Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CRAFTWORK (Craft work: Understanding the relationship between identity and work in the context of the future of work)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-07-01 bis 2023-12-31
The overarching goal of the CRAFTWORK project is to produce a new theoretical framework to understand the relationship between identity and work in the context of a society transitioning out of the industrial era and into a ‘post-employment’ scenario, characterized by the emergence of a variety of new forms of work and the coexistence of different forms of employment, occupations, practices and cultures. In so doing, it aspires to contribute to the debate on the future of work, considered as a key societal challenge of the 21st century. To do so, it focuses on ‘neo-craft’ work, an emergent form of innovative craft work characterised by a post-industrial imaginary and a process of resignification of artisanal production into ‘cool’ work. Neo-craft work is conceived to be exemplary of a new form of work that is appealing for workers in a strive towards work meaningfulness, that exudes traditional considerations of job security and economic compensation.
The project has 4 core objectives:
a) the mapping, classification and description of ‘neo-craft’ work across different sectors and geographical contexts within the EU;
b) the in-depth investigation of the relationship between neo-craft workers, their identity, and their lived experiences of work, with a peculiar focus on class and educational background, gender, race and ethnicity, life aspirations and occupational trajectory, and social status;
c) a better understanding of the role of digital technologies in neo-craft work and in relation to its depiction as ‘cool’, meaningful work;
d) the development of a new theoretical framework to understand the relationship between identity and work in the context of the ‘post-employment’ society, from a sociological perspective.
The project has 4 core objectives:
a) the mapping, classification and description of ‘neo-craft’ work across different sectors and geographical contexts within the EU;
b) the in-depth investigation of the relationship between neo-craft workers, their identity, and their lived experiences of work, with a peculiar focus on class and educational background, gender, race and ethnicity, life aspirations and occupational trajectory, and social status;
c) a better understanding of the role of digital technologies in neo-craft work and in relation to its depiction as ‘cool’, meaningful work;
d) the development of a new theoretical framework to understand the relationship between identity and work in the context of the ‘post-employment’ society, from a sociological perspective.
The initial phase of the CRAFTWORK project has consisted in the undertaking of a preliminary, extensive literature review of the different strands of multi-disciplinary research concurring to the definition of neo-craft work, and the contextualisation of its societal relevance as an innovative form of work. This has been foundational to the execution of Work Package 1, which has resulted in the achievement of the first core objective of the project, consisting in the mapping, classification and description of neo-craft work across the EU, using data collected from digital platforms by way of digital methods. This has allowed to establish who are the main actors in the emergent context of neo-craft work in the EU area, where they are located, and how neo-craft work should be understood in relation to the urban/rural divide, leading to the development of a pan-European picture of neo-craft work initiatives across different sectors. In its second and current phase, the CRAFTWORK project is pursuing its second core objective (through Work Package 2), which consists in the in-depth investigation of the relationship between neo-craft workers' identity and their lived experiences of work in relation to 5 key dimensions: class and educational background; gender; race and ethnicity; life aspirations and occupational trajectory; social status. So far, qualitative research comprising of interviews, participant observation and ethnography has been conducted across 8 countries: Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Malta and Germany, including 40 interviews with neo-craft workers and producers. The project team comprises of the Principal Investigator and 4 postdoctoral researchers.
The first main achievement of the project has been the development of a definition of neo-craft work as an innovative form of work and its contextualisation as a new form of work from a theoretical perspective. This will result in a publication in a major journal in the field of organization studies (article currently accepted and awating publication), which represents a significant advancement and breakthrough in the study of neo-craft work in the context of the future of work. A second main achievement has been the successful experimentation of the use of digital methods for the mapping of neo-craft work across the EU area. This represents a major methodological breakthrough for the study of forms of invisible work using digital data, thus opening up to the possibility of mapping forms of work that cannot be adequately represented in existing and official statistics in new ways and representing a first and innovative attempt at using digital data in the context of studies on work and employment. By the end of the project, it is expected that a novel theoretical framework for the understanding of the relationship between identity and work in the post-employment society will be developed, using neo-craft work, and that the CRAFTWORK project thus fully realises its core objectives and overarching goal.