Titre : [FORTHCOMING] The Neapolitan glove-making today: between a continuous manufacturing and transformations through the means of communication’s change 

Auteurs : Francine Barancourt,  

Revue : Technology and Innovation 

Numéro : Forthcoming papers 

Volume :  

Date : 2026/07/13 

DOI : TBA 

ISSN : 2399-8571 

Résumé : The presence of the company Omega since 1923 in the Sanità’s neighborhood, close to the historical center of Naples, is a remnant of the many craftsmen active in the area throughout the 20th century. Still working as a glove’s supplier, the facto-ry has kept its functioning for a century: the manufacturing chain is divided into individual tasks, dispatched in several spots around the city. Some of the working steps are made in the company’s headquarters - an apartment-factory - while others are accomplished by specialized workers or home-based workers. The pairs of gloves travel from the headquarters to the location of the company’s employees. Despite the maintaining of an old-fashion tracking method (handwritten cards), communicating through the phone is now essential. On the one hand, the making process (cutting, embellishing, stitching, and finishing) seems identical since a century ago, and on the other hand, contemporary communication means have been included. This contribution focuses precisely on the impact of their immediacy. What difference does it make in the rela-tionship between the supplier and the buyer? What is the impact of a better and quicker connection between the different production sites on the everyday life of the company? Is the short-time characteristic of new communication means contra-dictory to the slow process of glove making? The ongoing ethnographic fieldwork, started in 2025, aims first at document-ing the trade of leather gloves manufacturing to point out its social and technical changes. The study also has a role to play in the valorization of this family business, which I am trying to attend as a leather accessories designer and producer. Be-ing simultaneously an anthropologist and a craftswoman, my presence in the fieldwork serves two purposes: social scienc-es research and professional collaborations in the field of Italian crafts. As a result of this double work, this paper offers, among other things, an insight into a mission given by the Neapolitan trade. 

Éditeur : ISTE OpenScience