Craft, Responsibility and the Search for Sustainability

Abstract

Compared to the output of goods and residuals from the factories of mass-production in the UK, the ecological footprint of craft practices tends to be small and dispersed. Nevertheless, even within these practices sustainability is a significant notion, if, for the moment, primarily in its social and economic dimensions! In the last 20 years or so, environmental improvements have also taken place in craft practices with the removal of many toxic products and processes.

This paper is however, not so much about lessening the negativities of production, for as Braungart & McDonough have said-“being less bad is no good”, it is more about how the crafts can play an increasingly positive role in a future sustainable society.

Sustainable, whether it is applied to societies or development, accounts for the responsibility of the current conscious residents of planet Earth towards their future generations. Responsibility, however, if it implies ethical obligation is “only pseudo-ethical “ in the words of John foster (2008). He points out that the change in the behaviour to adopt the planet- saving ways of life should improve the living conditions of those who make the change happen, and not merely target the wellbeing of their future generation. Taking Foster’s view responsibility, if it is to improve the quality of lives, is not so much drawn from the obligation as it is from the wilfulness of individuals to sustain what they are emotionally attached to and thus care for.

This approach to sustainability concentrates on those primary motivations directed at what should be done now, in the present.

This paper looks at sustainability and craft from the responsibility perspective. It closely observes how care and attention emerge through the process of making and endow the maker with emotional attachment and responsibility not merely towards the made object, but towards every element of place and time which influence the work. We then explore the process in which the relationship between the maker and these elements improves the maker’s sense of self and we discuss how this will accordingly enhance his or her quality of life.

In doing so, qualitative data are drawn from introspection and reflection-in-action of the researcher (MN) over her practice as a jeweller, as well as several conversations and interviews with craft practitioners.

It concludes with a speculation of how craft, as a way of interacting with the world, can help to guide a larger part of society towards a responsible life style and hence make an important contribution to the future development of sustainable communities.