ABSTRACT
In pastoral societies, women have traditionally contributed to livelihood activities. In Djelfa handicrafts help safeguard an agro-pastoralism in crisis which often does not generate sufficient income.According to 2011 statistics from the Department of small and medium enterprises and artisans,more than 60 per cent of households in Djelfa Governorate currently process wool and camel hair and weave qashabiya. This handicraft allows people from marginalised and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to protect themselves against vulnerability. But today, this weaving know-how has become fragile, in part as a result of technical changes due to developments in emerging social, economic and political trends, as well as being affected by overall deep gender inequality which tends to exclude women from any economic participation. This study is useful in pinpointing the problems that contribute to devaluing
this know-how and their causes, and the opportunities for better safeguarding this product.This will serve for better understanding the future of the traditional weaving of qashabiya (Figure 3.1) and related gender dynamics and their impact on the livelihoods of populations that depend largely on this product. The main research question was: what is the current state of the traditional
know-how held by women and men and what changes have occurred? Several secondary questions were also posed: a) how do the different existing types of qashabiya improve livelihoods? b) what events have contributed to changes in the processes of the know-how, which know-how and how? and c) what potential factors have helped perpetuate the devaluation of local knowledge? Our hypotheses are: 1) The different types of qashabiya help improve the liveli-
hoods of vulnerable households both in urban and rural areas. 2) Despite their major role in the production of qashabiya, women weavers are not remunerated fairly. 3) The combination of social, economic and political factors is likely to hamper the continuity of this traditional know-how.
