Craft as Practices of Knowledge Making, chair

Craft and craftsmanship have received renewed attention in STS and research on sustainable transitions, i.e. seeing craft as innovation and as “boundary-work” between humans, materiality and policy. This panel wishes to further explore the connection between craft, knowledge and sensibilities; how is the world made sensible through craft and through technology? Professionals and practitioners work with their senses: from carpenters smelling logs to find the best ones to build a house with; musicians hearing what notes to compose; weavers getting the correct touch on their handlooms; baristas tasting their way to coffee-craft perfection; and clockmakers seeing the tiny fragments that composes intricate contraptions, just to name a few. What goes on in the world of craft, where practitioners use their hands, bodies, tactile and sensory apparata to create things? How can STS-researchers understand the embedded and tacit knowledge practitioners inhabit and develop? How are sensibilities of craft contributing to knowledge-making and future-making? The panel welcomes contributions that thematize the practices and processes of craft as knowledge making processes. Of special interest are issues that involve local knowledge, social learning, craftsmanship, transformation of knowledge and technology.