Visual Artist, Craftsperson, Entrepreneur or … All in One? Identity Struggles and Juggles in Creative Crafts

 

Abstract

Social identity theories explain how identities intertwine with individuals' choices and behaviours. Simultaneously, an institutional context imposes constraints on people's agency due to the norms, habits and expectations it engrains. This is the case in the artistic realm, where numerous categorization norms remain implicit. In the present paper, we examine the links between identity and professional activities in the creative crafts sector, which exhibits characteristics of both contemporary arts and traditional crafts. Employing a mixed methodology that combines survey data and a focus group, we explore the ways in which different identities and professional activities within the market for creative crafts are interconnected. We show ‘how’ creative crafts practitioners self-identify (as an artist, craftsman [artisan], designer, maître d'art and creative entrepreneur) and reveal contradictions between—what we label—individuals' self-attributed identity (self-identification) and positioned social identity (the categorization by others). Notably, the identity of the ‘artist’ emerges as the most prominently promoted one, while that of the craftsperson is found to be more comfortable. Specific instances of identity struggles and juggles are identified. To explain the identity positioning issues faced in this sector, we invoke the nomenclative habits and market activities that prevail in creative crafts. Our empirical data allow us to disentangle two distinct identity strategies, which we label ‘rooted identity strategy’ and ‘floating identity strategy’. Our contributions lie in a more in-depth exploration of identity perceptions within cultural and creative industries, by showing how creative people deal with multiple, sometimes conflicting, identities and discussing how this can affect careers.