Artisans as knowledge workers: craft and creativity in a long term perspective

This paper proceeds from the observation that critical approaches to the present-day disparagement of craftsmanship often invoke an idealized image of the early modern artisan as basically the other of modernity. While Richard Florida and others reduce talent and creativity to the cerebral capacity to invent cutting-edge products in the context of the global knowledge economy, the late medieval and early modern counterpart of this is considered to be an autonomous artisan focused on the quality of work for its own sake. This is unfortunate because the critical potential of the historical view thus remains untapped. Recent historical insights show that the intellectual and political claims implicit in the work and strategies of late medieval and early modern artisans have a far more radical potential. This becomes clear especially when considering not only the work of social and economic historians (focused on labour) and historians of technology, but also intellectual historians, art historians and historians of science. They have recently unearthed an artisanal epistemology in which the creative capacity of late medieval artisans was not limited to the instrumental invention of new products and technologies but gave access to Gods wisdom and truth and was akin to creating new ways of being. The political potential thereof is illustrated with the political struggles of manufacturing guilds, which in spite of contemporary ideologies sometimes succeeded in being accepted as valuable and rational political actors notwithstanding having to work with their hands. The most fruitful conceptual approaches emerging from this work are based on Foucauldian notions of power and governmentality, in which the economic, the political and the epistemological dimensions are considered to be intimately entangled.

Publication year:2019

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:1

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open