Situating Craft Guilds in the Creative Economy: Histories, Politics and Practices

手工业行会的流行、作用和做法代表了我们对当代创意部门的认识和理解的一个重大差距。这种缺乏批判性的关注似乎意味着他们是边缘的，怀旧的，和反常的，与其他创造性的子部门，如“数字媒体”。然而，手工业行会显示出一个非常独特的组合的显着特点：异常长期和弹性，具有深厚的历史根源和广泛的文化轨迹;典型的艺术家制造者领导;具体到一个特定的实践范围;质量控制通过专门的美学技能，出生于长期的学徒;空间定义，主要是农村'县'成员相当大的规模;为数百万人创造最容易获得的艺术体验。因此，它们的内部治理深深地牵涉到一系列重要的区别和工作实践，这些区别和工作实践具有悠久的历史和复杂的政治和地理环境。这项研究将研究行会的组织和管理及其在手工业经济中支持会员的功能。将治理和实践结合在一起，它将询问这些对于最近被赋予如此高的国家经济优先级的“创意产业”的更广泛的发展政策有多么丰富的当代相关性。因此，将注意在区域、国家和国际各级将行会置于该部门的正式治理之内。这将包括行业协会组织的历史背景以及与20世纪和21世纪政策主导的、全部门的支助倡议的联系。现在应该及时注意到，所谓的“边缘”行会传统上组织的活动正是现在渴望支持“新的”更广泛的创意产业经济的活动-网络，指导，支持微型企业，促进新市场和促进创新。通过调查行业协会活动的地理分布情况，将解决以下关键问题：网络的动态;从业者领导的实践社区的维持;支持周边地区孤独从业者的长期机制;产品和市场创新;还将研究行业协会在其成员创造性生活中的地位。从历史上看，行业协会已经被理解为提供从业者与同行建立网络的各种机会，展示和销售他们的工作，获得持续的专业发展，并成为从业者领导的网络的一部分，该网络在区域，国家和国际范围内支持他们的手艺。这项研究将询问从业者在他们的职业生涯中，行会在他们的实践中的作用和价值。鉴于艺术和手工艺运动的强大遗产及其相互性和社会主义原则的精神，本研究将寻求了解行会成员的做法嵌入的道德和伦理政治。通过在历史背景下调查工艺政治，研究将寻求质疑和理解工艺政治对当代行会组织的影响。这项研究将提供一个历史和地理位置的分析当代行会在更广泛的背景下的创意产业。目前，手工艺行业为英国经济贡献了30亿英镑的GVA（估计有63%的进一步增长潜力），并雇用了13%的创意部门工作人员（约88，000人），其中许多人拥有公会会员资格。有超过100个自我定义的手工艺行会在英国各地运作，还有更多的行会风格的协会。这项研究将考虑当代手工业行会在促进其成员的发展和创新方面的作用，并将揭示了解行会做法可以为更广泛的创意经济带来的价值。

The currency, role and practices of craft guilds represent a significant gap in our knowledge and understanding of the contemporary creative sector. This lack of critical attention seems to imply that they are marginal, nostalgic, and anomalous, in contrast with other creative sub-sectors such as 'digital media'. Yet craft guilds display a very distinctive combination of notable characteristics: unusually longstanding and resilient, with deep historical roots and wide cultural trajectories; typically artist-maker led; specific to a particular range of practices; quality-controlled through specialised aesthetics of skill, born of long apprenticeship; spatially-defined, with primarily rural 'county' memberships of considerable size; producing work which is the most accessible form of artistic experience for millions of people. As such, their internal governance is deeply implicated in a key range of distinctions and working practices with long histories and complex politics and geographies. The research will examine both the organisation and management of guilds and their functions for their supporting membership within the craft economy. Bringing together both governance and practices, it will interrogate just how rich in contemporary relevance these are for the wider development policies of the 'creative industries', which have recently been given such high national economic priority. Attention will therefore be given to situating guilds within the formal governance of the sector at regional, national and international scales. This will include the historical context of guild organisation and the links to policy-led, sector-wide, support initiatives in the twentieth and twenty-first century. It is timely to note that the activities that the supposedly 'marginal' guilds have traditionally organised are precisely those now being aspired to in support of the 'new' broader creative industrial economy - networking, mentoring, supporting micro-businesses, promoting new markets and fostering innovation. Investigating the geographies of guild activities will address key issues here: the dynamics of networking; the sustenance of practitioner-led communities of practice; long-term mechanisms for supporting lone practitioners in peripheral areas; product and market innovation.The place of the guild in the creative life of its membership will also be examined. Historically, guild's have been understood to offer practitioners a variety of opportunities to network with their peers, display and sell their work, access continued professional development, and be part of a practitioner led network that champions their craft at a regional, national and international scale. This research will ask practitioners about the role and value of the guild in their practice over the course of their career. Given the powerful legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement with its ethos of mutuality and socialist principles, this research will seek to understand the moral and ethical politics embedded in guild members' practices. By investigating the politics of craft in a historical context, the research will seek to question and understand the implications of craft politics for contemporary guild organisations. This research will offer a historically and geographically situated analysis of contemporary guilds within the broader context of the creative industries. At present the craft industry contributes £3 billion GVA to the UK economy (with an estimated potential for further growth of 63%) and employs up 13% of people working within the creative sector (around 88,000 people) many of whom hold guild membership. There are over 100 self-defined craft guilds operating across the UK and many more guild-styled associations. The research will consider the role of contemporary craft guilds in fostering development and innovation for their members, and will bring out the value that understanding guild practices can deliver to the wider creative economy.