Abstract

Media is not merely a conduit for transmitting messages from sender to receiver; rather, it is an open space where diverse practices surrounding that medium intersect within configurations of people, objects, and machinery. Within this space, meaning and value are collectively produced, reinterpreted and retold, and continually adjusted.

This paper examines “Matsusaka Striped Cotton,” a fabric widely produced and processed in the Matsusaka region of central Japan, then sold nationwide through Edo stores by wealthy merchants from Matsusaka. It begins with a historical overview of the activities surrounding Matsusaka striped cotton, followed by an ethnographic description of a women weavers’ group currently engaged in restoring and transmitting its hand-weaving skills. Through this, it explores how “Matsusaka Striped Cotton” has socially and historically created spaces for practice, and as a medium connecting what to what, or who to whom, it has sustained and structured people’s activities.