Description

This rich account of potters in a southern Catalan village traces the history of pottery production and marketing and the responses of the potters to changing contexts of consumption. By juxtaposing the local, micro-history of a small group of producers (numbering no more than fifty people) with that of Spain’s changing economic and social climate, the author presents a local perspective of producers as affected by and acting upon global developments, ultimately localizing the European transition to one single integrated market economy. Maintaining a dual focus on subject and object, and thereby combining social and material history, this book demonstrates how physical transformations in the pottery resulted from and affected its role in the social relations people formed as they produced, marketed and consumed it. Rob van Veggel obtained his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago and has since been applying his insights into material culture in product development research, marketing, brand strategy and governmental policies.