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- Convenors:
-
Jamie Coates
(University of Sheffield)
Iza Kavedzija (University of Cambridge)
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- Discussant:
-
Roger Sansi Roca
(Universitat de Barcelona)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
We take inspiration from early engagements with themes of hope, transformation, and the commons in East Asia, but welcome cross-cultural comparisons. Participants will explore the role of 'relational creativity' as a method of hope and transformation from a global anthropological perspective.
Long Abstract:
Creativity, as a practice and a capability, is a mode of relating to the world(s) and each other. It produces distinct socialities, from artistic networks to creative hobbies, which help people navigate change and generate a sense of hope in trying times. Socialities emerging out of creative practices, or relational creativities, have been central to the ways that people in East Asia have responded to fears about the future and concerns about inequalities in the present.
Developing into fields such as ‘hope studies’ (kibōgaku) in Japan, these debates have assessed how the challenges of financial and demographic decline, alongside tragic disasters and geopolitical turmoil, have necessitated new ways of thinking about transformation and building commons within the East Asian context.
In this panel, we take inspiration from early engagements with themes of hope, transformation, and the commons in East Asia, paying specific ethnographic attention to the role of relational creativity in the development of methods of hope and transformation. Treating the phrase 'relational creativity' as a means to inspire different lines of thought, we invite ethnographic reflections that engage with the role of creativity as a relation and a means to addressing uncertainty. While we invite participants to think from East Asia, we welcome scholars focusing on other contexts, such as Europe, to think comparatively across regions as a means to building an anthropological commons.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Yoonha Kim (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. inherit. heritage in transformation Matters of Activity.)
Paper short abstract:
Following the story of a Korean maker of clothing and movements, practising relational creativity through collective clothes making and wearing since the 1980s, this paper explores how East Asian values of symbiosis and flow are enacted through reimagining traditional attire amid ecological crisis.
Paper long abstract:
Radical systematic transformation might begin from quotidian practices, such as putting on another type of clothing. South Korea’s democratisation movements against authoritarian military dictatorship in the 1980s, included not only protesters marching through the streets but also wearing a casual adaptation of traditional Korean garments. A group of college students started a movement that suggests an alternative way of everyday living based on traditional beliefs such as symbiosis and flow. Through practising traditional music, fermenting food, designing traditional clothes and reviving folktales, they have recalibrated relations between humans and the cosmos. Amongst the diverse activities, wearing traditional clothing has been widely accepted by fellow citizens. Symbiosis and flow were donned on bodies across Seoul. Collective clothes making became the work of hope and a way of thinking differently about the future and its possibilities. Reimagining traditional attire continues nowadays in diverse contexts even in the digital realm. Some still aim to generate hope to respond to the ecological crisis by making and wearing traditional Korean garments. Following the sequence of seasons, garments are crafted in relation to more-than-humans such as the blowing wind whilst the structure of the dress affects the inner energy flow. The air flows and circulates through the garment, just like how the human body flows with nature and the universe. East Asian way of understanding the body as a microcosmos is translated through the structure of the garment as well as traditional dyeing and fastening methods, sensually transforming the wearer and their worlds.
Shilla Lee (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how institutionalized creativity fostered from above affects the everyday creativity of local potters and demonstrate how they manage to stay immersed in their craftsmanship by realigning the 'dandori' of work, rearranging the lineal processes of craft production.
Paper long abstract:
Aging and declining population has been an ongoing challenge faced in provincial regions of Japan. With efforts to cope with the difficulties, various forms of regional revitalization policies have been implemented as grass-root and municipal initiatives. Recently, the aesthetics of creativity has emerged as a new keyword in shaping regional policies and is invested with hopes of revitalizing peripheral regions with a new vision.
This paper examines one aspect of the recent interests in representing rural Japan with progressive values, which is how institutionalized creativity fostered from above affects the everyday creativity of local residents. Focusing on a case of Tamba Sasayama’s Sōzō nōson (creative village) policy and the involvement of Tamba potters, I aim to unravel how belief in the panacea of creativity in public policy can create physical constraints in local craftsmen’s everyday craftsmanship by obstructing their immersion in the spatio-temporality of their work. I demonstrate how the local government’s promotion of a new regional value of rural creativity undermines the local potters' 'dandori' (lineal process of work), frustrating their effort to produce a good work, and how the potters manage to remain focused on their craftsmanship, nevertheless.