Craft and the Creative Economy

According to Etsy, the 'eBay for the handmade', in 2013 $1.35 billion in merchandise sales flowed through their website. While Etsy may be the highest profile online site enabling small creative producers to market internationally, it represents just part of a wider turn to home-based creative micro-enterprise. Enabled by the global distribution affordances of the internet, increasing numbers of creative producers, a majority of them women, are working from home often as a means by which to balance caring responsibilities with paid employment and also to top-up family income.

Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft in the contemporary cultural economy. It addresses why we are now seeing such a significant growth of interest in craft and making; what consumer demand for handmade objects tells us about consumer preferences, authenticity and ethical consumption; and, the cultural work models that underpin craft micro-enterprise.

Susan Luckman is Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the University of South Australia, Australia. She is the author of Locating Cultural Work (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and co-editor of Sonic Synergies (2008), an anthology on creative music cultures and the global economy.