Occupational Folklife and Uncertainty Management in Jingdezhen Ceramics Production
Occupational Folklife and Uncertainty Management in Jingdezhen Ceramics Production

Summary/Abstract: This paper is a study of the role of occupational folklife in navigating the ongoing uncertainty within Jingdezhen’s ceramics industry. The study elucidates how ceramists cope with technical, economic and social risks by making full use of a cultural framework based upon three major parts: ritual practices, stabilising social organizations and embodied techniques. Using both historical and ethnographic sources, this essay explores how occupational belief systems, regu-latory guilds, apprenticeship systems, kinship and geographical relationship-based networks have adapted over time to support the ceramics community when confronting major upheavals. In addition, the research shows that this folklife framework is strategic and pragmatic by delving into the contemporary employment of ceramics folklife with resources from semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The article concludes that ceramics folklife represents a key mechanism of uncertainty management through which the ceramics community takes action to exert control, preserve continuity and build resilience amid constant unpredictability.

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