Artisans and Advocacy in the Global Market

The collaborations, cooperatives, and conundrums described in this collection reaffirm ancient traditions even as artisan production and the preservation of cultural identity interact to create a sustainable future that entails new kinds of producer-consumer relations and partnerships. Contributors to this book explore how crafts—pottery, weaving, basketmaking, storytelling—in Middle America and beyond are a means of making an intangible cultural heritage visible, material, and enduring. Each contribution shows how social science research can evolve into advocacy, collaboration, and friendship—activist work that exemplifies the continuing concerns of applied and practicing social scientists in an anthropology increasingly cognizant of both its past and its potential impact on power and equity.