Call for Submissions – Suta-Kahini: The Crafts and Characters of Bengal Textiles

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Suta-Kahini: The Crafts and Characters of Bengal Textiles

An Examination and Celebration of the Environmental and Human Resources of the Bengal Delta

A NiCHE New Scholars Series

Proposal Deadline: 30 June 2026

Edited by Debasree Sarkar
Bengal Textiles
Photograph by Debasree Sarkar.

Traditional dyeing and weaving methods in Bengal were intrinsically environmentally friendly, as they used natural, biodegradable ingredients, human labour, and circular, waste-free processes. These conventional methods, which supported rural economies, employed locally obtained materials, thereby reducing carbon emissions and pollution. Bengal textile dates back to ancient times when there were very few instances of inter-civilisational exchanges in goods. From the mediaeval times, the Bengal delta was known for its production of high-quality muslins, and the trend continued until the “de-industrialisation” and the simultaneous erosion of the traditional handweaving and hand-dyeing technologies that happened in the aftermath of the colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent from the eighteenth century onwards.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Dutch and the English, who began their Bengal trade after establishing their factories in Hughli, overshadowed the Portuguese, who were the first to establish trade links in Bengal. From the Portuguese to the Dutch, French, and British occupations in different parts of the Bengal delta, we can see a proliferation of trading points and factories that eventually changed the mode of production of textiles that was once environmentally sustainable and acknowledged the labour of the local craftspeople and artists.

This blog series seeks to engage with the history of the dying crafts of “Bengal’s textiles,” an umbrella term to describe the technique of making the yarn, as well as the various handweaving patterns that intricately weave the flora and fauna as motifs on the textiles. The tradition of inscribing stories through artistic designs on textiles is the inspiration behind the series that will explore the relationship between Suta – threads – with Kahini – story. The contemporary world is continuously reinventing the older traditions to make them viable in the globalised economy. In this, often the “West” appropriates the labour and culture of the “East” or the “Global South” that comes from a place of hegemony that has been historically erased from the history of the “non-Western” civilisations. This blog series is an attempt to build an archive of this erasure that will decolonise spaces of epistemic violence and create an alternative repertoire of the traditions that celebrated environmental and human resources of the Bengal Delta.

We invite submissions in two parts: (1) 250-300 words abstract on the subject proposed, (2) After selection a 800 word article on your selected topic. We also encourage short interviews (10-15 minutes) of artisans/designers/academicians working in this field.

Curator: Debasree Sarkar
Doctoral Scholar
Department of History, DHWU
Email: debasree.his@icloud.com

Submission Guidelines

  • Abstracts should be between 250-300 words
  • All submissions must include: contributor name(s), affiliation(s), paper title(s), and contact email address(es)
  • Kindly follow the NiCHE New Scholars page for more updates on this
  • Kindly send your abstracts/ideas by: 30th June 2026.
Feature Image: “Neatly knitting” by Aktar Hossain Ratan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Debasree Sarkar

Debasree Sarkar is a doctoral scholar at the Department of History, Diamond Harbour Women’s University. The theme of her research has been reading the social history of Bengal through women’s autobiographical writings, with special emphasis on their sartorial changes. Apart from being involved in various academic projects, she has published in reputed newspapers and journals and contributed book chapters dealing with fashion, gender-based violence, representational politics, environment, and displacement. She has presented on international platforms such as the Dress and Body Association, Northeast Popular Culture Association, and London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research. Recently, she collaborated on a project on “The Past as Present: Approaches to Pedagogy in History and Archaeology” organised by Shiv Nadar University, where she worked with schoolchildren to assist them in comprehending history through textiles and clothes as part of questioning forms of everyday practices that cultivate cultural understanding. She was awarded the Papia Ghosh Memorial Prize at the 83rd session of the Indian History Congress in 2024 for her paper on “Sati and Its Afterlife: Social Desire and Public Discourse.” She is one of the recently selected members of the New Scholars Committee, NiCHE, Canada. She is also the founder of Standing in Solidarity (SIS), a feminist collective that works to build a network of women across borders.

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