Cover image for Critical craft : technology, globalization, and capitalism
Critical craft : technology, globalization, and capitalism
Title:
Critical craft : technology, globalization, and capitalism
Author:
DeNicola, Alicia Ory, editor.
ISBN:
9781472594853

9781472594860
Physical Description:
xvi, 298 pages ; 24 cm.
Contents:
Introduction: Taking Stock of Craft in Anthropology / Contentions: Who Authors Crafts? Producing Woodcarvings and Authorship in Oaxaca, Mexico / Forging Source: Considering the Craft of Computer Programming / American Beauty: The Middle Class Arts and Crafts Revival in the United States / Designs on Craft: Negotiating Artisanal Knowledge and Identity in India / Nomadic Artisans in Central America: Building Plurilocal Communities through Craft / Conundrums: Number in Craft: Situated Numbering Practices in Do-It-Yourself Sensor Systems / Vision of Excess: Crafting Good Chocolate in France and the United States / Creativity, Critique and Conservatism: Keeping Craft Alive among Moroccan Carpet Weavers and French Organic Farmers / Refashioning a Global Craft Commodity Flow from the Central Philippines / Conflicts: Conflicting Ideologies of the Digital Hand: Locating the Material in the Digital Age / Materials, the Nation and the Self: Division of Labor in a Taiwanese Craft / Craft, Memory, and Loss: Babban riga robes, politics, and the quest for "bigness" in Zara City, Nigeria / Crafting Muslim Artisans: Agency and Exclusion in India's Urban Craft Communities
Abstract:
"From Oaxacan wood carvings to dessert kitchens in provincial France, Critical Craft presents thirteen ethnographies which examine what defines and makes 'craft' in a wide variety of practices from around the world. Challenging the conventional understanding of craft as a survival, a revival, or something that resists capitalism, the book turns instead to the designers, DIY enthusiasts, traditional artisans, and technical programmers who consider their labor to be craft, in order to comprehend how they make sense of it. The authors' ethnographic studies focus on the individuals and communities who claim a practice as their own, bypassing the question of craft survival to ask how and why activities termed craft are mobilized and reproduced. Moving beyond regional studies of heritage artisanship, the authors suggest that ideas of craft are by definition part of a larger cosmopolitan dialogue of power and identity. By paying careful attention to these sometimes conflicting voices, this collection shows that there is great flexibility in terms of which activities are labelled 'craft'. In fact, there are many related ideas of craft and these shape distinct engagements with materials, people, and the economy. Case studies from countries including Mexico, Nigeria, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and France draw together evidence based on linguistics, microsociology, and participant observation to explore the shifting terrain on which those engaged in craft are operating. What emerges is a fascinating picture which shows how claims about craft are an integral part of contemporary global change"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographical References:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Field 805:
npmlib 10602167 10701939 (c. 2) GN406 C725 ysh
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