The Potters and Pottery of Miravet, a Study of Production, Marketing, and Consumption of Pottery in Catalonia (Spain)

Rob van Veggel (rvveggel@midway.uchicago.edu)

Thesis in Anthropology defended in June, 1997 at the University of Chicago

Precis

This thesis is the history of the potters of one village as they made and marketed their pottery, and as they learned of its consumption. At the same time, I show how the production, marketing, and consumption of pots are inherently linked with physical aspects of these objects whose changes over time have resulted from and affected their role in human relations. This history is placed in the contexts of the Catalan, Spanish, and Western European political economies, and thus presents a local perspective on the transition of a society based on both subsistence and market oriented agriculture to one based on a market economy which subsequently becomes integrated in the international market.

Summary of Thesis

This is a study of the potters of Miravet and their pottery. a study of the dialectic between the social relationships which these potters constituted through the production, marketing, and consumption of pottery, and a study of the meaning pottery acquired in this production, marketing and consumption. I trace the history of these people in a southern Catalan village as they produced and marketed pottery and learned about the consumption of their products, from the beginning of this century when their production and marketing of pottery was within a local economy based on both subsistence and market oriented agriculture, to the present as this production and marketing is integrated in a modern international economy. By juxtaposing the local history of this small group of producers (numbering no more than fifty people), to macro histories, I localize the European transition to one single integrated market economy.

The theoretical framework of this dissertation consists of three interrelated premises. The first premise is that the analysis of social relationships that are constituted in interaction with objects, has to be complemented by the analysis of these objects. The second premise is that the social relationships constituted in interaction with objects have to be analyzed by using the mutually encompassing concepts of production, exchange, and marketing. The third premise is that as social relationships are constituted through objects, objects have to be analyzed as differentiated from and categorized with each other according to how people interact with them and constitute their relationships through them.

Throughout this period, Spain remained relatively isolated from other countries. Spain, which had the lowest living standard in Europe, was a basically rural country with a combined market oriented and subsistence agriculture. In this respect the region of Miravet represented an average Spanish region, though it had as part of the "minifundia" zone, a relatively equal land distribution compared with southern Spain.

Within this wider political economic context, I analyze the local situation and the locations of potters and muleteers within it by looking at the several local forms of production with respect to 1) the consumption of means of productions which they encompass, and 2) the forms of exchange of products in which producers engage in order to reproduce themselves.

The village of Miravet formed a close knit, relatively independent community. The people of Miravet judged productive activities and subsequent livelihoods - or powers of consumption - by three values. First they did so by `money'. They valued those in possession of money, or wealth, above those lacking it. Secondly by `food', they valued economic activities with a direct access to food by working of the land above those with an indirect access to food by barter or buying, i.e. exchange. And finally by the weaker and more ambiguous value of `sociability', they valued economic activities to the extent that these activities permitted someone to participate in the local social life. Villagers were circumscribed in their production by the socially distributed access to the means of production. People without access to sufficient land could complement their own agricultural production with the second most desirable access to food - peddling. These were the muleteers. People entirely without access to land could work for a wage, or could produce pottery. As potters, they had the less desirable access to food, but were, unlike the traveling muleteers, permanently involved in the local social life.

As two different parties in trade, potters and muleteers were opposed to each other. Their respective locations in the local political economy implied a power imbalance in their exchanges. Muleteers varied in the amount of land they owned or rented and hence in their dependence on peddling pottery. All potters were equally dependent on the sale of pottery to muleteers. Potters occupied the weaker position and therefore tried to organize themselves against the muleteers to gain advantage in their exchange negotiations.

Pottery acquired meanings in these exchanges. Potters and muleteers reached agreements upon aspects of these meanings. They agreed upon the expression of its value in money and thus its belonging to the category of commodities, and agreed upon the labels for the different types of pottery. But they often contested other aspects. Most importantly, they contested price calculations. These price calculations had two dimensions. The first one was a differentiation of types of pottery based on their physical characteristics and a subsequent categorization of these types in a certain mathematical order. The second dimension in these calculations was the distinction of the product quality, i.e. good or flawed.

Within Miravet, potters and muleteers fell into two political economic categories but were related to each other also as fellow-villagers, as friends and kin. On this personal level, potters and muleteers varied their relationships by mitigating or sharpening their contestations of the meanings of the pottery. This is a variation I analyze using Sahlins' continuum of `generalized reciprocity', `balanced reciprocity', and `negative reciprocity'(Sahlins 1972: 190-195).

Thus potters and muleteers constituted relationships by the exchange of pottery on two levels: the level of political economic categories in which they were pitted against each other and the level of personal relationships on which they as friends and kin could mitigate the tension. Because of these opposing levels, their relationships remained ambiguous. This ambiguity was dialectically related to the agreed and contested meanings of the pottery: as mediating between two political economic categories, the meaning agreed was expressed in money, but as mediating between persons, the price calculation was agreed and contested in relation to the nature of the personal relationship.

During this period, with the exception of the Civil War, Spain constituted one homogenous and free market for pottery, something, which was not the case with all merchandise. Immediately after the war, the trade of the most important food products was regulated by the state. The market area of the pottery of Miravet varied widely. It encompassed villages for which pottery was one of the few products acquired from the outside, and towns in which people acquired the latest European consumer goods.

Within this context, potters constituted relationships with consumers of their products by a particular meaning of the pottery, its `social use-value' or simply `use value' (Marx 1984: esp. 43-53). `Exchange value'(ibid.) was created in and created the relations between potters and muleteers. Use value was created by and created the necessary subsequent marketing by muleteers to consumers and hence also the relations between potters and consumers. Here I combine Marx's conception of use value with Baudrillard's insight of how people differentiate themselves from each other by consuming objects, which are at the same time also differentiated from each other. The knowledge potters have of the consumption of their products is thus inherently linked with their perception of the consumers and, by this knowledge, potters locate themselves in a social space.

Potters knew of the consumption and consumers of their products through different channels: through occasionally peddling themselves, through the orders they received from muleteers, and through their socializing with muleteers and other potters as fellow-villagers. What they knew of the consumers and consumption was a function of the channel through which they acquired that knowledge. This knowledge was more or less detailed with respect to the several forms of consumption and several consumers dependent on a potter's individual location in the network of potters and muleteers. Furthermore, potters combined this knowledge with knowledge acquired by observing consumption and consumers in their own village.

The potters' knowledge of the consumption and the consumers formed a `geography of consumption'. Since the consumption and consumers within this period varied little, one could perceive this knowledge as it pertained to space, that is, as an actual and a semiotic space. The dimensions for this semiotic space are the manner in which pottery, as specified by its physical characteristics, was marketed in the different regions, the consumption of a certain piece of pottery, and consumers as having certain social characteristics. All these dimensions are linked with the actual space and entail differentiations and categorizations of the pottery. I conclude this chapter by analyzing how the social relationships between potters and muleteers, and between potters and consumers of the pottery `form[ed] and constitute[d] the spacetime[s] in which these relationships `[went] on'"(Munn 1983: 280): these different spacetimes were dialectically interrelated but also qualitatively different from each other.

I look at the new relationships potters constituted by their exchanges, including the new meanings pottery acquired in these exchanges, and contrast this with the old relationships and meanings. Moreover, I look at relationships between potters and middlemen and correlate these relationships with the relationships potters constituted among themselves. To analyze this shift in the potters' relationships with middlemen and in their mutual relationships, I apply Sahlins' analysis of historical `events'(Sahlins 1991) observing how the marketing to wholesalers and shop owners was `continuous' with certain socio-cultural structures, how it was discontinuous with other structures, and how the continuities and discontinuities formed a `structure of conjunction'.

During the 1940s, Franco, the victor of the Civil War, pursued a policy of autarky by, among other things, a strict state control of the production and subsequent trade of crucial goods. One of the results of this policy was an extensive black market. Through their different locations in the political economy, potters and muleteers were differently affected by the black market. The tension between them increased, a tension partly expressed in the potters' contestation of the muleteers' appreciation of pottery as good or flawed, and of the specific categorization of the types of pottery in the exchanges between potters and muleteers. Already by the 1930s, the monopoly of muleteers on transportation had been undermined with the development of modern means of transportation, the train, the bus, and the truck.

Incited by the increased tension between potters and muleteers, the two aforementioned potters combined the muleteers' marketing to wholesalers and shop owners with the new means of transportation, thereby forming marketing relationships that bypassed the muleteers as middlemen. Unlike the relationship between potters and muleteers, who were also friends and kin, these newly created marketing relationships were only between parties of opposed interest. Because the tension between trade partners in the previous potter/muleteer relationships was mitigated by friend and kinship, other potters hesitated to follow these two in their new market practice. But in 1948, potters organized themselves in a cooperative in order to strengthen their negotiating position against muleteers, and to explore collectively the new market practice. Using Sahlins' distinction of principles in `economic transactions' as being `reciprocity' or `pooling'(Sahlins 1972: 188), I analyze several forms of cooperation between potters, and why the potters choose for organization in a cooperative, and why this cooperative eventually was to be short lived.

During the 1950s modern transportation developed further and eventually dominated traditional forms of transportation. The muleteers were pushed from the roads by cars and trucks. In the countryside, modernization of agriculture pushed out the landless peasants and small landholders, while urban industrial development attracted them. Typically it was those people who had peddled pottery who now left for the city. Potters were now forced to market their products to wholesalers and shop owners. As fellow-villagers with the same economic interests, potters had formed mutual relationships against muleteers. Initially they still had such mutual relations when dealing with the new clients, but since these clients did not form a social group - i.e. due to their spatial distribution, did not interact with each other - the potters changed their mutual relationships as they at the same time individualized their marketing relations.

In these new marketing relationships, pottery acquired new meanings. The meanings of the pottery as acquired in the marketing relationships between potters and muleteers, were characterized by agreements and contestations. Potters and muleteers had contested the price calculations as based on a certain differentiation and categorization, and a distinction in good or flawed pottery. This contestation was part of the tension between them. With the new clients, potters calculated prices based on another differentiation and appreciation of pottery. Potters and their new clients might contest a price, but they never contested the calculation. In these new marketing relationships, the meanings of pottery, typical and exclusive for the marketing relationships between potters and muleteers, were replaced by simpler meanings, and the pottery as a result of these new meanings became standardized in its actual measurements.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the consumption and consumers of this pottery remained the same, but the channels through which potters learned about them changed as their marketing practice changed. Potters had to deliver their products to the warehouses and shops of their new clients and they thus saw how their products were offered to the consumers, especially how the pottery was categorized in certain kinds of wholesale and retail trade determined by wider categories of merchandising (for instance `hardware').

During the 1960s Spain went through tremendous changes. It became an industrialized and urban country, it developed touristically, and consequently it experienced tremendous economic growth. Of significance for the potters was that the demand for what had previously been their main types of pottery, declined. But the ever-adaptable potters responded by taking new types of pottery into production to meet a newly developed demand. Also significantly, rural wages rose and potters responded to this by investing in labor saving, capital intensive equipment.

As the potters responded to these changes, they made small shifts, but as these shifts were conjoined they had an "effect of a structural synergy"(Sahlins 1991: 68). Here I look at the changing productions of pottery, the changing relationships between potters and clients, the changing relationships between potters, and the changing physical appearance of pottery.

The economically stronger potters bought jiggers and other machinery and increased their unskilled labor force. With these jiggers and increased work staff, these potters produced flowerpots, a type of pottery, which was now in demand. The economically weaker potters could not purchase jiggers, nor at this time invest in machinery or employ wage laborers. They shifted to the production of decorative pottery, though not all the potters producing decorative pottery produced the same repertoire.

All potters acquired clients in accordance with their repertoire of products. Clients themselves could also introduce new types of pottery by bringing models and designs of what they wished produced. Thus in these new marketing relations, the types of pottery became a variable and became identified with that relation: potters could recognize a type of pottery by whom it was produced, and often also for whom. (Clients had hardly any contact with other potters other than their supplier and hence could not recognize the pottery in this way.) The synergetic effect of all these shifts resulted in potters becoming individualized - or differentiated from each other - by their production, their repertoire of products, and their clients.

Concomitant with these shifts, potters changed their relations with the consumers of their products. With the new products, new consumptions and consumers developed. But as potters individualized their repertoires of products, and subsequently their marketing relationships, their knowledge of consumption and consumers became also individualized. Increasingly each potter only knew where, how, and by whom his products were consumed. Now he hardly knew anything of the products of his colleagues. Though potters had individual repertoires and clients, the changes in consumption and consumers coincided with a geographical shift from consumers in rural regions of eastern Catalonia and Aragon to consumers along the Catalan touristic coast and to consumers in cities. These new consumers represented a new group of people with a lifestyle and purchasing power different from that of the potters.

In spite of the recession between 1974 and the mid 1980s, the Spanish economy remarkably continued to grow during this period. The Spanish political structure became more and more incongruous with economics. When Franco died in 1975, Spain underwent a political restructuring. In 1978 the Spanish people voted for a democratic constitution. The economic ties with the European Community had been tightened and after three and half decades Spain was democratic once again. In 1986 Spain joined the European Community. The main result of these changes for the potters was a growing, internationally expanding demand for their products.

Looking again at the local political economy (as I did in the first chapter) I observe that the people of Miravet now judged productive activities and resulting livelihoods basically by the money one made. Because of the growing demand for pottery, potters became prosperous and hence relocated themselves within their political economic context. Pottery making was no longer a deprecated economic activity but was valued with regard to the money one made. This caused and at the same time resulted in a reversal of the power balance in marketing relationships. When selling their pottery to muleteers, potters had been in the weaker position, now with a sellers' market, their clients were.

Next I look at the changes - especially, increasing differentiation - of the potters' relationships with clients and, at the same time, of their repertoires of products and physical characteristics of these products, and of their mutual relationships. In the marketing relationships with muleteers, the pottery was categorized and differentiated independent from the producer and from the muleteer. Now pottery became categorized and differentiated in relation to the producer and to the client. Potters continued modernizing and at the same time differentiating their production. They also continued differentiating their repertoires. Eventually both production and repertoires became almost individual. Both developments together had the result effects that pottery became categorized in relation to the different potters. Simultaneously, potters perfected their products and, as they had done since the 1950s, they based their prices on the quality of their products. As potters differed in the quality of their products and the prices they charged, pottery became also differentiated in price and quality in relation to its producer.

Already during the 1960s, potters had differentiated their clients; some had clients for flowerpots, others for decorative pottery. During the 1970s and 1980s, the categorization of the pottery in relation to the different potters developed in conjunction with an aspect of the development of the marketing relationships. That is, potters differentiated in nature their marketing relationships with respect to their repertoire of products and as to whether clients were Catalans and Spaniards, or foreigners. Potters sold all types of pottery to Catalan and Spanish clients. These clients tended to be shop owners who regularly visited the potters, with whom potters did business over longer periods, and with whom potters developed cordial relationships. Potters sold planters only to foreign clients. These clients were invariably wholesalers with whom potters had only occasional and restricted personal contact over relatively short periods. Furthermore, potters had different trade agreements with Catalans and Spaniards than with foreigners, differences reflecting restrictions of specific types of pottery to be sold to specific clients.

The potters did not explicitly label the people coming into their workshops differently, but they did differentiate by constituting two very different kinds of relationships. The first kind was the relationships with locals, with members of the same community, with whom potters had kin- and/or friendship relations in which the exchanges of pottery, as well as of other objects and services, were embedded. The second kind was relationships with visitors, people coming from afar to visit potter's workshops with whom the potters had relationships based on the trade of pottery. I look at these relationships by assessing 1) the different forms of exchange involved in them, and 2) how potters acquired different knowledge of consumers and consumption of pottery of their products.

In the first part of this chapter, I analyze the potters' relationships with locals. Again I use Sahlins' continuum of reciprocities expressing relationships. But since these exchanges interrelate with the dominant capitalist market exchanges, I have to add to this continuum the factor of market value.

Villagers expressed and strengthened their relations by exchanging their products and services, but as they assessed the reciprocities in these exchanges as a function of their relationships, they also took, in varying ways, market value into account. Potters integrated themselves in this network in a way determined by the physical characteristics of pottery and its production and consumption. Though exchanges with locals were not economically important for potters, they were important as they expressed the potters' integration in their community.

In the second part of this chapter, I analyze the potters' relationships with visitors. Here I look at how these relationships differed from the ones with locals as the latter were based on trade. Therefore, potters charged visitors the market value they also charged wholesalers and middlemen. Moreover, potters understood the consumption of pottery by locals to be different from the one by visitors. In the conclusion of the second part, I analyze the potters' relationships as constituted by their knowledge of consumers and consumption of their products by visitors. In contrast with the relationships with locals, potters clearly located the relationships with visitors in time. I first provide the historical context of the visitors and show how pottery, by its physical characteristics and its specific history of production and consumption, became focus of a newly developed attention. Then I proceed by analyzing how different potters differently understood visitors and their consumption. I look at potters' descriptions of visitors and their purchases, and potters' responses to visitors. I analyze these descriptions and responses again applying Sahlins' conception of historical events. I demonstrate how different understandings of consumption by visitors has lead potters to develop their productions and marketings differently; indeed the main difference was in the way potters understood visitors as identifying the potter with the pottery, and in the way potters identified themselves with their products. Here applying Benjamin's concept of `aura', I show that though exchanges with visitors were not especially profitable for potters, they were important as potters derived self-esteem from them, a self-esteem particular to pottery.

To highlight the difference between the beginning of this century and the present, I apply the same analysis as I did in the second chapter.

At present, the political economic context of the potters' relationships with consumers of the pottery is formed by a capitalist international market for goods being transported across borders and people traveling abroad. To analyze these relationships, I apply again conceptions developed by Marx and Baudrillard.

Previously, potters had acquired through their relationships with muleteers knowledge of consumers and consumption. Potters shared a common knowledge, though one might know more detail about certain types of consumption and types of consumers. Today potters learn about consumers and consumption through their direct contact with visitors in their workshops, through their contacts with distributors by way of orders placed, and as potters themselves deliver orders to distributors' warehouses and shops. Presently, potters acquire knowledge by their differentiated productions, marketing, and self-identifications. Their knowledge of consumers and consumption has become specialized. Hence, this knowledge no longer forms one `geography of consumption' but `geographies of consumption'. In this chapter, I present three separate geographies. The first two geographies represent the knowledge of two potters; one potter producing and marketing large pottery, and the other producing and marketing small pottery. These two potters identify their trade solely as a means of making a living. The third geography represents the knowledge of a potter who produces and markets small pottery, identifying himself as a `traditional' artisan.

This chapter concludes with an analysis of the spacetimes formed and constituted by the potters' relationships with distributors and with consumers. These spacetimes are complex: during the period of the muleteers cyclical aspects dominated, now linear aspects are the norm.