| Abstract: |
Studies of Thai culture tend to focus on Buddhism and state
studies of Thai art tend to focus on art as defined in Euro-American terms. This research report, based on a decade of fieldwork with more under way, is intended as a thought-piece to address ways of ascertaining the Jives of everyday people through everyday things. Our studies of weaving and pottery production in Northeast Thai villages have provided ways to understand not only technology and marketing but also such issues as the relationship of ethnicity to technology
gender roles
social hierarchy of production
and the artistic dimensions of traditional production wherein individuals engage in making more or less standardized products. Weaving used to be a requisite skill for almost every village woman
pottery-making takes place as a seasonal activity only in specific communities that have access to clay. Our current study shows, in particular, how systems of pottery-making technology sometimes align with, but sometimes cut across, conventional ethnic identities, and how earthenware production seems to have provided a portable occupation ford is placed ethnic/ social groups.
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