Abstract

Since the Chinese government enacted a series of policies for the protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), there has been a huge impact on the Chinese folk handicraft market and Chinese folk craftspeople. To study the corresponding changes brought by the new “discourse” of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, this paper will conduct a detailed case study on the Dong brocade folk craftspeople in Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, Hunan Province. We will firstly examine the origination and development of Dong brocade folk handicrafts, as well as the formation process of the Dong brocade folk handicraft group. Furthermore, in light of the three forms of capital coined by Pierre Bourdieu, i.e., cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital, it will then be analyzed how the construction and diversification of Dong brocade folk craftspeople’s social identities are realized in the discourse of Chinese ICH, as well as how their diverse social identities will ultimately affect the re-design and re-production of folk handicrafts products. All of these constitute a special identity translation process in the discourse of Chinese ICH.

Keywords

traditional handicraft; identity construction; design innovation; intangible cultural heritage

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Oct 9th, 9:00 AM

The impact of identity construction and diversification of Chinese craftspeople on the design innovation of traditional handicrafts – a case study of Dong Brocade in Tongdao, Hunan

Since the Chinese government enacted a series of policies for the protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), there has been a huge impact on the Chinese folk handicraft market and Chinese folk craftspeople. To study the corresponding changes brought by the new “discourse” of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, this paper will conduct a detailed case study on the Dong brocade folk craftspeople in Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, Hunan Province. We will firstly examine the origination and development of Dong brocade folk handicrafts, as well as the formation process of the Dong brocade folk handicraft group. Furthermore, in light of the three forms of capital coined by Pierre Bourdieu, i.e., cultural capital, social capital, and economic capital, it will then be analyzed how the construction and diversification of Dong brocade folk craftspeople’s social identities are realized in the discourse of Chinese ICH, as well as how their diverse social identities will ultimately affect the re-design and re-production of folk handicrafts products. All of these constitute a special identity translation process in the discourse of Chinese ICH.

 

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