Crafting Sustainability: Counter-culture Movements and Sustainable Development Goals

In my blog posts Spooncarving- a ‘gateway drug’ to pro-environmental behaviour and landscape advocacy? and Craft is good for your Health I have been exploring the connections between practising crafts and skills and the benefits for both individuals and society.

Their have been a few social movements that have recognised the power of craft beyond its utility, and I had planned to put together a review to look at these movements and analyse the main features individual and socio-ecological mechanisms underpinning them.

However, with a little digging i came across this wonderful paper Crafting sustainability? An explorative study of craft in three countercultures as a learning path for the future by Hanna Hofverberg, David O. Kronlid,  and Leif Östman from Uppsala University

In it they explore three periods when craft-based movements rose to prominence in western societies:

• 1900 (i) The Arts and Crafts Movement; (ii) The Swedish Home Crafts Movement
• 1968 (i) Hippie Culture; (ii) The Whole Earth Catalogue
• 2015 (i) Woodworking (ii) Makers (iii) “Craftivism”

Their study looks at how crafting might fit into stories about sustainable development from the aspect of education. The authors identify a lack of consensus in what ‘sustainable development’ is and how it should be taught so adopt a broad definition to examining the educational purpose and philosophy of each of these  counter-culture movements which are, by definition, seeking to change or transition from existing social states.

“Sustainable development is a broad multi-level process in which social, ecological and economic processes function together to maintain a resilient socio-ecological system.“

For each movement, its purposes, the desired skills and approaches to learning are detailed (see table below)

They also group the craft movements according to an educational profile

• Perennialist basic knowledge of order, discipline and control to legitimise current heirarchies. Collective social needs downplayed in favour of individual.
• Essentialist Scientific knowledge be transferred to all members of community regardless of class etc ; the creation of functional society based on facts, objectives, tech. Facts as socially useful functions. Theory/Practice dualism. Can result in structural/organisational inertia.
• Progressivisim questions utility and expert-led approach. Socially transformative force. Learning by doing
• Reconstructionist Continuous remodelling of society. Social norms, institutions dealing with facts as social constructs. Consensus/controversy continuum  in education. Matter is not backdrop but inter-meshed with the social

The authors conclude by asking the question does crafting empower its pratcitioners to take action on SD goals

1. Individual vs collective- craft can of course be practised in isolation and can be used to enforce social norms in contradiction to the inclusive nature of sustainable development goals. For instance, the Swedish craft movement in the 1900s was use to teach women ‘good behaviour’. How inclusive is a crafting culture in terms of gender,class, race, environment and non-humans?
2. Crafting as an expression of joy points to a fundamental relationship of the individual with the world. What constitutes beautiful or useful is individual or place-based, and so determines which of the sustainable development goals is given attention
3. Ecological, Social and Economic dimensions produce a tension eg care for the crafts person versus the desire for cheaper products; high quality products although costing more are also more desirable because they should last longer.

This is a really interesting analysis although I was a little surprised that two movements were left out:

(1) Educational Sloyd which was developed by Otto Saloman in the 1900s and could be included with the “Swedish Home Craft Movement but was particularly focused on building character and an appreciation of the beauty of objects and skills to make them in children.

(2) “The Great Reskilling‘ of the Transition Movement started by Rob Hopkins in the mid 200Os This has similarities with all of the other movements although I would place it firmly in the Progressive/ Reconstructionist quarter with the Makers.

Another area of reflection is the idea of ‘craft’ itself and the social connotation. particularly in the west, of crafting, which is often seen as a hobby, or something to return to in retirement, when for a large part of the world making things with your hands is simply skilled work.

Craft is often looked to for its personally and socially transformational potential, but this work highlights the need to look closer at when determining their usefulness in developing sustainable livelihoods. I would like to see a deeper exploration of the educational uses of craft in specific SDG goals.

It provides a useful background to my work where I am asking whether those engaging in a craft for the first time, and also those who are developing a practice, begin a transitional movement into pro-environmental behaviour, or whether that exists as a precondition to taking up a craft. One of the key areas I plan to explore is with craft as a ‘flow’ experience which enables a more intuitive understanding of the natural complexity that exists in the world and therefore provides the basis for a set of problem solving abilities which could be put to good use in building adaptive and resilient communities.