Making, Social Identity, and Sustainable Society: Personal Responsibility: Making Society Sustainable - The Contribution of Craft to Self-Efficacy, Social Identity and Sustainability

Abstract

In the 21st century things are easily obtained, often without the knowledge of what brought them into existence. It has been my experience that acquiring the knowledge and skills to fabricate in metal has been grounding and empowering to me.

My hypothesis is that when ‘making’, craftspeople are doing something that is ancient, and they are using their hands to create something that wasn’t there before. They are adding value. My belief is that added value is not only to the materials, but also to the sense of ‘self’.

Evidence shows that working with your hands is good for you (Crawford, 2010) and that the nature of using hands has been part of human development (Sennet, 2008).

Working with hands is fundamentally empowering, and so I believe this is potentially a new way to explore making as a research framework.

I think currently as a culture we teach a relatively limited experience in making, and this therefore allows, in part, the mainstream systems, or macro economics (Mckibben, 2007), to take advantage of a restricted functionality.

The converse of this is the personal acquisition of skills and knowledge in material manipulation. This empowers us through choices and ability. It creates the basis of a sustainable way of thinking.

In using craft making to break the addiction to ‘materialism’, we show how we can empower the individual to disrupt the cycle that constantly feeds ‘new’ into the system. We also improve our relational existence.

This is by a stronger belief within our selves, therefore greater respect to each other (societal), and also greater awareness environmentally.These parts of the Craft pedagogy we do not normally describe.

My paper will explore the connection of craft as a change agent for the individual, and as cornerstone of healthy society in a sustainable cycle.

Linking to my research for the Masters in Entrepreneurship For Creative Practices, I hope to explore making by

• Transformation of found objects to extend their lifecycle

(Functional, Aesthetic, Conceptual)

• Pedagogy Framework for group work and teaching
• Involvement in a community where the maker is still central.

The Philosophical and Ethical basis of the research is from the perspective of how craft, making, and skills acquisition empowers, creates self-belief, and improves the individual in terms of social identity, self-efficacy and attribution.

My premise is that a craftsperson’s experience is one of self-development, a sense of personal responsibility. Thus improving personal responsibility we renegotiate with society, we are also generating a successful ‘social identity’ that is part of wellbeing.

Craft gives us more ethical minds, and allows us to make informed choices and decisions. I believe a key aspect of a sustainable future.