Craft and sustainable development: reflections on Scottish craft and pathways to sustainability
By Emilia Ferraro, Rehema White, Eoin Cox, Jan Bebbington and Sandra Wilson
1. Introduction
This paper discusses the potential
contributions of craft to the transition to more sustainable societies.
Craft, we argue, offers a number of leverage points where links between
its economic and educational models and pathways to sustainability
emerge. The paper, thus, contributes both to alternative and more
creative definitions of “sustainability”, and to current debates on the
“persistence” of craft and its role in “modern” societies (cf.
Greenhalgh, 2006). Craft, we believe, can be seen no longer as existing
against or in spite of modernity; on the contrary, in the context of
sustainable development, it clearly emerges as “a modern way of thinking
otherwise” (Adamson, 2009:5).
We begin with an introductory
debate on the definitions of craft and the changing meaning of
sustainable development over time. Using the data of a scoping study we
undertook on the craft sector in Fife, East Scotland, we then discuss
the common ground and leverage points between craft and sustainable
development and make some concluding comments.
A remark about the authors is in
order here. ‘We’ are three scholars in sustainable development, one
scholar in art and design and the owner of a craft gallery. ‘We’ are at
the same time two professional craft practitioners (one in jewellery and
metal design and the other in furniture design), one ‘novice’ and two
‘hobbyists’. All of u share interests in and multiple engagements with
sustainable development and craft that range from mainly theoretical to
very practical involvement. It is this interdisciplinary background and
array of different personal experiences that inform the discussion of
both craft and sustainability put forward in this paper. Read complete paper
Introduction from: Craft and sustainable development: reflections on Scottish craft and pathways to sustainability
Full paper published in craft+design enquiry ; Issue 3 Sustainability in craft and design
Image: Forms of craft enterprise discipline in Scotland