Abstract:

Traditions and itineraries of indigo are windows into the transnational circulation of ideas, skills, tools, and techniques across different geographical landscapes and frames of value. As sites of cultural transmission and meaning-making, community-based indigo production and dyeing embody generationally passed-on livelihood practices. 

Attending to the diverse human, nature, and technology articulations in the different sites of production of indigo, roundtable participants shared their observations, interviews and experience with indigo in conversation with traditional knowledge custodians through short videos and presentations along the following sites of knowledge and meaning: 

1. the ecological (land, water, climate) and economic (class & gender) context of cultivation of the plant;
2. the extraction of the dye, the infrastructure of built structures, tools, techniques, recipes, linguistic markers, and skills involved;
3. its distribution locally, nationally and internationally (the different channels and stakeholders)
4. myriad uses (both value and meaning – identity, power, status, religious, health & well-being, art, craft, fashion, etc.)
5. Literary production – stories, myths, songs, proverbs associated with the plant and dye. 

Videos shown during the roundtable included the recently rediscovered Maya Blue pigment in Yucatan, Mexico, spatial drone mapping of abandoned 19th-century indigo dyeing pits in India, the harvesting of wild gara indigo leaves in Burkina Faso and Ghana, interviews with female indigo dyers in Senegal, the journey of reconnecting indigenous weaving practices with the "forgotten blue" of Taiwan, and the folk history of the Sakon Nakhon region in Thailand's custodianship of indigo. These videos will be made available on the HAB website at a later date at the discretion of each of the participants.    

Chair: 

• Jody Benjamin, Howard University, Washington D.C., USA 

Convenor: 

• Aarti Kawlra, Humanities Across Borders (HAB), International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Netherlands

Participants: 

• Eric Tamatey Lawer, University of Ghana, Ghana
• Mohomodou Houssouba, University of Basel, Switzerland
• Ludovic Kibora, Institut des Sciences des Sociétés (INSS-CNRST), Burkina Faso
• Hsiao-Chi Chu, Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA), Taiwan and Leiden University, Netherlands
• Aminata Sall, Université Gaston Berger (UGB), Saint-Louis, Senegal
• Idrissa "Badri" Dembele, Independent Indigo Dyer, Bamako, Mali
• Karthik Prema Rajakumar, Independent Researcher, Chennai, India
• Luis May Ku, Teacher and Ceramicist, Yucatán, Mexico
• Pimnara (Baitong) Chanorn, Mahidol University, Thailand