This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This critical, international and interdisciplinary edited collection investigates the new normal of work and employment, presenting research on the experience of the workers themselves. The collection explores the formation of contemporary worker subjects, and the privilege or disadvantage in play around gender, class, age and national location within the global workforce. Organised around the three areas of: creative working, digital working lives, and transitions and transformations, its fifteen chapters examine in detail the emerging norms of work and work activities in a range of occupations and locations. It also investigates the coping strategies adopted by workers to manage novel difficulties and life circumstances, and their understandings of the possibilities, trajectories, mobilities, identities and potential rewards of their work situations. This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, including students and academics of the sociology of work and labor history, and those interested in understanding the implications of the 'new normal' of work and employment.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of 'doing what you love' continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customisation, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

Craft Economies provides a wide-ranging exploration of contemporary craft production, situating practices of amateur and professional making within a wider creative economy. Contributors address a diverse range of practices, sites and forms of making in a wide range of regional and national contexts, from floristry to ceramics and from crochet to coding. The volume considers the role of digital practices of making and the impact of the maker's movement as part of larger trends around customization, on-demand production, and the possibilities of 3D printing and digital manufacturing.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of 'doing what you love' continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This critical, international and interdisciplinary edited collection investigates the new normal of work and employment, presenting research on the experience of the workers themselves. The collection explores the formation of contemporary worker subjects, and the privilege or disadvantage in play around gender, class, age and national location within the global workforce. Organised around the three areas of: creative working, digital working lives, and transitions and transformations, its fifteen chapters examine in detail the emerging norms of work and work activities in a range of occupations and locations. It also investigates the coping strategies adopted by workers to manage novel difficulties and life circumstances, and their understandings of the possibilities, trajectories, mobilities, identities and potential rewards of their work situations. This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, including students and academics of the sociology of work and labor history, and those interested in understanding the implications of the 'new normal' of work and employment.

Craft Communities addresses the social groups, old and new, which have developed around craft production and consumption, exploring the social and cultural impact of contemporary practices of making. Addressing a wide range of crafting practice, from yarnbombs to Shetlands shawls, brassware to paper crafting, in a variety of regional and national contexts, the contributors consider how craft practices operate collectively in the home, communities, businesses, workshops, schools, social enterprises, and online. It further identifies how social media has emerged as a key driver of the 'Third Wave' of craft. From Etsy to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest, online communities of the handmade are changing the way people buy and sell, make and meet.