ethnos, vol. 74:2, june 2009 (pp. 229–250) Learning to See Value: Exchange and the Politics of Vision in a Chinese Craft Geoffrey Gowlland London School of Economics, UK abstract This article explores the relation between value and vision, or the ways in which seeing, seeing in a particular way, and failing to see, might all have econo- mic consequences. I address these issues in the context of a discourse I heard from artisans producing zisha pottery, in the Jiangsu Province of China. This discourse concerned the consequences of the inability of purchasers of zisha pottery to ‘see’ the craft, and the need for clients to be taught to distinguish between apparently very similar pots, with the aim of promoting ‘traditional’ methods. The observation of interactions between artisans and their clients led me to suggest that one can fruitfully borrow insights from the anthropology of the senses and of learning to inform anthropological theories of value. keywords Value, vision, senses, China, craft I n the town of Dingshu, in the Jiangsu Province of China, what had since the 1950s been the buildings of a socialist cooperative factory producing zisha pottery have recently been divided up to house about 100 private workshops, mostly occupied by between one and three artisans. All artisans in the buildings carry out the tradition of a craft considered one of the ‘ ive treasures’ of Chinese ceramics. The original factory is famous for having employed, since its creation during the collectivisation era, some of the greatest ceramics masters of the 20th century, and for this reason the buildings of that former institution re- ceive the occasional visit of individual or groups of (mostly Chinese) tourists visiting the area and stopping in Dingshu to purchase some pottery. Most visitors will stop in one of the compound’s ceramics shops to purchase some souvenir on their way to another attraction in the area, though a few might © Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis issn 0014-1844 print/issn 1469-588x online. doi: 10.1080/00141840902940484