Explorations in Craft Sciences

Abstract

The field of ‘Craft Sciences’ refers to research conducted across and within different craft subjects and academic contexts. This book aims to build on the breadth of topics, source material, methods, perspectives, and results that reside in this field, and to explore what unites the research in such diverse contexts as, for example, the arts, conservation, or vocational craft education. The common thread between each of the chapters in the book is the augmented attention given to methods—the craft research methods—and to the relationship between the field of inquiry and the field of practice. A common feature is that practice plays an instrumental role in the research found within the chapters, and that the researchers in this publication are also practitioners. The authors are researchers but they are also potters, waiters, carpenters, gardeners, textile artists, boat builders, smiths, building conservators, painting restorers, furniture designers, illustrators, and media designers. They are in different career stages and have varied contextual backgrounds, but all have an academic education and are either doctoral candidates, Post doc researchers, university lecturers, or professors in their own field. The authors are mainly situated in a Scandinavian context and draw on very different research traditions such as the arts, educational and cultural sciences, meal sciences, and conservation, and from particular craft subjects, like boat-building, gardening, and weaving. With this we are aiming to broaden the field of educational craft sciences to include skilled manual work in materials also outside the definition of arts and crafts, but still not venturing into sports, music, or the medical context such as dentistry or surgery. While contributors in this anthology speak with voices that reflect their disciplinary diversity, we do not aim at defining or differentiating between arts, crafts, or design as we find these categories unhelpful, but rather think that these creative practices have more in common than what separates them.