Critical Craft is an effective contribution to the anthropology of craft, of work, and of 'thing' or objects. It clearly demonstrates that there is more to crafts of all sorts than 'tradition,' expertise, and 'authenticity.' Anthropologists and others must be wary of assumptions about who does what kind of work or possesses what kind of knowledge, and we must be, ... Read morelike the authors of these quality essays, aware of the (unequal) agency of individuals and groups as they struggle within the field of any particular craft industry.
Jack David Eller
Anthropology Review Database
This collection admirably addresses, in cross-cultural perspective, the range of implications of such terms as craft, labor, and artisanship, and energetically deploys the topic as a critique and exploration of modernity as well as of the past.
Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University, USA Critical Craft moves the discourse away from the spectacle of the contemporary arts scene and the overly Western bias that prevails in scholarship. It resituates research on production and is as valuable for the questions it raises as for the range of artistic ecologies it mines.
Ezra Shales, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA Show Less