par Corniquet, Claire 
Référence Cahiers d'études africaines, 51, 1, page (87-114)
Publication Publié, 2011
Référence Cahiers d'études africaines, 51, 1, page (87-114)
Publication Publié, 2011
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Pottery is an activity supposedly practiced alone: The potter possesses her own workshop in the village, makes her own pots and the sales are totally for her. Nevertheless, the fields enquiries led in the area of Arewa (central-southern Niger) reveal that at each stage of the "operating chain" (or "chaine operatoire"), the craftswoman is in more or less close contact with others practitioners (as apprentices; craftswomen from her locality and from others localities). Whether these contacts are organized or informal, the gatherings take usually place in the context of some operating chain's stage situated at different scales: Village scale (as the cooking site) and microregional scale (as the clay source and the market). The practice space's sharing generates collective actions, knowledge exchanges and craftswoman's collaboration. When a potter makes a pot, she is not isolated but inscribes her practice in a known and lived world. Her technique is as much marked by her apprenticeship than by her familial, linguistic and villager identity as well as her interactions with others practitioners from her village or from elsewhere. If we admit that every practice is situated and that the situation gives meaning to practice, it becomes imperative to examine the situations of practice as far as the frameworks in which these situations take place. This paper proposes a study of the contacts' points and degrees which link and interconnect the potters from different localities of this area, and the impact of the shared space of practice on the technical ceramics' distribution. Analysing the "context of practice", we would explain the technical configurations of this area. |
