Geoffrey Gowlland | Université de Genève (original) (raw)
Books by Geoffrey Gowlland
How does a craft reinvent itself as 'traditional' following cultural, social and political upheav... more 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.
"Gowlland takes his reader on a captivating journey into a world of craftwork that has undergone seismic change since the era of Chairman Mao. A combination of rich ethnography, refined analysis and the author's hands-on understanding of the potter's materials and techniques convincingly demonstrates that craft knowledge and aesthetic appreciation are deeply embedded in the political. This is a highly significant book for all scholars of craft and material culture."
Trevor Marchand, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies
Articles and book chapters by Geoffrey Gowlland
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2024
This article presents a reflection on the adaptability of an age-old practice, dry stone walling,... more This article presents a reflection on the adaptability of an age-old practice, dry stone walling, to address the loss of biodiversity precipitated by locally changing agricultural practices and a globally changing climate. The 'Art of dry stone walling, knowledge and techniques', inscribed in 2018 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, involves building walls with locally sourced stones without the use of mortar. On relatively homogeneous agricultural land, walls offer precious surfaces, nooks and crannies, for plants and animals to grow on, nest in or move along from one patch of woods to the next. With a focus on practices in Switzerland, the article explores how a new awareness of the ecological potential of dry stone walls is shaping the craft and the composition of the communities of practice that have developed around them.
Third World Quarterly, 2022
For Indigenous people, what one knows and how one gets to know what one knows are political issue... more For Indigenous people, what one knows and how one gets to know what one knows are political issues that have repercussions for self-determination and cultural resilience. This article reflects on the intersection of skilled practices and the politics of indigeneity among the Paiwan people, one of the 16 officially recognised Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. The revitalisation of crafts have for some years been key to cultural revitalisation efforts, as well as an avenue for Paiwan people to gain an income, importantly allowing individuals to work in the community and avoid migration to the cities to find wage labour. The article presents an ethnographic vignette of the activities of an initiative pairing knowledge holders with apprentices, before setting this initiative in social and historical context. The theoretical thread of the article develops Clifford’s ideas about ‘articulation’, the notion that Indigenous people are constantly engaged in the negotiation of needs that are often at odds, namely the desire for cultural continuity and self-determination, and the need to adapt to the demands of life in a settler colonial society. I argue here that it is fruitful to understand the social life of skills in Indigenous communities as shaped by such processes of articulation.
Craft is Political (D Wood ed.), 2021
There is an affinity between the terms ‘indigenous people’ and ‘craft’: both tend to be character... more There is an affinity between the terms ‘indigenous people’ and ‘craft’: both tend to be characterised as being about ‘tradition’ and the past. But they are more usefully defined in terms of contrast: indigenous people distinguish themselves from settler populations in order to claim collective rights, whilst crafts are identified in contrast to other forms of material culture – art or mass-produced items, depending on the context. These contrasts are continually remade and reinforced. As such, this chapter argues, ‘indigenous crafts’, the craft practices that contemporary indigenous people are engaged in, are to be understood as fundamentally innovative, and fundamentally political.
In exploring this idea, the chapter considers some of the craft revitalisation projects initiated by Taiwan’s Austronesian-speaking people, officially recognised since the 1990s as ‘indigenous’. Borrowing the concept of ‘articulation’ from James Clifford, I consider how artisans and activists engaged in craft revitalisation projects negotiate the desire for continuity of indigenous cultures with the realities of living in a settler society. Craft projects give visibility to indigenous cultures, counter the effects of state assimilationist policies of the past, and provide income opportunities for indigenous youth. Craft objects are also used as props in state discourses on nationalism, and as part of indigenous protests. The chapter looks at the attitudes of past and present colonisers towards the material culture of Austronesians, before considering specific examples of indigenous crafts and the artisans who are reinventing these practices to make them relevant for the society they live in.
Ethnos, 2019
This article uses a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing th... more This article uses a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing the relationship between sociality and enskilment. I look at key moments from my field research and learning experience in the workshop of a Taiwanese craftsman. The analysis of these moments reveals the complex, multimodal nature of the interactions between mentor and learner. I use the concept of enchronic time (Enfield) to trace these interactions as they unfold in the situated time of learning. In such contexts, I argue that there is no qualitative shift between sociality and enskilment, and we should thus conceptualise social interactions as being an integral part of the resulting technical skills, dispositions and work ethics of the learner.
JRAI, 2020
This article considers the implications of the adoption of cement and concrete as building materi... more This article considers the implications of the adoption of cement and concrete as building materials in a mountain settlement of the Paiwan, one of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. The presence of these materials in an indigenous settlement might at first glance be interpreted as a sign of cultural assimilation. This article suggests rather that, by paying close attention to the ways in which locals engage with the changing properties of imported materials in work and daily life, a more complex understanding can be gained of the negotiated relations of power between indigenous people, the state, and market forces, as well as the role of materials in these negotiations. For the Paiwan, creative engagements with foreign materials and their changing properties have, at various moments, represented ways of adapting to the pressures to assimilate, or, conversely, resulted in expressions of cultural resilience.
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2021
This article presents a reflection on a particular category of objects often found in ethnographi... more This article presents a reflection on a particular category of objects often found in ethnographic museum collections: traps. It asks what might be particular to this kind of object, and what these particularities might teach us about making exhibitions, whether specifically about traps or not. I argue that traps can teach us about particular ways of engaging with objects that mobilise what I call “empathetic imagination”. In the conclusion, I reflect on how exhibitions can use artefacts in ways reminiscent of traps to facilitate such engagement.
Pre-print version of chapter included in The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in M... more Pre-print version of chapter included in The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion, edited by Urmila Mohan and Laurence Douny (29 October 2020). London: Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003086031
![Research paper thumbnail of Imaging/Imagining Craftwork [introduction to the Special Issue]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/42761374/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](This special issue is based on the proceedings of an anthropological workshop organized at the Mu... more This special issue is based on the proceedings of an anthropological workshop organized at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. It took the unique approach of reflecting on the intersection between the subdisciplines of visual anthropology and the anthropology of craftwork. Still and moving images are routinely used by anthropologists of crafts and techniques, yet the literature investigating such images critically is scarce. Arguably images of craft-making have certain characteristics that make them stand out as special cases of visual data derived from ethnographic research. Contributors here reflect critically on their own image-making practices in the field, and address a range of issues relating to fieldwork methodology, images of craft as objects in their own right, and participatory image-making practices.
In this article I compare video footage I recorded during two separate studies on craft ceramics,... more In this article I compare video footage I recorded during two separate studies on craft ceramics, in China and Taiwan respectively, to reflect on the way images might contribute to theoretical reflections on embodied practice in craftwork. In the first, key moments captured by the camera illustrate, and help us to understand, local conceptions of craft and ethics of skilled practice, yet these moments are fleeting and their value unlikely to be recognized by a casual viewer. An analysis of the second video footage, in which a Taiwanese master ceramicist is brought to “unpack” his skilled knowledge when in the role of a teacher, reveals another way in which images can bring viewers to access otherwise “invisible” dimensions of skilled practice.
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2012
This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization ... more This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization of handicraft in China in the second half of the 20th century on ways of learning and modes of apprenticeship. It argues that, after the privatization of the ceramics workshops of Dingshu, Jiangsu province, an ethos of sharing previously introduced by collectivization continues to
determine the paths of transmission of practical knowledge and facilitates exclusion of access to knowledge from community outsiders.
The Journal of Modern Craft, Jan 1, 2009
Springer International Handbooks of Education, 2014
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2018
This article reflects on the relationships between artefacts newly collected by ethnographic muse... more This article reflects on the relationships between artefacts newly collected by ethnographic museums and the digital images that illustrate such artefacts in museum archives and catalogues. Taking three examples derived from collecting activities and ethnographic fieldwork in China and Taiwan, the article reflects on the potential of images to not simply "contextualise" artefacts, but to shape the relationships that are established between museums, the makers of artefacts, and the related source communities. More specifically, through three cases it is discussed how images can: 1) come to position makers within a tradition, 2) offer solutions to issues of rights over designs, and 3) link the collected artefact to the land from which materials were gathered. In the concluding discussion, four aspects of "images of collecting" are discussed: their materiality, their role in the creation of value, risks of misinterpretation, and responsibilities involved in editing and selecting images.
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2018
In this introductory essay to the special issue, we identify key common themes that are developed... more In this introductory essay to the special issue, we identify key common themes that are developed in the article contributions. We start by attending to the qualities of what we call “digital heritage ecosystems”, and we reflect on the varied affordances that digital tools and platforms offer. We go on to address the complex political dimensions of digital heritage, and how structures of authority relating to heritage are constructed and can be destabilised by the digital. Finally, we take a look at what goes on behind the scenes of digital heritage initiatives, what is involved in setting up digital platforms and keeping the systems running.
This involves bringing to light the materiality of the digital, what it implies in terms of materials, costs and labour. We put forward these perspectives as a way of domesticating the digital and dispelling some of its mystery to make it more adapted to the needs of heritage work.
A History of Participation in Museums and Archives Traversing Citizen Science and Citizen Humanities, 2020
This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a foc... more This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a focus on historical and contemporary developments in museum practices in Norway and Sweden. Relationships between research, policy, and practice frame our investigation of the ways in which participatory practices may or may not work in democratic ways. We first consider democratization aspects of crowdsourcing in a historical context, before examining how these are furthered in more recent trends of curatorial boundary work with source communities and participatory design practices. The following questions are posed: In which ways are museums reformulating and contributing to contemporary notions of democracy, heritage and participation? When participation shifts from idea or value to actual practice, how does the participation of different publics become a force of transformation in museum practices, values, and modus operandi?
How does a craft reinvent itself as 'traditional' following cultural, social and political upheav... more 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.
"Gowlland takes his reader on a captivating journey into a world of craftwork that has undergone seismic change since the era of Chairman Mao. A combination of rich ethnography, refined analysis and the author's hands-on understanding of the potter's materials and techniques convincingly demonstrates that craft knowledge and aesthetic appreciation are deeply embedded in the political. This is a highly significant book for all scholars of craft and material culture."
Trevor Marchand, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2024
This article presents a reflection on the adaptability of an age-old practice, dry stone walling,... more This article presents a reflection on the adaptability of an age-old practice, dry stone walling, to address the loss of biodiversity precipitated by locally changing agricultural practices and a globally changing climate. The 'Art of dry stone walling, knowledge and techniques', inscribed in 2018 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, involves building walls with locally sourced stones without the use of mortar. On relatively homogeneous agricultural land, walls offer precious surfaces, nooks and crannies, for plants and animals to grow on, nest in or move along from one patch of woods to the next. With a focus on practices in Switzerland, the article explores how a new awareness of the ecological potential of dry stone walls is shaping the craft and the composition of the communities of practice that have developed around them.
Third World Quarterly, 2022
For Indigenous people, what one knows and how one gets to know what one knows are political issue... more For Indigenous people, what one knows and how one gets to know what one knows are political issues that have repercussions for self-determination and cultural resilience. This article reflects on the intersection of skilled practices and the politics of indigeneity among the Paiwan people, one of the 16 officially recognised Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. The revitalisation of crafts have for some years been key to cultural revitalisation efforts, as well as an avenue for Paiwan people to gain an income, importantly allowing individuals to work in the community and avoid migration to the cities to find wage labour. The article presents an ethnographic vignette of the activities of an initiative pairing knowledge holders with apprentices, before setting this initiative in social and historical context. The theoretical thread of the article develops Clifford’s ideas about ‘articulation’, the notion that Indigenous people are constantly engaged in the negotiation of needs that are often at odds, namely the desire for cultural continuity and self-determination, and the need to adapt to the demands of life in a settler colonial society. I argue here that it is fruitful to understand the social life of skills in Indigenous communities as shaped by such processes of articulation.
Craft is Political (D Wood ed.), 2021
There is an affinity between the terms ‘indigenous people’ and ‘craft’: both tend to be character... more There is an affinity between the terms ‘indigenous people’ and ‘craft’: both tend to be characterised as being about ‘tradition’ and the past. But they are more usefully defined in terms of contrast: indigenous people distinguish themselves from settler populations in order to claim collective rights, whilst crafts are identified in contrast to other forms of material culture – art or mass-produced items, depending on the context. These contrasts are continually remade and reinforced. As such, this chapter argues, ‘indigenous crafts’, the craft practices that contemporary indigenous people are engaged in, are to be understood as fundamentally innovative, and fundamentally political.
In exploring this idea, the chapter considers some of the craft revitalisation projects initiated by Taiwan’s Austronesian-speaking people, officially recognised since the 1990s as ‘indigenous’. Borrowing the concept of ‘articulation’ from James Clifford, I consider how artisans and activists engaged in craft revitalisation projects negotiate the desire for continuity of indigenous cultures with the realities of living in a settler society. Craft projects give visibility to indigenous cultures, counter the effects of state assimilationist policies of the past, and provide income opportunities for indigenous youth. Craft objects are also used as props in state discourses on nationalism, and as part of indigenous protests. The chapter looks at the attitudes of past and present colonisers towards the material culture of Austronesians, before considering specific examples of indigenous crafts and the artisans who are reinventing these practices to make them relevant for the society they live in.
Ethnos, 2019
This article uses a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing th... more This article uses a reflection on the quality of the time of enskilment as a way of addressing the relationship between sociality and enskilment. I look at key moments from my field research and learning experience in the workshop of a Taiwanese craftsman. The analysis of these moments reveals the complex, multimodal nature of the interactions between mentor and learner. I use the concept of enchronic time (Enfield) to trace these interactions as they unfold in the situated time of learning. In such contexts, I argue that there is no qualitative shift between sociality and enskilment, and we should thus conceptualise social interactions as being an integral part of the resulting technical skills, dispositions and work ethics of the learner.
JRAI, 2020
This article considers the implications of the adoption of cement and concrete as building materi... more This article considers the implications of the adoption of cement and concrete as building materials in a mountain settlement of the Paiwan, one of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. The presence of these materials in an indigenous settlement might at first glance be interpreted as a sign of cultural assimilation. This article suggests rather that, by paying close attention to the ways in which locals engage with the changing properties of imported materials in work and daily life, a more complex understanding can be gained of the negotiated relations of power between indigenous people, the state, and market forces, as well as the role of materials in these negotiations. For the Paiwan, creative engagements with foreign materials and their changing properties have, at various moments, represented ways of adapting to the pressures to assimilate, or, conversely, resulted in expressions of cultural resilience.
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2021
This article presents a reflection on a particular category of objects often found in ethnographi... more This article presents a reflection on a particular category of objects often found in ethnographic museum collections: traps. It asks what might be particular to this kind of object, and what these particularities might teach us about making exhibitions, whether specifically about traps or not. I argue that traps can teach us about particular ways of engaging with objects that mobilise what I call “empathetic imagination”. In the conclusion, I reflect on how exhibitions can use artefacts in ways reminiscent of traps to facilitate such engagement.
Pre-print version of chapter included in The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in M... more Pre-print version of chapter included in The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion, edited by Urmila Mohan and Laurence Douny (29 October 2020). London: Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003086031
This special issue is based on the proceedings of an anthropological workshop organized at the Mu... more This special issue is based on the proceedings of an anthropological workshop organized at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. It took the unique approach of reflecting on the intersection between the subdisciplines of visual anthropology and the anthropology of craftwork. Still and moving images are routinely used by anthropologists of crafts and techniques, yet the literature investigating such images critically is scarce. Arguably images of craft-making have certain characteristics that make them stand out as special cases of visual data derived from ethnographic research. Contributors here reflect critically on their own image-making practices in the field, and address a range of issues relating to fieldwork methodology, images of craft as objects in their own right, and participatory image-making practices.
In this article I compare video footage I recorded during two separate studies on craft ceramics,... more In this article I compare video footage I recorded during two separate studies on craft ceramics, in China and Taiwan respectively, to reflect on the way images might contribute to theoretical reflections on embodied practice in craftwork. In the first, key moments captured by the camera illustrate, and help us to understand, local conceptions of craft and ethics of skilled practice, yet these moments are fleeting and their value unlikely to be recognized by a casual viewer. An analysis of the second video footage, in which a Taiwanese master ceramicist is brought to “unpack” his skilled knowledge when in the role of a teacher, reveals another way in which images can bring viewers to access otherwise “invisible” dimensions of skilled practice.
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 2012
This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization ... more This article discusses some of the consequences of collectivization and subsequent privatization of handicraft in China in the second half of the 20th century on ways of learning and modes of apprenticeship. It argues that, after the privatization of the ceramics workshops of Dingshu, Jiangsu province, an ethos of sharing previously introduced by collectivization continues to
determine the paths of transmission of practical knowledge and facilitates exclusion of access to knowledge from community outsiders.
The Journal of Modern Craft, Jan 1, 2009
Springer International Handbooks of Education, 2014
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2018
This article reflects on the relationships between artefacts newly collected by ethnographic muse... more This article reflects on the relationships between artefacts newly collected by ethnographic museums and the digital images that illustrate such artefacts in museum archives and catalogues. Taking three examples derived from collecting activities and ethnographic fieldwork in China and Taiwan, the article reflects on the potential of images to not simply "contextualise" artefacts, but to shape the relationships that are established between museums, the makers of artefacts, and the related source communities. More specifically, through three cases it is discussed how images can: 1) come to position makers within a tradition, 2) offer solutions to issues of rights over designs, and 3) link the collected artefact to the land from which materials were gathered. In the concluding discussion, four aspects of "images of collecting" are discussed: their materiality, their role in the creation of value, risks of misinterpretation, and responsibilities involved in editing and selecting images.
Journal of Nordic Museology, 2018
In this introductory essay to the special issue, we identify key common themes that are developed... more In this introductory essay to the special issue, we identify key common themes that are developed in the article contributions. We start by attending to the qualities of what we call “digital heritage ecosystems”, and we reflect on the varied affordances that digital tools and platforms offer. We go on to address the complex political dimensions of digital heritage, and how structures of authority relating to heritage are constructed and can be destabilised by the digital. Finally, we take a look at what goes on behind the scenes of digital heritage initiatives, what is involved in setting up digital platforms and keeping the systems running.
This involves bringing to light the materiality of the digital, what it implies in terms of materials, costs and labour. We put forward these perspectives as a way of domesticating the digital and dispelling some of its mystery to make it more adapted to the needs of heritage work.
A History of Participation in Museums and Archives Traversing Citizen Science and Citizen Humanities, 2020
This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a foc... more This chapter examines ideas of museums as sites of participatory democracy and design, with a focus on historical and contemporary developments in museum practices in Norway and Sweden. Relationships between research, policy, and practice frame our investigation of the ways in which participatory practices may or may not work in democratic ways. We first consider democratization aspects of crowdsourcing in a historical context, before examining how these are furthered in more recent trends of curatorial boundary work with source communities and participatory design practices. The following questions are posed: In which ways are museums reformulating and contributing to contemporary notions of democracy, heritage and participation? When participation shifts from idea or value to actual practice, how does the participation of different publics become a force of transformation in museum practices, values, and modus operandi?