Interface between Local Batik Production and its Transnational Demand: The Case of Batik in Cirebon
Teruo Sekimoto (Institute of Oriental Culture University of Tokyo)
In his paper on craft production in Mexico, Scott Cook emphasizes the need for studies on demand for craft commodities. In the past century, huge literature had been accumulated about technological and artistic aspects of craft production. Especially since the middle of the century, social-economic studies on craft have also proliferated. However, the problem of craft consumption in the modern consumer society, and of how it influences the production side, is left unstudied. This paper is an attempts to combine both production and consumption sides of craft production, focusing on the interface between the local production of Indonesian batik and its transnational circulation and consumption. Existing discourses about Indonesian batik tend to stress the traditional and local nature of batik production. Although this is partly true at the batik making centers in Indonesia, the batik is survived in today’s “high-tech” world because national and global consumerism generates the demand. My point of departure is Cirebon, West Java, where we can find intense interactions between local batik makers and Japanese batik traders. These Japanese are mostly women who regularly visit Cirebon, purchase batik directly from makers there, and sell ones in Japan. Even there is a Japanese woman who has settled at Cirebon, and runs her own batik workshop. I will examine how and why the demand for Indonesian traditional crafts has developed in Japan, and how the resultant transnational transactions have affected craft products and local values attached to them. This process is not a one of unidirectional influence from Japan to Indonesia. Rather, it is a subtle negotiation centering on the image of the traditional in our modern world.
