Artisanal Knowledge Research Articles

In Pursuit of “Useful” Knowledge: Documenting Technical Innovation in Sixteenth-Century Potosí

This article examines a series of proposals for improving silver refining methods presented to the municipal council of Potosi (in current-day Bolivia) in the late sixteenth century as a means of nuancing current understandings of the Iberian state’s pursuit of “useful” knowledge. Historians have argued that the sixteenth century saw the fostering of an empirical culture, one based on experiential and collaborative practices, in the Iberian world. They have stressed that as artisanal experts and royal officials developed a mutually beneficial relationship, this empirical culture became institutionalized in administrative bodies for the pursuit of useful knowledge. This article focuses on the textual production that resulted from the relationship between artisanal experts and royal officials. It probes the motivations of local officials in generating a textual record of artisanal knowledge. Historians have tended to interpret and actors at the time often stated an interest in inscribing, artisanal knowledge as expertise and experience. However, this article demonstrates that what often motivated municipal officials’ inscription of such knowledge was an emphasis on administrative knowledge as rule-following, in particular, a desire to demonstrate one’s competency as an administrator. This conclusion suggests historians should expand their conception of “useful” to better reflect how early modern actors in the Iberian world viewed their pursuit of scientific and technical knowledge. It also indicates the importance of paying attention to the process of bureaucratic knowledge production when interpreting the written traces of the scientific and technical culture of the early modern Iberian world. This article is part of a special issue entitled “Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge,” edited by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen.

A física da argila: diferentes formas de sentir e interpretar fenômenos físicos

O presente artigo faz parte de uma pesquisa de doutoramento em desenvolvimento no Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação em Ciências e Matemáticas da Universidade Federal do Pará. Uma das temáticas abordadas é o ensino da Física por meio do processo de fabricação de panelas de barro relacionando o saber tradicional ao conhecimento acadêmico. A pesquisa tem como lócus empírico a comunidade tradicional Vila Que Era, localizada às margens do rio Caeté, no espaço rural do município de Bragança, estado do Pará, Brasil. Entre os objetivos da pesquisa, pretendemos registrar os conhecimentos empíricos dos artesãos ceramistas sobre sua produção e principais técnicas. O procedimento metodológico escolhido privilegia técnicas etnográficas no sentido de facilitar o entendimento da relação da Física com a produção de cerâmicas na comunidade escolhida, em especial panelas, buscando estabelecer laços que auxiliem o processo de construção dos saberes etnofísicos observados.

Domesticating Light: Standards and Artisanal Knowledge in Early Astrophysics

Abstract Astrophysics was born in the nineteenth century as a “New Astronomy” (in the words of Samuel Langley, 1884), a knowledge built primarily by amateurs who explored deep space by studying the Sun, stars and nebulae. They were credible enough to interest physicists who did research on the properties of radiation and hence came to constitute a solid and recognised discipline. The aim of this research is to study the contribution of artisanal knowledge in the construction of this new discipline at two distinct moments. The first, when artisans worked to find a standard to normalise the manufacture of the glass with which the lenses of refracting telescopes were manufactured. The most recognised of these artisans was Fraunhöfer. The second moment occurred when the experience of artisan knowledge enabled the manufacture of instruments that improved the traditional classification of the magnitude of the stars. The search for standards led to an alliance between artisans and scientists during the same period in which spectroscopy was carried out. In this case, a unit of luminous intensity was sought that could serve as a standard to classify the stars by their luminosity. Industries, university laboratories and astronomers interested in solar astronomy (such as Karl F. Zöllner), collaborated with the artisan manufacturers of measuring devices, and gave rise to a paradigmatic case of science and industry transfer.

Trading zones in a colony: Transcultural techniques at missionary stations in the Dutch East Indies, 1860 - 1940.

Global histories of technology tend to tell one-sided stories of transfer and exploitation, and they usually analyze the activities of large corporations, nation states or the military. By focusing on missionary societies in the colonial era, this article tells a different story. On the basis of primary sources from German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies, it shows how the application of various techniques at missionary stations was the outcome of transcultural interaction. Although missionaries brought with them tools and materials from home, they remained dependent on the knowledge and skills of local artisans, as well as the material and goods the locals provided. Missionaries’ wives tried to uphold a Western lifestyle but found themselves using local household technologies. The missionary station was a trading zone: Although the abilities of Europeans and Asians to communicate were socially and linguistically limited, they proved able to exchange information and skills in a successful manner. By revisiting the anthropological background to Galison’s trading zone, the authors re-appropriate this concept to improve our understanding of cross-cultural exchange in non-scientific settings.

Performing Histories: Enduring Dyes and Waterways in Artisanal Lives

Water and waterways encircle the coastal community lives and the dyeing practices in the Coromandel region in Southern India. The dyeing practices in this region have transformed over time but the dependence on water resources for dyeing has remained. Whereas the brilliant dyes of early modern Coromandel textiles are widely studied, the significance of coastal water resources and the artisanal knowledge in practicing dyeing remain undertheorized. Both water and artisanal life stories were too fluid to be contained in the early modern travelers’ tales or early colonial scientific expeditions. These studies set a methodological direction where artisanal practices are considered technical and divorced from intellectual knowledge, and this approach has shaped the more recent studies on Coromandel textiles to a great extent. I argue, the insights of the dyer communities in Polavaram, in the Coromandel region, allow us to consider the relevance of salt and sweet water resources, in order to reconstruct the history of Coromandel textiles and to extend our understanding of the multiplicity of historical resources. Master dyer Mukkantieswarudu Rao and the dyers’ first-hand narratives serve as a counter to the early modern traveler W. H. Moreland, colonial botanist William Roxburgh, and dyer Thomas Wardle’s scholarship on dyestuff. My study is based on the triangulation of artisanal knowledge, object analysis, and archival studies. This methodological approach not only calls for the agency of artisans but also suggests how artisanal knowledge can effectively inform the studies on textile, craft, and historical material culture.

Drawn up by a learned physician from the mouths of artisans

This article demonstrates how multi-layered and open-ended the genre of the manual could be. It focuses on the so-called Mayerne manuscript, a seventeenth-century source text, comprising more than 300 recipes and ‘how-to’ instructions. Many of the entries are dated and include geographical and professional information that identify artisans and master painters as sources of detailed descriptions of materials and techniques. The article deconstructs an interpretation of Theodore de Mayerne’s recipe compilation as a handbook intended for practical use, and instead shows that many voices lay behind Mayerne’s extensive documentation of artisanal know how. The article argues that the manuscript was perhaps never intended for publication, but that it provides an exceptional testimony to the practice of an early modern ethnographer of artisanal working methods. A closer look at Mayerne’s practice of note taking as a physician suggests that it functioned as a working tool to document technical and artisanal knowledge of materials.

From craftsmen to laborers: A history of carpet making in Republican China

Beijing and Tianjin hand-woven carpets were once a major export item of Republican China. These carpets were mainly bound for the Western markets, especially the United States. In the late Qing dynasty, Chinese carpets found their way into the collections of wealthy connoisseurs and then, increasingly throughout the 1920s, into the homes of America’s rising middle class. This paper shows that by pursuing a strategy of export maximization, the Republican Chinese carpet industry submitted itself to technical standards set by the American market, as well as to the shifting tastes of American homemakers. This resulted in the valorization of knowledge about foreign market and devalorization of traditional Chinese artisanal knowledge. Eventually, entrepreneurs with direct connections to the foreign market came to dominate the carpet production; weavers were reduced to manual laborers.

Artisans’ knowledge and perception on hand-dug well waterborne related diseases in Dutse mechanic village north-west, Nigeria

This study was conducted to assess the knowledge and perception of artisans in Dutse mechanic village regarding hand-dug well waterborne related diseases with the aid of questionnaire. Data were collected from seventy (70) respondents on selected personal attributes and analyzed using descriptive statistics. All the respondents indicated that there are two (2) wells in the mechanic village. The study revealed that a high proportion (80%) of the respondents actively repair automobiles while 4.3% take part in various trading activities. Majority (70%) of the respondents indicated that microbial pollutants can cause waterborne diseases while minority (30%) of the respondent reported a contrary view. Respondents (7.1%) reported to have been diagnosed of waterborne diseases while majority (92.9%) of the respondents reported that they have not been diagnosed of any water borne disease. However, respondents diagnosed of waterborne diseases specified diarrhoea (1.4%), typhoid (1.4%) and urinary tract infection (4.3%). It can be concluded that the artisans are lackadaisical towards ensuring hygienic maintenance of the wells as clearly revealed in the results obtained in this study. It is recommended that the wells in the village should be covered when not in use coupled with drawing water with a well-kept fetcher devoid of microbial loads. Keywords: Hand-dug well, microbial pollutants, waterborne diseases, mechanic village

Learning a Craft from Books

Abstract The early modern period witnessed a great increase in the production and dissemination of artisanal handbooks, manuals and recipes. A central question is what role these texts played in the transmission of artisanal knowledge. This study explores the case of Dutch silversmith Willem van Laer (1674–1722) who published a Guidebook for upcoming gold- and silversmiths (1721), a comprehensive and well-received manual of the craft. To assess the role of the Guidebook in the acquisition of practical skills in the eighteenth century, this study employs traditional historical methods combined with historical re-enactment. I argue that effective use of the Guidebook depended on complementary hands-on education of master craftsmen, which suggests that the Guidebook was far from a DIY crash course and illustrates that the textual transmission of craft knowledge depended upon, rather than threatened, established routes to craft learning, such as apprenticeships.

Artisanal Craft and Expert Knowledge in Africa: The Neglected Role of Specialised and Individualised Knowledge Practices

Artisanal Craft and Expert Knowledge in Africa: The Neglected Role of Specialised and Individualised Knowledge Practices

Philological and Artisanal Knowledge Making in Renaissance Natural History: A Study in Cultures of Knowledge

AbstractJohn Caius and Conrad Gessner were both medical men who practiced philology at a high level. Caius edited Greek medical texts. He became an expert at finding and collating manuscripts. Gess...

Amate Paper Culture in San Pablito, Pahuatlán, Puebla, Mexico

Amate paper is the results of artisan family labor in San Pablito, in the Otomi indigenous community, Pahuatlán, Mexico. It is a product of pre-Columbian origin, and its production continues today through the transmission of their culture in local families. Its manufacture requires bark fibers from jonote trees. The promotion of tourism transformed artisanal crafts into merchandise and increased demand. As well, it promoted problems with environmental contamination and a high dependence on business intermediaries. In analyzing such production, indicators of sustainability were considered to be social, economic, and environmental. Results show that the primary income generating activity in the community is making amate paper, which preserves continuity in the transmission of ancestral artisanal knowledge. Yet, sustainability of production is low due to excessive use of natural resources, the use of chemicals in the production process, and poor community organization.

A study of the level of management knowledge of woodcraft artisans in Indonesia

A study of the level of management knowledge of woodcraft artisans in Indonesia

Local knowledge about dugout canoes reveals connections between forests and fisheries

Dugout canoes are traditional boat types made from a single tree trunk. This type of boat can reveal unique connections between forest and fisheries in coastal areas: their construction and the species used depend on the local ecological knowledge of artisans and the plant resources available and are also influenced by the type of fisheries in which the canoe will be used. Our objective was to analyze how dugout canoes are constructed, maintained, and currently used in the central coastal region of Santa Catarina, Brazil. The study emphasizes the interaction between the use of forest resources and artisanal fishing in this coastal environment. The data collected were based on interviews with 30 artisans and participant observation. Schizolobium parahyba (Vell.) Blake, Ocotea porosa (Nees & Mart.) Barroso, Ocotea Aubl../Nectandra Roll. Ex Rottb., and Aspidosperma Mart. & Zucc. are the main taxa used to construct the canoes. Many canoe sizes are used, and based on the boat type, the trunk diameters needed to construct them varies from 0.6 to 2.9 m and trunk heights from 4 to 10 m. Different types of canoe are used according to the type of fishing and especially to the environment conditions. The construction of canoes in the region has decreased due to difficulties in acquiring wood, changes in fishing activities, and reasons related to labor and apprenticeship, all causes related to modernization of the society and urban growth. The knowledge of plant species used can contribute to shape policies to improve forest management. The survival of cultural practices in artisanal fishing communities should be stimulated in sustainable development programs, and it involves maintaining ecological and technical knowledge related to fishing and the plant resources used to manufacture and maintain fishing equipment.

Design and the Evolving Tradition of Sanganer Hand Block Printing: Formation and Negotiation of Artisanal Knowledge and Identities Against the Backdrop of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Tradition has been described by heritage studies as a transformative process that is being enforced, reinvented, transformed, denied, or contested, with heritage seen as a construct of the past, present, and imagined futures. The role of craft and design interactions in safeguarding and rejuvenating cultural practices has yet to receive adequate attention against this theoretical backdrop. In order to discuss how design affects craft practices, we studied Sanganer hand block printing’s development amidst increasing design influences in postindependence India. We especially consider the way in which artisanal identities and practice, or intangible cultural heritage, are formed and negotiated when engaged with specific design scenarios and actors; and by studying the varied attitudes and realities of contemporary Sanganer hand block printing from this interdisciplinary point of view, the paper offers new insights into a range of “modern,” “traditional,” and “heritage” craft realities.

Ecologização na agricultura familiar, feiras e produtos artesanais na região Central do Rio Grande do Sul

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7984.2016v15nesp1p104A perspectiva de ecologização da produção na agricultura familiar vem ganhando importância nas últimas décadas. Por meio do resgate de práticas de produção artesanais e de conhecimentos tradicionais, ressignificados sob a ótica da ecologização, os produtos diferenciados oriundos da agricultura familiar têm adquirido espaço e conquistado consumidores. Este artigo procura refletir sobre o processo de transição para a agricultura agroecológica entre os agricultores familiares e assentados da região Central do RS e sobre as experiências das feiras coloniais e agroecológicas como espaços sociais onde ocorrem transações sociais de produtos e signos culturais entre produtores e consumidores. As feiras aparecem como espaços de realização dos produtores e dos produtos agroecológicos e coloniais. Nelas, os agricultores se realizam como sujeitos e são reconhecidos como tais pela comunidade, e os alimentos e produtos chegam ao seu destino final: a compra e o consumo consciente.

What Can Artisanal Production Teach Us About Knowledge and Ownership?

Owning and knowing are concepts that are generally classified separately, the former associated with law and property while the latter falls within the remit of science and research. In this video, ANNAPURNA MAMIDIPUDI explores the ways in which artisanal production undermines this separation. This separation leads to a world in which knowledge can almost exclusively be owned as property. Mamidipudi highlights the fact that artisanal knowledge however is owned not just as property but also as culture, ritual and secret. If we incorporate knowledge into ownership, argues Mamidipudi, it becomes much more difficult to ignore problematic realities about how our goods are produced and at what environmental cost. The research argues that enhanced collaboration between artisanal producers and experts from other fields can yield significant results in terms of sustainability and beyond.

SCIENCE, COMMODITIES, AND CORRUPTION IN THE GILDED AGE

AbstractThis essay argues that categories of corruption and reform, so often used by historians to assess the Gilded Age, are themselves the ideological products of the period's struggles for political, economic, and social power. It does so by exploring fierce disputes over how to value sugar, a crucial commodity in the political economy of the late nineteenth-century United States. Confronted with evidence of massive fraud, the Treasury hoped that chemical techniques would rationalize the collection of sugar tariffs. Instead their introduction enabled the rise of the notorious Sugar Trust, by making it more difficult to distinguish corrupt influence from the legitimate exercise of expert judgment.Sugar exemplifies how Gilded Age battles over corruption should be seen in the broader and longer context of the history of capitalism, in which self-proclaimed reformers have used charges of fraud and adulteration to discredit the knowledge of artisans and workers while mantling themselves in claims to objectivity and reason. Scientific knowledge, far from being the inevitable ally of accountability and good governance, could just as easily be deployed to obfuscate and confuse, and thereby to wrest control of social and economic power.

Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica in early modern scholarship

Georgius Agricola's De Re Metallica (1556) is generally considered a mining text that had some important technical innovations but lacked broader philosophical consequences. This article shows that the opposite is true: Agricola's geological ideas, though innovative, had little immediate impact, but he inverted the contemporary concept of scholarship and its relation to artisanal knowledge by giving Latin scholarly form to the kind of observation-based studies of the earth that had previously been reserved for treatment in the vernacular. In doing so, he extended the early 16th-century trend toward observation-based medical practice to the study of the earth.

Authenticity, Innovation, and the Geographical Indication in an Artisanal Industry: The Case of the Banarasi Sari

Scholars and policy‐makers have proposed Geographical Indications (GIs) as the preferred IPR to integrate traditional knowledge‐based industries into the global market. In this paper I ask under what conditions GIs can address problems of poor but skilled artisans in developing countries and what are their limitations in doing so. Based on a case study of the weaving industry in the city of Banaras, that was granted a GI in 2009 for the Banarasi Sari, I argue that GIs, in order to be effective, must be designed through a participatory process in which ordinary artisans, who are the producers of knowledge, are closely involved. Further the GI must be sensitive to the dynamic nature of artisanal knowledge and allow room for market‐induced changes in production methods. I show that the Banaras GI freezes current production methods in the name of craft preservation while artisans take a dynamic approach to their knowledge even as they demand protection against imitation. I also argue that a GI cannot address problems that arise out of the political economy of artisanal industries. The lessons from this case study may be applicable to other artisanal industries and to livelihoods of millions of artisans in India and elsewhere.