Neo-craft Work as Meaningful Work: Longing for Resonance

Abstract

This article illustrates the most common trajectories that bring workers of different walks of life to undertake a career in ‘neo-craft’ work. This is a postindustrial form of craft work whereby manual occupations that are traditionally considered to be low-status, or performed by the working class, are transformed into ‘cool’ jobs through the infusion of craft principles. Based on extensive qualitative research in the European Union, we show how neo-craft work has been the beneficiary of patterns of exit from other forms of waged work, both preceding and following the pandemic, and document the motivations underpinning these workers’ professional reconversions. Drawing from social theorist Hartmut Rosa, we argue that neo-craft work is considered to be meaningful since it is perceived as a conveyor of resonance, and propose to consider resonance as an emergent dimension of meaningful work.