Surviving Traditions: An Archaeology of the Senses

Institutions were a condition of survival — but what determined survival was how each community responded. In Jeju, designation brought status and constraint together; in Okinawa, interviewees described post-designation support as limited — private lineages kept the stage alive; the Bunun community examined in this study declined government support (the Council of Indigenous Peoples) to keep its autonomy and chose independent operation through church funding.

Transmission was reproduced not by individual holders but through the participation of the community. Audiences, patrons, and community members were active agents who kept traditions alive, not passive beneficiaries.

Embodied knowledge was transmitted not through documents but through shared practice and sensory experience. Transmission happens through bodies, places, and relationships.

Across the three cases examined, private participation emerged as a key foundation of survival — but by itself it did not guarantee sustainability. What sustainability mechanisms do communities organized around embodied practice need?

(Hypothesis) Institutions and communities play complementary roles rather than opposed ones. If keeping a tradition's form is the domain of institutions and systems, keeping its meaning alive is the domain of the private sphere — the third sector.