Role of community in knowledge transfer and production of new potters at the Maenam Noi kilns in the province of Sing Buri, Thailand

Abstract

This study examined the role of the community in the inheritance of knowledge and the creation of new generations of potters at the Maenam Noi kilns in the province of Sing Buri, Thailand, using qualitative methods and field study. The sample included 10 pottery experts active in the community who had at least 20 years of experience in pottery at Maenam Noi. The study was carried out with in depth interviews, nontheory-based event analyses, and analytic induction. It was found that in the inheritance of knowledge and process of creating a new generation of potters working in the Maenam Noi kiln community, the elders and inheritors exhibited readiness to instruct and to receive knowledge, respectively. That is, the possessors of knowledge, or instructors, had accumulated experience that had developed into a personal attribute that could be passed on. The learners, for their part, showed love, boldness, patience, ambition, creativity, consciousness, and the skill to apply what they learned after having received it within the context of their socio-cultural environment, increasing their knowledge and participating in collaborative learning until it crystallized as knowledge that could be passed on to the next generation.