions of the material with regard to its production and consumption in Marka-Dafing communities in Burkina Faso. By transcending common notions on aesthetics and materiality of silk, the paper investigates its cultural significance and delves into Marka-Dafing's material epistemology and cosmological implications of the sheen of indigenous silks. In Marka-Dafing communities, the sheen of wild silk is embedded into people's social, natural, and spiritual world. Hence, this paper presents an ethnography of wild silks materials that helps uncover silks' cultural meanings as a manifestation of complex networks of material and power intra-relations. This paper examines the efficacy and agency of sheen by focusing on wild silks' material properties and qualities that allow people to engage with the invisible world as a means of empowering the self, gaining social visibility, and resolving social disputes.
