Making a Hybrid Pottery Culture in a Rural Brazilian Town: Some Africa-Asia Entanglements

Paper Abstract: Cunha is a rural town in the São Paulo state with a population of 22,110 inhabitants (2022), 31% of whom self-describe as “mixed race” (parda). Despite its long tradition of Indigenous and African heritage low-fired pottery, exemplified by the work of the rural women pan-makers (paneleiras), the town has gained national recognition for its Japanese-inspired high-temperature ceramics, following the settlement of a countercultural group of artists who established the first of seven Japanese-style wood-fired climbing kilns (noborigama). Drawing on the concept of antropophagia, articulated by Brazilian poet Oswaldo de Andrade (1928) to refer to Brazil’s tendency of “cannibalizing” the culture of the Other to subvert racial and cultural hierarchies, this article explores the hybridization of pottery practices in Cunha. Local ceramicists have integrated the exogenous practices introduced by in-migrants with the endangered culture of the paneleiras. At the same time, in-migrants from Japan played a key role in the reappraisal and revitalization of the work of the paneleiras through the establishment of various institutions. By reinterpreting the cultural and symbolic value of the paneleiras tradition in light of Japan-born sensibilities and concepts such as mingei (folk craft), both groups have contributed to the reinvention of Cunha’s pottery culture, making it an example of minor transnationalism – the creolization of minority cultures without the intermediation of the center (Lionnet & Shih, 2005).