Units

Center of Cultural Anthropology

The Centre for Cultural Anthropology (CAC) of the ULB is specialised in the fields of religious anthropology, environmental anthropology, historical anthropology, cultural technology, and the study of material cultures. Its fieldworks are mainly situated in Africa, Asia and South America, both in rural and urban settings.

Projetcs

Projet EMKP. Recording the knowledge of traditional potters from Vietnam: A Historical perspective (2021-2024)

In Vietnam, the production of pottery vessels has undergone many changes over the last thirty years, due to the economic opening of the country. On the one hand, tourism and the export of goods has led to the development of new products and new manufacturing techniques. On the other hand, the democratisation of plastic and metal containers engendered a decline in the use of domestic pottery. Also, pottery production – especially cooking and storage pottery – remains largely ignored by scholars working in Vietnam, who generally focus on fine chinaware or ceramics which have long been exported throughout South East Asia. 
Due to a lack of demand, the production of domestic pottery is now in decline and this know-how, which was once important for the social life of communities, is now doomed to disappear. However, they do hold a lot of information that could contribute to our knowledge of the history of common people in South East Asia, which remains largely unknown. 
The main aim of this project is to document, through films and photographs, the entire manufacturing process and uses of domestic pottery in 8 Vietnamese villages where potters belong to 4 different ethnic groups (Kinh, Mnong Rlam, Bana and Co Tu). The comparison of the processes and the confrontation with available historical data will not only allow to approach the history of local pottery traditions but also that of historical relationships between ethnic groups in the area.