The global part of the local: circulation of techniques and value of know-how among the glassmakers of Fīrozābād

Abstract

This essay questions the processes of globalization from below by carrying out the ethnohistory of the glass industrial basin of Fīrozābād, in Uttar Pradesh, and by studying its historical or more contemporary links with other glass basins, notably Bohemia. The aim is firstly to underline the importance of globalized processes in the evolution of this industrial basin since the colonial era, secondly to show the importance of workers and artisans in economic processes which  resulted in a reversal of flows of export to the contemporary era and thirdly to examine the local dialectic between vernacularization of know-how and acquisition of new techniques among the groups of Muslim artisans of Fīrozābād. Finally, the essay aims to show the heuristic potential of a historical anthropology connected to professions to better understand the issues of contemporary globalization.