Overview
Today it is not uncommon to find items in department stores that are hand-crafted in countries like Thailand and Costa Rica. These ""traditional"" crafts now make up an important part of a global market. They support local and sometimes national economies and help create and solidify cultural identity. But these crafts are not necessarily indigenous. Whereas Thailand markets crafts with a long history and cultural legacy, Costa Rica has created a local handicraft tradition where none was known to exist previously. In Global Markets and Local Crafts, Frederick F. Wherry compares the handicraft industries of Thailand and Costa Rica to show how local cultural industries break into global markets and, conversely, how global markets affect the ways in which artisans understand, adapt, and utilize their cultural traditions. Wherry develops a new framework for studying globalization by considering the phenomenon from the perspective of the supplier instead of the market. Drawing from interviews and extensive fieldwork shadowing artisans and exporters in their daily dealings, Wherry offers a rare account of globalization in motion-and what happens when market negotiations do not proceed as planned. Considering economic and political forces, flows of people and materials, and frames that define cultural and market situations as they play out in the artisan communities of these two countries, Wherry uncovers how authentic folk tradition is capitalized or created.
Full Product Details
Author: Frederick F. Wherry (Professor of Sociology, Co-Director, Center for Cultural Sociology (CCS), Yale University)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.431kg
ISBN: 9780801887949
ISBN 10: 0801887941
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 21 April 2008
Recommended Age: From 17
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
Global Markets and Local Crafts is a must read for anyone involved in a global project that relates to family survival, development of cottage industries, preservation of traditional crafts, or the impact of social, cultural, and political forces on small scaled artisans. -- Caryl Johnson Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences 2008 This thought-provoking book will help build bridges between consumption studies and the sociology of culture, economic sociology, and the sociology of development. -- Joel Stillerman Journal of Consumer Culture 2009 A particularly important and original contribution to debates on cultural production and consumption. -- Piya Pangsapa American Journal of Sociology 2009
<p>A particularly important and original contribution to debates on cultural production and consumption.--Piya Pangsapa American Journal of Sociology (01/01/0001)
Global Markets and Local Crafts is a must read for anyone involved in a global project that relates to family survival, development of cottage industries, preservation of traditional crafts, or the impact of social, cultural, and political forces on small scaled artisans. -- Caryl Johnson, Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences
Author Information
Frederick F. Wherry is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan.
