ABSTRACT

This chapter draws out technological features and analyses how manufacture of hammocks is connected with the pattern of labour utilisation. The custom of sleeping in hammocks originated with the indigenous Indian population of Brazil; the first hammocks were made by indigenous Indian women. Hammock production takes place both in enterprises based on wage labour and in domestic workshops based on family labour. Both large and small enterprises have in addition to their internal labour an external workforce, mainly women who carry out the finishing process at home. The entire labour force engaged in hammock making, only the internal workers of the larger enterprises are registered, and not all of them. The employment practices of the former include non-registration of part of the internal workforce, the subcontracting of non-registered domestic workshops, and extensive use of individual outworkers. The domestic workshops probably employ nearly as many people as the large firms.