Making livelihoods within communities of practice: The place of guild organisations in the craft sector

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the place of professional networks as communities of practice for craft practitioners who live in remote, rural locations and make their livelihood from their creative practice. The South West region of Britain, has a significant population of craft makers working in a highly distributed manner. Some makers work in small clusters (Harvey et al. 2012) but many work in their own homes or individual workshops. Through in depth qualitative analysis, it locates the ways in which makers develop or join organisations to support their livelihoods, particularly those that distinguish the quality and value of the skilled labour that makes hand-crafted work. Specifically, it explores the role of regional craft guilds for their members, and what members value about these organisations.