Sustaining cultural heritage : the impact of eBannok on the Akha women of Thailand

Abstract

This field study is informed by the principles of social constructivism and the theoretical perspectives of postcolonial theory and standpoint feminist theory. It represents the impact of the Thailand-based artisan cooperative project, eBannok, on the lived experiences of social and cultural heritage of female artisans. The results support a pedagogy and curriculum that focuses on learning about cultural heritage producers, fair trade outlets and artisan cooperatives, and about female producers culturally situated and relational identities in their various discourses. The use of narrative text and visual images reveals an underlying sub-text of significant cultural phenomena as well as several social and organizational ideological issues that contributed to the author's findings. Through exhibiting the lived experiences of the artisans, this methodological design appears to be useful in allied disciplines of photography, communication, and cultural studies. This form of analysis, through bridging the lived with the theoretical, also contributes to the broader notion of social or cultural identity