Community as a landscape of intangible cultural heritage: Basho-fu vn Kijoka, a japanese example of a traditional woven textile and its relationship with the public

This article explores the concept of community as a place which engages with self and other in safeguarding IntangibLe CuLtural Heritage. By observing a scheme piloted by the Japanese government to promote traditional craft industries, I will show how a cultural form and its practitioners are attached to a particular place, and how the government s support of traditional craft products invites outside evaluation and consumption of those products. The case study of a traditional woven textile, Kijoka-no-Basho-fu, produced in Okinawa Prefecture, suggests that community allows practitioners to embody the time-space configuration of their work and also frames the public perception of this work as tradition . Cultural heritage within a community creates a site where one may recognise one s self through one s experience of outside values and social change.