Craft Production in Complex Societies
Multicraft and Producer Perspectives

[Also Available in Paper]

Edited by Izumi Shimada

320 pp., 7 x 10
Cloth $60.00s
ISBN 978-0-87480-921-3
Archaeology/Anthropology

The study of craft production is a complex and challenging one that illuminates key aspects of the material, organizational, and ideological interests, values, and capacities of a given culture.

Many crafts are treated as separate, but are actually practiced concurrently and in close proximity to each other, facilitating crucial interaction. There is a need for a balanced evaluation of the roles of producer and consumer in craft production, and the importance of properly contextualized workshop excavations and the definition of the entire sequence of operation in documenting craft production both as a social and material process.

Craft Production in Complex Societies redresses the skewed conception and approach to craft production that have been shaped by studies focused on separate, single medium crafts, finished products, and the consumer. It presents case studies and regional syntheses from diverse geographical areas, time periods, and sociopolitical complexities that break important new ground in the anthropological study of the creative role and social identity of the producer and multi-craft production. It is expected to serve as a key reference in craft studies for many years to come.

Izumi Shimada is professor of anthropology at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Contributors
Gary M. Feinman, The Field Museum
David J. Goldstein, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Takeshi Inomata, University of Arizona
William H. Isbell, Binghamton University
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Yung-ti Li, Academia Sinica, Taipei
Heather M.- L. Miller, University of Toronto
Barbara J. Mills, University of Arizona
Linda M. Nicholas, The Field Museum
Susan Elizabeth Ramírez, Texas Christian University
Barbara L. Stark, Arizona State University
Peter S. Wells, University of Minnesota