Nissan Seminar: From ‘closedness’ to ‘closeness’: how changing community values sustains a traditional craft industry

Convener(s): Dr Giulio Pugliese and Professor Hugh Whittaker

Speaker(s): Dr Shilla Lee

Abstract

Japan’s craft industries have frequently been cited as one of the main cultural domains affected by the ageing and shrinking population. Adopting new technologies or marketing strategies has shown attempts to maintain them. However, the transformation of community values has gotten less attention. This presentation examines the resilience of the Tamba pottery industry in Hyogo Prefecture by looking at the potters’ collective re-evaluation of their internal social dynamics. Their relations of kinship and locality, which have drawn criticism for fostering peer pressure and impeding innovation, are gaining renewed value under the growing significance of branding and promotional activities. By reconsidering ‘closedness’ as ‘closeness’, emphasising the efficiency and productivity of a compact group, they find creativity to keep their community alive.

Shilla Lee is a social anthropologist whose work focuses on contemporary forms of traditional craft practices and rural revitalisation movements. She obtained her doctoral degree from Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in 2022. Before joining the Nissan Institute of Japanese studies, she was an associate at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and research fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures.