Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Matter is a noun that comprises a myriad of meanings. It might refer to a physical substance, a subject, or a problem. Matter is also the beginning of this paper, which intends to interrogate critically “what is the matter with cotton?” in order to debate between interdisciplinary scales how an ancestral fibre, such as the cotton that circulates globally since modern history, has been affecting places through matter flows undermined by capitalist intentions (Beckert, 2015). To do so, I depart from Vale do Ave – an urbanized area located in the northwest of Portugal, which is rooted in a long history of industrial architecture and textile production (Fernandes, 1999) – to argue that the imported cotton practices in this specific landscape (spinning and weaving) might be tackled as a two sided matter: on one hand, it might be considered as a ‘subject’ connected to processes of urban transformation; on the other, it might be measured as a ‘problem’, that threatens the built environment through colonial trading, social inequality, and ecological issues, particularly on sites of cotton’s cultivation and harvesting located in the Global South. To explain my argument, the paper is structured into four parts that identify and study the major modes of cotton practices historically and currently reproduced by most textile companies in Vale do Ave, through acts of fluctuation, paternalism, colonialism, and mechanization. This paper uncovers and narrates hidden textile architectures, and questionable aspects related to colonial and political trade, gender, and labour.