This dissertation explores the ways that the woodcarvers of Inami, Japan locate themselves and come to be located within the national imaginary. How does a group of craftspeople such as this continue to participate in a seemingly pre-modern, ‘traditional’ world? It explores the ways that reproduction takes place, both in economic terms and in the ways that carvers perpetuate their identity as ‘traditional’. From the position that is the ‘traditional’ carver, one is able to accrue a charisma that allows the carvers to have a certain amount of control over their sense of identity. At the same time a pervasive view of the dichotomy ‘modernity’/‘tradition’ does have an effect on their ability to flexibly negotiate their place in Japan. Apprenticeship comes to be a focal point around which the various actors assert interest in shaping the nature not only of what it means to be an apprentice but also for that very reason, of what it means to be a carver. The ability of carvers to respond to the changing world around them depends to a certain extent on their ability to redirect popular understanding of the very nature of modernity itself.
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