Cheap Silk

This paper examines the historical development of sericulture in Slovenia’s Goriška region through Jason Moore’s theoretical framework of capitalism as world-ecology. Drawing on historical records from the 16th to early 20th centuries, it analyses how silk production functioned as a complex system of organizing human and extra-human natures for capital accumulation. The study focuses particularly on three interconnected categories of “Cheap Things”: the undervalued labour (Cheap Work), the appropriation of silkworms and mulberry trees as non-human workers (Cheap Nature), and the unrecognized care work primarily performed by women (Cheap Care). Silkworms were given the highest care and human characteristics—they were referred to as “cavaliers” due to their gluttony and high maintenance, and were also held close to their chests during hatching. Today, sericulture’s legacy lives on as a performative and discursive practice demonstrating how the capital puts nature to work even when the original industry is no longer present. The story of sericulture in Goriška region illuminates broader patterns in fashion production, encompassing everything from dislocated material production to appropriation of human and non-human work.