The Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage from the Perspective of Art Anthropology: Case Study of Jingdezhen's Folk Ceramic Craft
Abstract
The field survey method of anthropology focuses on the method of recording and the contextual research, which exactly meets the methodological requirements for the intangible cultural heritage research. Concerning the study of intangible cultural heritage, it is necessary to go to the people, to the fields, to observe them with the eyes of the insiders, to record them, and to feel deeply comprehended and explore them.
Therefore, art anthropology and intangible cultural heritage protection in China can promote each other and develop together. Ceramic as tangible material culture, it is generally not in the category of intangible culture, however, the inheritance process of Jingdezhen's folk ceramic craft through "oral teaching" between masters and apprentices includes all kinds of intangible cultural elements.
From the angle of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, this article tries to discuss the intangible cultural factors contained in Jingdezhen's folk ceramic craft, combined with related current situations of rescuing and protecting Jingdezhen's folk porcelain techniques，and propose the slogan "saving people and saving environment" to maintain Jingdezhen's folk ceramic craft. At the same time, the maintenance of development of ceramic technique in a living state is the key to saving and protecting Jingdezhen's folk ceramic craft and intangible cultural heritage.
In addition, the negligence of public participation in our current protection practices in Jingdezhen, we should advocate participatory strategies on the basis of understanding and appreciating the differences between emic and etic standpoints, taking advantage of public wisdom and local knowledge, and awakening the cultural consciousness of people. At the same time, it is necessary to prevent the "cultural screening" and "cultural stratification" through the third-party assessment of intangible cultural heritage, the establishment of an emergency list to protect the diversity of our culture.
How to make ceramic craft be better disseminated and inherited, and what other new forms can absorb in the future? It is also a subject that needs our further investigation in the future. In so doing, this article contributes to a growing body of attention in contemporary intellectual history on intangible culture inheritance as well as the anthropology of ideas.