The Failure of Regeneration Traditional Pottery Handicraft
Joan Hesti Gita Purwasih and Nur Hadi
Educational Sociology, Universitas Negeri Malang, Jl. Semarang No. 5, Malang, Indonesia
Keywords: Failure of regeneration, home industry, traditional pottery, social practice, Pierre Bourdieu.
Abstract: Traditional pottery crafts in rural areas generally take form home industry, containing local wisdom, and
passed from one generation to the next through socialization in the family. However, the condition of the
traditional pottery industry now no longer persists in Paseban Village. Based on these conditions, this research
attempts to explain the cause and the regeneration failure through social practice perspective. This research
employed a qualitative method (phenomenology) and interactive model of analysis. The results showed that
the causes of regeneration failure were influenced by internal and external factors. Internal factors are the
system of division of labor in the family, orientation changes, and socialized. Meanwhile, external factors are
the scarcity of raw materials, job opportunities in other sectors, education, and decreased consumer interest.
The process of regeneration failure occurs from social practices in habituation of family and community
environment.
1 INTRODUCTION
Pottery is one of symbols world civilization. The
pottery is thought to have been around since
prehistoric times. At the time mesolithic, pottery is
used as a container of human bones (Kosasih, 1982).
In the neolithic period pottery is used as household
appliances. In Indonesia, pottery is found in the upper
layers of Sumatran cliffs and the southern coastal hills
of Java, between Yogyakarta and Pacitan, Kendeng
Lembu (Banyuwangi), Tangerang, and Minanga
Sipakka (Sulawesi) (Kempers, 1959).
The existence of pottery as a cooking tool can be
found in the pottery industry of Paseban Village,
Bayat District, Klaten Regency (Indonesia). The
types of traditional cookware produced are wok,
pitcher, and stove.
The development of pottery in the Bayat area is
estimated to exist since 600 years ago. The
assumption can be observed from the relic of
"Gentong Sinaga". It is located at Prabuyeksa Gate in
Sunan Padanaran Tomb complex, Paseban Village.
According to the research of M. Dwi, the tomb of
Sunan Padanaran (Bayat) was founded in 1955 Saka.
The inscription on the Panemut gate is an inscription
that reads "wisayahanata wisiking ratu" indicates the
year of manufacture which means wizard (5), hanata
(5), wisik (5), ratu (1). The writing implies that the
gate was erected in 1555 Saka. (Supantono, 2006).
The description shows that pottery has long been
growing in the Bayat area as an ancestral heritage.
The center of pottery production in Paseban Village
is mostly in production in Hamlet Dolon and Hamlet
Kebondalem.
According to artisans, around the 1950's almost
the population of Dolon Hamlet and Kebondalem
Hamlet livelihood as a pottery crafters for household
purposes. This period is illustrated by the
involvement of all family members in industrial
activities, housing residents still made of woven
bamboo (gedek), large yard for burning and drying
pottery, ash and smoke billowing every day, as well
as the number of trucks carrying the earthenware
vessels.
The condition is now very different. Only a few
people Dolon Hamlet and Kebondalem Hamlet who
still survive to make pottery. The decline in the
number of craftsmen happens every year. According
to chairman of Dukuh Dolon and Hamlet
Kebondalem, the number of craftsmen from 2005 to
2016 continues to decline. In 2005 the number of
craftsmen is estimated to be more than 100. The
number continues to decline, in 2013 craftsmen is
estimated to be more than 80. In 2014 there were 77
craftsmen, in 2015 there were 71 craftsmen, and in
2016 it decreased to 63 craftsmen.
578
Purwasih, J. and Hadi, N.
The Failure of Regeneration Traditional Pottery Handicraft.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 578-583
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Figure 1: Pottery crafters Paseban Village.
The condition of the decline in the number of
craftsmen is expected to continue because most of the
surviving artisans are the older generation (average
age above fifty years). Meanwhile, most of the
surviving craftsmen 's children already have jobs in
other sectors and are not continuing the family
business of making pottery.
The low number of regeneration of pottery
craftsmen in Paseban village shows the differentiator
of this research. In Igbo of South Eastern Nigeria
showed a decline in pottery occurred in the 1980s,
about twenty years after the end of the colonial
administration in Nigeria. In the 1980s the Igbo
embraced Western culture, flooded the market with
modern containers and modern pottery industries,
which eventually led to the decline of the traditional
pottery in late 1980s. (Ali, 2014). In Gujarat (India)
the Prajapati community of Central Gujarat and the
techniques utilized by them in their day to day life as
identity. They inherited the technology of pottery
making from their forefathers. The method of
procuring the raw materials, processing of the same
and ultimately ending up with a final product of their
large energy (Sikdar, 2015).
Some of these studies prove that traditional
pottery crisis occurs globally, including in Indonesia.
Traditional pottery for household use becomes
feasible to be studied as an endangered cultural
heritage. Based on these problems, this study was
conducted to find the cause and explain the failure of
regeneration through social practice theory.
2 RESEARCH METHODS
This research uses qualitative approach. The
qualitative approach places more emphasis on the
quality, process, and meaning not measured by a
certain amount, frequency, and intensity (Denzin and
Lincoln, 2000). The type of research used is
phenomenology. Through the phenomenology of the
shared experience of several individuals can be
caught as a phenomenon (Creswell, 2007)
Data collection techniques used were
nonparticipation observation and in-depth interviews.
The technique of taking informant in this research is
purposive sampling, with four families as analysis
unit. Families are selected based on the variation of
the child forwarding and not continuing. The validity
of data in this research is done through sources
triangulation. Triangulation of sources is done
through interviews of different sources, namely
between artisans, children craftsmen, and chairman of
the craftsmen craftsmanship. Data analysis in this
study using interactive analysis model developed by
Miles and Huberman. The interactive analysis model
consists of data collection, data reduction, data
presentation, and conclusions.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Process of Pottery Industry
Figure 2 represents the procurement process of raw
materials, production processes, and marketing of
pottery. Raw materials are obtained from outside the
village. In the raw materials of clay, crafters are
integrated with the association of land rent in the
village of Mindi. The association is held once a year
when the land lease is over. At the meeting, the
assembly will discuss rental rates and lease locations
in the following year. Integration/bonding
relationship between artisans in the land rent together
gives a positive impact, namely the rental price on
every family head cheaper.
In the raw materials of sand and red soil, the
crafters can obtain for free by searching for their own
(father's labor) or paying for labor (wage labor).
Meanwhile, on damen (straw), uwuh (dried leaves),
and firewood crafters buy and a small search for
themselves. In the process of production/
manufacture of pottery is made through the stages of
mixing soil and sand. Next, the soil is formed, dried,
and rubbed. As a home industry, the division of labor
within the family applies. The formation of clay into
The Failure of Regeneration Traditional Pottery Handicraft
579

pottery is done by women (most of them now are
older generation).
The next process is the first combustion using
straw (damen) or dried leaves (uwuh). After the
process is complete, the pottery is colored using red
soil mixed with water. Then the pottery is burned with
the same material (straw or dried leaves) and added
wood as the main ingredient. Pottery is then sold to
intermediary traders.
Figure 2: The process of the earthenware industry.
3.1.1 Traditional Pottery Product
Figure 3: Traditional wok (wajan).
The cookware in figure 3 is wok (wajan). It is one
of the many products produced in Paseban Village
commonly used for frying food. Users do not have to
worry about crack because the main characteristics of
pottery produced in Paseban Village are fireproof.
There are also another household appliances like pot
for rice cooking (kendil), traditional stoves made of
clay (keren) and clay pot (kwali) with a large size.
According to craftsmen the use of traditional
cooking appliances is now rarely used. Cookware
made of aluminium, iron/steel is now growing rapidly
along with the modernization of household cooking
utensils. In addition, the use of oil stove and gas stove
more evenly, so that traditional pottery cookware
increasingly marginalized.
The impact of modernization of cookware on
Paseban Village pottery is the decline of consumers.
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Pottery is now increasingly difficult to market as
consumer demand is increasingly limited (only
villagers still use firewood).
Lots of pottery in the intermediary trader's house
because it is difficult to sell (figure 4). As a result of
this condition, the intermediary trader's capital does
not return immediately. Meanwhile, many craftsmen
lose money because the cost of production offered by
an intermediary trader (bakul) is almost equal to the
selling price.
Figure 4: One of intermediary trader's house.
3.1.2 Duties of Family Members
The pottery in Paseban Village is produced in the
form of home industry. The role of family members
in this type of industry has an important role because
it acts as a workforce in collecting raw materials,
production, and marketing done by family members.
The duties of the father and son in industrial activities
are to collect raw materials and market the
handicrafts. While the task of mother and daughter is
to make pottery. Activities of smoothing, drying, and
burning pottery done together.
The division of tasks is now rarely found in the
family of Paseban Village pottery craftsmen. The
main cause is that children no longer continue the
family business. Craftsmen who still survive to make
pottery is the generation of parents (most are now
widowed status). Only a small percentage of children
who still continue to make pottery. In general,
children who continue are girls who still live in the
village and have no other job.
Continuity of pottery is very dependent on women
because only they are taught to make pottery. People
in Paseban Village consider making pottery as a work
of women and not suitable for men's work. This
condition is a cultural reality that is still preserved in
traditional rural industries.
Current conditions indicate the role of males in
dysfunctional families. The role of gathering raw
materials and stirring clay attacks is done by part-time
workers. Soil and sand raw materials can be obtained
with labor wage system and raw material for burning
pottery process obtained by buying. Meanwhile, the
sale of pottery is done through an intermediary trader
(bakul). The condition shows a shift in family duties.
The division of labor in the nuclear family is now
shifting to a wider system. The part-time wage
system and the purchase of raw materials have a
major impact on the sustainability of the traditional
pottery industry. The cost of producing the pottery
becomes higher thus the profit becomes lower. In
fact, the selling price of pottery did not increase.
Based on the description, it can be seen that in the
handicraft industry activities of Paseban Village is
included in small industry/household industry which
has the following characteristics.
a. All raw materials are obtained by artisans from
outside the village.
b. Crafters are integrated only in terms of land rent.
c. Most use laborers to obtain raw materials.
d. Each family autonomously produces raw
materials into finished goods.
e. The production process is still traditional.
f. The resulting product is still traditional.
g. Labor in production activities utilizes the
nuclear family (without wages and for the
household). Some developed using labor
services.
h. The division of labor by gender differentiation.
i. The sale of pottery is done through the
intermediary trader.
3.2 Causes Regeneration Failure
Based on the result of the research, the cause of
regeneration failure of pottery craft in Paseban
Village is influenced by internal and external factors.
Internal factors referred to in this study are factors
that come from within the family. Meanwhile,
external factors are factors that come from outside the
family.
3.2.1 Internal Factors
Based on the results of identification and analysis,
internal factors that affect the failure of regeneration
is the system of division of labor, orientation changes,
and socialized. The division of labor in the Paseban
Village pottery industry is influenced by a gender
perspective. The cultural view of the duties that men
and women are supposed to have is firmly held by
society. The gender perspective that is firmly adhered
to in the earthenware craft industry is the skill of
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581

making pottery only inherited and owned by one of
the sexes i.e. women.
Family orientation also changes. Making pottery
in the past must be done by every child in the family.
Many children do not complete primary school
education because they prefer to help families run the
pottery industry. This condition is experienced by the
generation of parents in the family of pottery
craftsmen. Pottery is very valuable to be inherited
because it is the only skill for the family economy.
However, now making pottery is not a requirement.
Many families are no longer continuing the way. The
pottery is then considered to be no longer enough to
meet the economic needs of the family. In addition,
other work sectors are considered more productive for
the family economy. Most craftsmen's child chooses
to work in other sectors. The majority of boys choose
to be construction workers or taking another job
outside the village. Meanwhile, girls taking work as
factory workers, helpers, and live outside the village
(married).
Changes in parent and child orientation occur due
to the failure of the socialization process. Children of
artisans are no longer required and are taught to
continue making pottery. Therefore, slowly the role
of children in the family industry participation began
to be abandoned. Parents expect children to have
better jobs and produce. In a family of artisans with
high production, output children are accustomed to
focussing on education. Meanwhile, in the producers
of medium / low productivity craftsmen parents tend
to be permissive and work at a young age in other
sectors. Now making pottery is not a valuable and
cultural obligation, inherited intergeneration. Pottery
is now seen as a side job to fill the spare time of the
older generation.
3.2.2 External Factors
External factors of regeneration failure of Paseban
Village pottery are raw material shortages, decreased
consumer interest, education, and job opportunities in
other sectors. The scarcity of raw materials and the
decreasing of consumer interest become the obstacle
of the sustainability of the earthenware industry
because it causes the production cost is not
proportional to the income. This condition
encourages some craftsmen no longer make pottery.
Some choose to switch to other sectors because the
results obtained are not enough to meet the needs of
everyday life.
Job opportunities in other sectors have been
exposed since the 1990s by the broker networking.
Most of the youth choose to migrate outside the
village such as Jakarta. The choice to be a
worker/labor worker in other sectors is also much
chosen by the daughter of a family of pottery crafters.
Other factors that affect to the youth generation are
higher education (this condition is only experienced
by families of artisan pottery that has a more
established economy, namely in high productivity
families).
3.3 Regeneration Failure Process
The failure of regeneration in Paseban village pottery
industry does not happen by itself. The regeneration
gap marked by the fewer generations of pottery
crafters is the result of the agents' social practices.
The agent in this study is the family (as a home
industry business unit). The social practice of Pierre
Bourdieu's thought can be translated as "results from
relations between one's dispositions (habitus) and
one's position in a field (capital), within the current
state of play in the social arena (field)" (Grenfell,
2008).
Habitus is a consciousness built through
structures or external conditions that can be observed
through attitudes (dispositions and attitudes). On one
side it is a relation of conditioning: the field structures
the habitus. . . On the other side, it is a relation of
knowledge or cognitive construction. Habitus
contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful
world. (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992)
Capital and habitus affect each other. Both are
sometimes difficult to distinguish with clear
boundaries. Capital is an agent's strength. Capital
itself is not only seen as an economic aspect, but there
is also social capital, symbolic, cultural. The Arena
according to Bourdieu is not only seen as a location
but interrogates more deeply about the ways and
channels obtained to gain knowledge. From Bourdieu
and Wacquant, 1992, “a field is a game devoid of
inventor and much more fluid and complex than any
game that one might ever design. To see fully
everything that separates the concepts of field and
system by the empirical objects they produce.”
(Grenfell, 2008)
Bourdieu's social practice theory helps this
research explaining the phenomenon failure of
regeneration. The social practices that cause this
regeneration failure occur in two large of arenas
(family and society) and actually it takes for the time
process (figure 5). The family arena is the first and
foremost area between children and parents.
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
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Figure 5: The process of regeneration failure.
The family arena affects the generation of
children in deciding whether to continue or refuse to
continue making pottery. In the old days, the
economic capital in the pottery industry is quite
stronger because it becomes the main source of
family livelihood. Social capital among business
networks is well maintained. Both between
craftsmen, traders, and suppliers of raw materials.
The existing cultural capital that time is still strong,
namely togetherness on helping production and
merger of product. They believed that pottery is a
knowledge that must be passed from one generation
to another. The symbolic capital showed by social
position and class that distinguishes between one unit
of pottery industry one and another.
Habitus makes pottery in every family unit into
the field worthy of being at stake. Therefore, pottery
is still considered important in the family, but the
conditions of social domains and practices are
changing. External conditions in the family, not
always static. The pottery began to experience crisis,
the economic capital in each business unit underwent
a decline in turnover. Meanwhile, social capital
between crafters, broker, and seller of raw materials
increasingly tenuous due to economic capital.
Symbolic capital began to change, pottery experience
degradation because it is seen as a job that does not
profit. The new orientation of culture makes pottery
increasingly not firmly held in the family. Because of
these conditions, children do not fully absorb the
culture as a whole (internalization).
In the generation of children, the capital and the
habitus that is formed from the family is very
different from the generation of parents. This
condition is also influenced by the generation of
children outside the core family, such as education,
peers, and social environment of society.Child capital
in the economic field has more networking power in
other sectors. Children get more results by pursuing
other work. In addition, work on other sectors is
considered more proud that social capital in the
generation of children is no longer narrow. Culture
makes pottery increasingly abandoned. Thus, the
pottery is no longer continued. The apparent
condition of the process is the failure of regeneration.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Social practices that occurred in the failure of
regeneration of pottery of Paseban Village occurred
through changes in the accumulation of habitus,
capital, and field in the community. Nevertheless, the
use of Bourdieu's social practices does not place an
important element of time. Time is an important
element that can be used to explain the social changes
that affect the habitus, capital, arena. It is even
possible that the capital and arena undergo changes
that then affect social habits and practices.
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