Anchoring craft : The object as an intercultural and intertemporal unifying factor

This study focuses on the potential of objects in craftwork activities, specifically in wooden boat building. Following Marchand (2009), traditional crafts are understood as being primarily direct and un-alienated work. The monograph addresses two polar trends in scientific conceptualisations of craftwork: eliminating objects from skill-focused analyses of crafts (Sennett, 2008) and eliminating the cultural and historical potential of objects in craftwork (Risatti, 2007). Objects appear as entities, defining craft, primarily through their practical physical functions (Risatti, 2007). Conceptualising the unifying ability of craft objects only in terms of their practical physical function makes them indistinguishable from objects in other modes of production. This situation requires putting the unifying potential of objects in craftwork into a broader perspective. This study analyses the object as an intercultural and intertemporal unifying factor. Here, history refers to the chronological record of events embodied in an activity. Culture refers to shared features developed in a particular geographical locality where the activity in question is situated. This study aims to move beyond general interpretations of craft revival using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), with the core principle of the approach being a focus on concrete activities, specifically object-orientedness (Leontiev, 1978; Engeström, 2015b). The notion of an object of activity helps to ground motivation in the objective world and facilitates an understanding of why people do things. In this study, the notion of an object is used as an entity for anchoring crafts — as a way to understand concrete cases of craft revival. CHAT was put into discussion with two theoretical approaches, both of which have similar aims of understanding the role of objects in the emergence of social and subjective phenomena. Actor-network theory (Latour, 1996a, 2005) deals with humans and nonhumans as actor-networks in heterogeneous socio-technical networks, and the epistemic approach proposed by Karin Knorr Cetina (1997) deals with epistemic objects as centres of socialities. The general research question for the study is as follows: what is the potential of an object in reviving and preserving crafts? This general research question is analysed through two specific secondary research questions: 1. What is the potential of an object in craft as a unifying factor across cultures? 2. What is the potential of an object in craft as a unifying factor across history? The methodological approach of CHAT constitutes the methodological framework of the study (Engeström, 2015a, 2015b). The data were collected by means of a longitudinal, multi-sited ethnographic approach (Falzon, 2016; Marcus, 1995). Interviews offered the opportunity to extend a present-focused ethnography into the past and future by introducing a subjective and historical perspective (Gubrium & Holstein, 2005). The photo-elicitation interview method (Harper, 2002) was used as an instrument to establish dialogue between two distant groups of boat builders. Qualitative data analysis methods, specifically thematic analysis, were used to analyse the data. The data for the study come from three wooden shipyards in Finland, Russia and India, collected between 2012 and 2014. All the shipyards were producing similar usable wooden vessels at the time. The Finnish research site was a shipyard in the Suomenlinna fortress. Professionals, working in the dockyard as entrepreneurs, included a shipwright, several skilled boat builders and a number of apprentices. Boat builders repair, restore and construct a variety of vessels — from small boats to old galleass — on the premises of the Suomenlinna shipyard. One recent major project was the construction of a replica of an 18th-century rowing gunboat named Diana. The Russian research site was the Solovetsky Shipyard, situated on Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. The shipyard is part of the Maritime Museum, where a replica of a 17th-century historical ship named St. Peter was a central part of museum’s exhibit. A group of mostly amateur carpenters carried out all the work, including wooden, metal and electrical work. The Indian research site was located in the village of Frasergunj in the state of West Bengal. It involved assessing how one of the building crews constructed large wooden fishing and cargo boats following traditional techniques and design. The building crew, consisting of up to ten men, was quite hierarchical, with knowledge and skills being transferred in a traditional master-apprentice manner. The potential of the object as a unifying factor across cultures was traced in the process of exploration of prospects for constructing object-oriented intercultural understanding between the Finnish and the Indian boat builders by the means of photo-elicitation interview. Building sustainable understanding was conceptualized through the process of construction of a shared object. The potential of the object as a unifying factor across cultures was that the object of activity was able to expand across cultures. The expansion of the object happened through differences in the object, which were essential for an attempt to establish understanding between practitioners from two different cultures. The potential of the objects as unifying factors across history was studied through analysing the role of objects in the historical development of activities. Analysis focused on interviews with those involved in two cases of historic wooden boat building in Finland and Russia. The potential of the object of activity, which acted as an intermediary object in the historical development of such an activity, resides in its ability to compress the efforts of the subjects at a specific point of the activity. This compression powers the development of activity across time. By working on the object, subjects propel history forward. The historical development of craft activities in the data appears as a heterogeneous intertwining of four lines of history. The movement across one particular line occurs through resolving tensions and conflicts by working on an intermediary object — a certain instantiation of the general object of wooden boat building. The potential of the object in craft is that the object of activity instantiates differently in various concrete cultural and historical circumstances, specifically through cultural and historical features accumulated across time and space. Study of the object of activity offers the possibility to compress human efforts into a certain point of time and cultural moment, and thus, to expand activities across temporal and cultural boundaries. The unifying factor of the object in craft resides precisely in its diversity, in its cultural and historical features or differences, formed by specific local circumstances. The primary contradiction in the craft of wooden boat building is the movement between adhering to old ways (following the ancient craft or even replicating history) and responding to new practices (building a boat that satisfies market demands). This constant back-and-forth movement becomes visible in the everyday work of craftsmen as certain tensions and struggles arise. Wooden boats mediate the relationships both within and across communities of craft workers. They are a way to make history and culture tangible and alive, transferring it further into the future. Potential future research may be in analysing how digital technologies are utilised in craftwork and how they are transforming the intentionality and socio-materiality of traditional crafts.