Restarting from Craft: The Case of European Neo-Potters. Insights from the Erc Project ‘Craftwork’

The so-called ‘third wave of craft’ (Jacob, 2012), characterised by the centrality of handmade, sustainable, and small-scale forms of production, often repurposed from a pre-industrial tradition to cater for the modern economy, has emerged prominently in the West as an appealing option for many, especially young workers, in the search for fair and decent work (McCracken, 2022). Within it, ‘neo-craft’ work (Gandini & Gerosa, 2024; Land, 2018) carries a promise of ‘good work’ that expands the distinctive features of craft work as traditionally intended, embedding them in a new and complex set of discourses and practices (Bell et al., 2018; Ocejo, 2017) which directly challenge established notions of the ‘meaningfulness’ of work (Schwartz, 1982). Based on the ERC funded project CRAFTWORK (2021-2025, see: https://craftwork.unimi.it) consisting in a set of in-depth interviews to neo-craft workers and participant observation within their workplaces in Europe, our contribution will explore in particular the experiences and narratives of European neo-artisans which reconvert professionally into pottery. There, ‘using hands’ and the possibility to unleash creativity through the modeling of a natural raw material such as clay is an interesting case study to delve into the features of contemporary handicrafts.This reveals a romanticised understanding of neo-craft work as meaningful work, that is constructed in opposition to other forms of (especially corporate) work and is principled upon the engagement in manual work as a conveyor of purpose and resonance (Rosa, 2010) in the broader context of “the struggles for recognition” affecting modernity (Honnett, 1996). However, the social distribution of opportunities (in terms of both material and immaterial resources) in the struggle for a more meaningful work that underpins these processes is often underestimated, insofar as it perpetuates and reinforces social inequalities in access to these new forms of production and work opportunities.