Geographic Indications and International Trade (GIANT)

TED Case Studies Number 784, 2005 by Jessica Tacka

The Culture of Turkish Kilims

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This kilim was purchased in Istanbul in October 2003, in the Turkish carpet "alley" in the heart of the Grand Bazaar. It is a traditional prayer kilim, with natural dyes (for example, the white is the natural color of the 100% wool material used for the kilim and the brown is tobacco). The image depicted is the tree of life in the center, surrounded by a border of scorpions.

I. Identification

1. The Issue

A kilim is a flat-woven rug (though because of the artful nature of the kilim, many are hung on the wall as show-pieces instead of being used as a floor-covering) made in several regions of the world, including Turkey, Persia, and the Caucasus. Making a kilim is a highly regarded folk art; kilims that are handmade with natural dye and wool are the cultural norm. There is also a great deal of symbolism in the patterns used in each design. Some kilims are even used as Muslim prayer rugs. Because of the cultural aspects of these rugs, each region has its own traditions revolving around colors, styles, and patterns. Because of the regional nature of the differences in style, it is easy to identify the type of kilim by aesthetics. This has led to a particular region in Turkey choosing to patent their own brand of kilim.

2. Description

A kilim is a type of rug, but one that lays flat because there is no vertical weave, or "pile." The pile is the main characteristic of rugs or carpets that most people associate with typical rugs. Because it has no pile, oftentimes a kilim may have no correct up-side or down-side and may be reversible.

Though each region has developed its own particular style of kilim, the Anatolian region of Turkey has staked claim on the original. One particular style of Anatolian kilim is the Afyon, which has been patented (TasteofTurkey.com). The full name of both the city and the province in Western Anatolia where this particular style of kilim originates is Afyonkarahisar (Kilim.com). Scraps of what may be the predecessors to modern day kilims were found in that particular region dating back to the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. (Kilim.com). These findings suggest that all modern kilims may have emerged from this region.

Afyon kilims are 100% wool, with all-natural dyes, and completely handmade (TasteofTurkey.com). These qualities are representative of the ideal kilim in any region, so there are also stylistic qualities that set the Afyon kilim apart from the crowd (Lonely Planet, Istanbul). The main colors used in an Afyon kilim are apricot, pink, blue, green and yellow. The patterns are large geometric shapes, similar on most Anatolian kilims, but with a signature fence or finger shape protruding from them, called parmakli, which loosely translates to “with fingers" (Kilim.com).

Regional differences between kilims outside of Turkey are easily determined by plain sight. The Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish varieties of kilim are quite similar, with sweeping geometric shapes including triangles and zig-zags. The Persian seems to have smaller designs as compared to the bold, larger images on the Turkish kilim. An expansive pictorial guide with descriptions of not only tribes but regions in ancient Persian kilim design can be found here. The following is an example of the difference between regional takes on the same technique of rugmaking - with no vertical pile, flat-lying - with a comparison between an Azeri kilim and a Turkish kilim:

If you will note the Azeri kilim on the left portrays animals, most likely camels, as they are seen. The Turkish kilim on the right also portrays animals, but in an entirely different manner, with shapes that only hint as to the subjects true appearance - a very abstract design. This is a style common to Islam because of the general rules against idolaters. If you notice the green border on the left, the shapes that line the edge are a depiction of scorpions, a common geometric shape on Turkish kilims.

Coloring in the examples so far has been very natural, but there is a great variety of color use. This kilim up close looks almost neon, and is very dark with black detailing compared to the neutrals seen in the rest of the examples here:

Kilim-use is not restricted only to rugs. As mentioned earlier, kilims are often hung on the wall (both the Turkish kilim at the top of the page, and the Azeri kilim immediately above are hung as display pieces). They are also made as saddle covers, as seen here:

Oftentimes, because the process of creating a kilim is so specialized and intense, and also made for the tourist industry, a flawed kilim is not worth putting on display inside one of the many shops throughout Istanbul, especially in the bazaars. The primary alternate use for a flawed kilim has been in the form of pillows. The danger in this, though, has been that tourists to Turkey have enjoyed the kilim pillows so much that they created a major market for them, and now kilims in perfectly good condition are being dissected into squares to be used to create pillowcases such as these:

With as many forms and varieties of kilims offered, it is hard to come away from a trip to Turkey without one. The Turkish carpet merchants are renowned for their sales abilities - though some might describe the merchants as pushy and relentless. They will initially attempt to sell you a Turkish carpet, larger and more expensive than a kilim. The obvious response would be to claim poverty and lack of space for a 5 foot Turkish carpet. Then the salesman will move on to kilims, the far more budget- and space-sensitive souvenir. And the lucky tourist might walk away with more than a few kilims.

3. Related Cases

Regional/Cultural Cases:
Egypt	This case centers around the effect of tourism on the environment. Turkey is a gigantic destination for the tourism industry, and along with other countries in that region, has enacted a heavy policy restricting antiquities from leaving the borders
Mummy	Egyptian mummies are part of the cultural history of Egypt, much like the Turkish kilim is part of the cultural history of Turkey (and also the surrounding region).
Ataturk Dam	Part of the kilim dispute/tension is that each area has its own style and claim on the kilim. I’m sure the dispute over natural resources is more pressing to those in the developing Middle East region, but the concern over intellectual property is also vast, given the relatively new and fairly artificial borders and nationalities.
Fabric/Textile Cases:
Africa Textiles	This involves anti-dumping laws and the fear that Sub-Saharan Africa will "dump" its cheaper textiles into the US. This is a very interesting related case with regard to the GI issue, because if and when it is determined that cultural techniques in the realm of textiles are intellectual property, the US will not be able to stop the influx of foreign textiles.
Cashmere	This involves the raw materials that go into producing kilims. Kilims, however, are generally made out of wool, very rarely goat in the Balkans. It is a good prompt to examine how the basic materials affect the end products.
Human Rights Cases:
Rugmark	This is a good related case because of the human rights involved in the carpet industry. It is a good jumping off point to examine the scope of human rights in a craft industry. The concern for child labor is less real in the case of kilims, however, because they are not a mass-manufactured item.
Nike Child Labor	This case involves Pakistan, in the same region as Turkey, and child labor involving the manufacture of Nike soccer balls.

4. Author and Date: Jessica Tacka (May 4, 2005)

II. Legal Clusters

5. Discourse and Status: Disagree and Complete

6. Forum and Scope: National Patent and Regional

7. Decision Breadth: 10+ Countries across the Mideast and Asia also produce kilims.

8. Legal Standing: Law

The Afyon province's move to patent their techniques may encourage other regions and countries to do the same. Certainly if one obscure province in Turkey can place a patent on intellectual property, entire countries such as Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan will be able to do the same. Far from being a restricting piece of legislation, placing the kilims of different countries and regions under legal protection will encourage proper attributions for the style and culture of different kilims, as well as ensure the cultural traditions of each country or region a long-term future.

III. Geographic Clusters

Kilims are made across Turkey, but the patent on the Afyon kilim comes from Anatolia, the region labeled in the center of the map:

9. Geographic Locations

a. Geographic Domain: Asia

b. Geographic Site: Mideast

c. Geographic Impact: Asia Mideast

10. Sub-National Factors: Yes

11. Type of Habitat: Dry - the necessary environment to produce kilims is only one which encourages sheep farming, as traditional kilims are made with 100% wool and natural dyes.

IV. Trade Clusters

12. Type of Measure: Intellectual Property

13. Direct v. Indirect Impacts: Direct

14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact

a. Directly Related to Product: Yes, Rugs

b. Indirectly Related to Product: No

c. Not Related to Product: No

d. Related to Process: Yes, Intellectual Property

15. Trade Product Identification: Kilim

16. Economic Data

Turkey is hardly the world’s leader in textile imports. The issue at stake in the Turkish kilim case, however, has nothing to do with industry, but with craftsmanship. Available global trade data for the Turkish textile industry falls under the umbrella term “textiles and apparel.” The two industries, however similar, have a great variety of different characteristics. For example, while human rights issues plague the apparel industry (particularly when designers outsource to create their “discount” lines), human rights violations exist in the textile industry, but are far less common. Recent cases (including some listed on the TED database) with large American companies manufacturing clothing abroad in sweatshops to cut cost can explain some of the reason that the apparel industry is being watched more closely for human rights violations than the textile industry. There is a larger market for apparel overall, so the tempation to increase profit by underpaying child laborers abroad is also greater. The craftsmanship that a buyer looks for when shopping for the perfect Turkish kilim has nearly nothing to do with industry, manufacturing, and high-intensity exports and imports.

These figures change significantly as the competition between cheaper, manufactured products and quality durable craft goods ebbs and flows.

Arguments have been made that the Anatolian region of Turkey produces the best kilims in the world, far surpassing the half a dozen or more countries in that region of the world who also call kilim a cultural handicraft - though several other countries make equal claims on the kilim's origin. One small city in Anatolia has even gone so far as to patent their own distinct kilim – the Afyon kilim. Afyon kilims fall under the “Aegean Region” of kilim production, or the area around the sea that Homer immortalized in his works, The Illiad and The Odyssey. Even if the only reaction an American has to the area is based upon an experience with required reading in high school, the Aegean Sea conjures up a romanticized look at the land of the classics, the modern land of the Turks, and the land of the Afyon kilim.

Aside from “finger-like” protrusions from each of the geometric shapes used in weaving the kilim, the Afyon kilim has several other distinct characteristics:

 

"Contemporary Afyon kilims are made in plainweave or slitweave, and the primary colors employed are apricot, pink, blue, green and yellow. The hues are mainly light, but some new village kilims tend to be garish unless faded in the sun. Wool and mohair are produced in the region and the wool used for kilims is of medium and fine quality." (Kilim.com)

With such precise qualities identifying an Afyon kilim, it is easy to see why there was a move to patent the design.

Ten years ago, GATT began a process of integrating clothing and textiles as a category into the Agreement. The long and complicated process to implement this task involved a “no dumping” policy, because there was a concern that overall imports of a certain product might enter a “country in such increased quantities as to cause serious damage — or to threaten it — to the relevant domestic industry.” This all occurred during the Uruguay Round of negotiations, creating the “Agreement on Textiles and Clothing” (WTO).

This January (2005) was the end of the ten-year period allotted by the Uruguay Round to bring textiles and clothing under the general agreements (WTO). Starting in January, there are no more quotas placed on textiles outside of regular WTO/GATT agreements. This is particularly important to developing countries like Turkey, where an object like a kilim is a textile, but also part of culture. Now any textiles and clothing can be traded as any other product, and this evens the playing field for all the developing countries in the Orient who have large foundations of trade based on textiles.

The WTO/GATT rules regarding textiles and clothing can be explored in great depth, however they have little actual relevance to the Turkish kilim as a GI because a kilim is ultimately a handicraft. Its creation is a skill that is passed down through families, tribes, and regional cultures. The more important legal issue to focus on is the patent. As of right now, the Afyon kilim is the only style of kilim to receive any legal protection whatsoever, but as demonstrated in the pictures in the description section, stylistic issues surrounding kilims are vast and special.

The Afyon patent is what will inevitably and thankfully be able to prevent a foreign-based distributor from “pillaging” the stylistic elements of the Afyon kilim for his own, and selling it to people who have no clue as to the culture of what they are purchasing. In this modern era of globalization, patenting something that has been part of a culture for centuries (the oldest kilims discovered, were found in the Afyon province) sounds cold initially. But to take a step forward into a century of no borders or boundaries, placing a patent is a reasonable way to ensure the future of cultural traditions.

18. Industry Sector: Textiles and Apparel

19. Exporters and Importers: Specific data on the import and export of kilims is not available, but kilims as a textile, fall under the WTO data collection "textiles and apparel" category. WTO data indicates that the largest exporters and importers of textiles fall mainly in the developing world, especially Asia. Their top 10 importers and exporters according to 2003 trade data are:

 

Exports - Country	Value (Billions of Dollars)
China	26.90
European Union	26.37
Hong Kong	13.08
domestic exports	0.76
re-exports	12.33
United States	10.92
Republic of Korea	10.12
Taipei, Chinese	9.32
India	6.51
Japan	6.43
Pakistan	5.81
Turkey	5.21

Imports - Country	Value (billions of dollars)
EU	19.97
US	18.29
China	14.22
Hong Kong, China	12.93
retained imports	0.60
Mexico	5.46
Japan	5.04
Canada	3.86
Turkey	3.42
Poland	3.04
Republic of Korea	2.94

These figures are easy to analyze, as most of the exporters are from the developing world and/or Asia. What this list fails to recognize though is the share of trade as a percentage of the individual nations’ total exports. These two lists are composed of a lot of large economic countries. The following table shows the top five exporters as a percentage of their total exports:

 

Exporters	Value (millions)	Percentage of Total Exports
Pakistan	$5811	48.7%
Nepal	165	22.4%
Macao, China	303	11.7%
India	6510	11.6%
Turkey	5244	11.3%

Economically, the first two data sets make perfect sense. But because textiles are primarily a developing country’s industry, the second table shows clearly that the developing countries, particularly in Asia, depend on textile exports for their economic stability. As you can see, Turkey is on all three of these lists. Textiles and apparel are clearly a large part of its economy.

V. Environment Clusters

20. Environmental Problem Type: Culture

21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species: N/A

22. Resource Impact and Effect: Low and Product

23. Urgency and Lifetime: Low and Hundreds of Years

24. Substitutes: Persian Rugs, Persian/Azeri/Caucasian/Kurdish Kilims

VI. Other Factors

25. Culture: Yes

26. Trans-Boundary Issues: Yes

27. Rights: Yes

It has been discussed so far that the ideal qualities that a kilim connoisseur looks for when rug-shopping are that the material used is 100% cotton, that the dyes are all natural, and most importantly that the kilim is entirely handmade. The human element involved in making a kilim is what makes owning one so special. Besides the cultural aspects of kilims, which have been discussed in detail throughout this page, the human rights concerns are a crucial issue to explore. If patenting kilim styles and techniques catches on in other regions and countries, the demand for "authentic" and documented kilims has the potential to rise significantly, and the case for human rights always becomes critical in high-demand industry sectors. So what of the people making the rugs?

Rug-making has traditionally been a job for single, unwed females in Turkey (Lotozo). This can be an advantage to young Turkish women, who are not under pressure to be married off as soon as possible once they are capable of providing for themselves, and are “no longer a mouth to feed” (Lotozo). Women have been dominating the textile industry as a whole since shortly after Turkish independence, when around 1 million war widows had been left to fend for themselves (Seidman 3).

There is always a danger, as with any industry, of worker exploitation in the form of sweatshops and child labor. Compulsory education laws have convinced some that child labor is not a problem in Turkey as it is in other rug-making nations such as Nepal, Pakistan or India (Lotozo). But recent talks with the EU have sparked reports on human rights conditions in Turkey, citing improvements but not eliminations of honor killings, police torture, and child labor (Brown).

The official counts on child labor are difficult to ascertain because of the large number of unregistered workers in the industry. Data is collected under the umbrella term “apparel and textile” industry, and it is more likely that the majority of unregistered workers are in the apparel industry, which is also the more frequent labor rights offender (Seidman, 4). The benefit of the data that has been collected, however, is that it includes unpaid family workers and “home-work” (most artisan goods, such as carpets, work in homes), so it accounts for the cultural aspects of the industry. The good news is that 6-11 year olds are rarely in the labor force, with an official employment rate of 1.3% in 1994 (Seidman 5). For 12-17 year olds, more females enter the textile industry with 35% of those who work outside the home as opposed to 14% of males (Seidman 5).

Since 1974, there has been a minimum wage law in Turkey, and Turkey’s manufacturing wages fall in the mid-range globally (Seidman 5). Males would most likely receive a gender premium of around 15%, but women still dominate the industry (Seidman 5).

When shopping for a kilim, bear in mind that there is more to your purchase than quality and receiving a good deal. Ask to see documentation on the rugs, and ask your hotel concierge for a recommendation on a labor-approved rug merchant. If possible, shop for your rug as “close to the source” as possible; trading strictly with the craft-artist ensures that your rug has been made by a willing adult, and also that the artist is receiving a direct wage from the buyer, as opposed to a limited monthly wage from a business owner ("If You Follow"). Labor violations are sure to be reduced by leaps and bounds as Turkey continues to negotiate with the EU on membership, so in the future, the rug and kilim industry could be entirely free of human rights concerns.

28. Relevant Literature & Attributions

 

Many thanks to Mr. Rob Quartel for allowing his extensive kilim collection to be photographed for this project. The Turkish kilim at the very top of this page is the only rug not to come from his collection. All photographs are original, except for the map and flag which both came from the CIA website.

“Background Statistical Information with Respect to Trade in Textiles and Clothing.” World Trade Organization. 20 September 2004.

Brown, Anthony and Suna Erdem. “Turkey Takes a Giant Step Towards EU Membership.” The Times (London). Lexis-Nexis. October 7, 2004. (13 February 2005).

Campbell, Verity and Tom Brosnahan. Istanbul. Lonely Planet Publications: Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 2002.

Hull, Alastair. Kilim: The Complete Guide: History, Pattern, Technique, Identification. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993.

“If You Follow the Passionate Collector’s Grail.” Star Tribune. June 16, 2002. (13 February 2005).

Kilim.com

Lotozo, Eils. “Magic Carpet Ride” Philadelphia Inquirer. January 20, 2005. Lexis-Nexis (13 February 2005).

TasteofTurkey.com

Seidman, Lisa A. “Textile Workers in Turkey 1922-2003.” November 2004. (13 February 2005).

“The Culture of Turkish Carpets”

"Traditional Carpets and Kilims: Trade in Cultural Heritage." International Trade Forum. April 1999.

WTO - Agreement on Textiles and Clothing

**Horizontal Lines from: http://www.grsites.com**

 

This is a Turkish evil eye protector. One is hanging up in nearly every household or shop in Istanbul and throughout Turkey. This particular evil eye is hanging off of a carpet, illustrating the importance of rugs and carpets in Turkish culture.

5/2005