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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
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Reinventing craft in China - The Contemporary Politics of Yixing Zisha Ceramics (Hardcover)
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Reinventing craft in China - The Contemporary Politics of Yixing Zisha Ceramics (Hardcover)
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How does a craft reinvent itself as `traditional' following
cultural, social and political upheaval? In the township of
Dingshu, Jiangsu province of China, artisans produce zisha or
Yixing teapots that have been highly valued for centuries. Yet in
twentieth-century socialist imagination, handicrafts were an
anomaly in a modern society. The Maoist government had clear
ambitions to transform the country by industrialization, replacing
craft with mechanized methods of production. Four decades later,
some of the same artisans identified as `backward' handicraft
producers in the 1950s and made to join workers' cooperatives, were
now encouraged to set up private workshops, teach their children
and become entrepreneurs. By the 2000s ceramic production in
Dingshu is booming and artisans are buying their first cars, often
luxury brands. However, many involvements of the Chinese state are
apparent, from the control of raw materials, to the inscription of
the craft on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage.
In this perceptive study, Gowlland argues that this re-evaluation
of heritage is no less inherently political than the collectivism
of the communist regime. Reflecting that the craft objects,
although produced in very different contexts, have remained
virtually the same over time and that it is the artisans'
subjectivities that have been transformed, he explores the
construction of mastery and its relationship to tradition and
authenticity, bringing to the fore the social dimension of mastery
that goes beyond the skill of simply making things, to changing the
way these things are perceived, made and talked about by others.
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