Recycling Indian Clothing: Global Contexts of Reuse and Value (Tracking Globalization)

In today's globally connected marketplace, a wedding sari in rural northIndia may become a woman's blouse or cushion cover in a Western boutique. LucyNorris's anthropological study of the recycling of clothes in Delhi follows garmentsas they are gifted, worn, handed on, discarded, recycled, and sold once more. Giftsof clothing are used to make and break relationships within middle-class households, but a growing surplus of unwanted clothing now contributes to a global glut oftextile waste. When old clothing is, for instance, bartered for new kitchenutensils, it enters a vast waste commodity system in which it may be resold to thepoor or remade into new textiles and exported. Norris traces these local andtransnational flows through homes and markets as she tells the stories of the peoplewho work in the largely hidden world of fabric recycling.