Presentation. Alchemy of the soil

The objective of this monograph is to carry out a reading of popular pottery from an anthropological perspective. For this, the socio-economic and socio-cultural keys within which the trade is developed are fundamental and, therefore, far from any essentialist perception.Then, the analysis that comprise it face the survival of the trade in geographically widely dispersed places (Timor, El Rif, Mexico, Costa Rica and Spain) and under very disparate circumstances, ranging from oblivion and marginality to its political use as a symbol identity, without forgetting in most cases its use as an economic resource linked to tourism. Observing the reasons and the contexts by which, in the XXI century, different cultural frameworks maintain elements of the past protected by their artisan cataloging, we consider that it improves the study of a reality that responds locally to globalization based on dynamics of maximum interest to be analyzed by the social sciences in a rigorous way beyond its generic, egalitarian and merely descriptive classification in the folkloric category.