Abstract:

A research project in Applied Arts and sustainability might have been expected to focus on physical, ecological processes and options directly rooted in craft approaches to making. But the single most important point to emerge was the need to make explicit, to understand, and to develop, the empowering social-symbolic relationships that surround 'craft' as a construct forged iteratively (or interactively) between sets of practices, materials and 'communities' or social groups.

These relationships come together to create, what seem, in effect, narratives of belonging made up of actual and imagined elements. 'Relationship' and 'community' were two words that came up again and again throughout the research.

On reflection, this turn towards a social/anthropological/material-cultural set of perspectives seems logical: if the crafts are to enact more ethically and environmentally sustainable practices, it will likely be through re-orientating and developing the relationships that surround them upon such lines. The question then becomes how best to facilitate and develop these relationships, and to elevate and make explicit the symbolic capital implicit in their ethical and ecological dimensions.

One way to do this could be to widen the debate from subject-specific to multi-disciplinary, and embed the wider understanding of sustainability within the Higher Education curriculum. This paper investigates the role of the research and the pedagogy in cross-pollinating each other.