Manifestations of social resistance in craft processes

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze craft objects that could contain inherent meanings of social, cultural, ecological or political resistance. The creative processes of makers from the Iku and Nasa indigenous peoples of Colombia and the Sami people of Sweden have been studied. The paper encompasses a theoretical reflection on the communicative capacity of objects and their implicit meanings as well as of the basic concepts of resistance and craft paired with a brief description of the Iku, Nasa and Sami indigenous peoples. An analysis of the manifestations that could be considered as resistance in the studied artisanal processes is brought forward through 11 interviews with artisans and the paper proposes a final reflection on how craft objects can have the capacity to communicate social, cultural, political and ecological resistance.

Keywords

• Craft
• design
• indigenous peoples
• social resistance
• social sustainability