Bibliographic Details
| Title: |
Making meaning, making a living: historical transformations of handicraft labor and cultural identity in China. |
| Authors: |
Lin, Feiyang1,2 (AUTHOR), Ma, Zhiyao1,2,3 (AUTHOR) Mazhiyao1971@163.com, Shen, Yao1 (AUTHOR) |
| Source: |
Labor History. Sep2025, p1-22. 22p. 1 Illustration. |
| Subject Terms: |
*LABOR economics, *ECONOMIC competition, HANDICRAFT, CULTURAL identity, ASIANS, SYMBOLISM, ORAL history, CULTURAL property |
| Geographic Terms: |
CHINA |
| Abstract: |
This study examines the historical transformation of labor patterns, identity construction, and value practices among Chinese handicraft workers under the influence of national ICH policies and the market economy. Based on oral history interviews with ICH representative inheritors and participatory observation, the research reveals the following findings. First, handicraft workers have undergone identity transitions over a long historical process, from artisans to workers and then to representative inheritors, with their livelihood negotiations continually adjusting in response to institutional changes. Second, within a framework shaped by both incentives and discipline under the ICH system, handicraft workers negotiate their official identity and societal expectations through strategic cultural practices, gradually establishing their own cultural subjectivity. Third, through innovative transformation of traditional techniques, narrative construction, and performative labor, they endow handicrafts with new symbolic value and thereby realize contemporary expressions of tradition. This study reveals the interwoven relationship among livelihood, identity, and meaning-making, arguing that meaning-making has become an indispensable component of handicraft labor, through which workers’ agency and historical positioning are manifested at the intersection of cultural politics and economic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: |
Business Source Index |