Document Type
Report
Date
Spring 5-1-2025
Abstract
This report examines an embroidered odhani (woman’s shawl) attributed to a Bishnoi artisan from Rajasthan, India. The odhani is housed in the May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection at Loyola University Chicago. Close analysis of technique and contextual evidence is used to reattribute the textile, which was originally mislabeled and situates it within the contexts of gendered labor and environmental ethics within the Bishnoi community. Utilizing the frameworks of materialist and eco-spiritual feminism, the report argues that the odhani functions as a site of ecological resistance, cultural transmission, and women’s embodied knowledge, as well as a garment.
Recommended Citation
Patel, Nidhi, "A Bishnoi Woman’s Odhani: Gendered Labor, Environmental Ethics, and Textile Traditions in Rajasthan" (2025). Department of Anthropology. 4.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/anthropology_studentpubs/4
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© The Author, 2025
Included in
Anthropology Commons, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
