Crafts: Between Archetype and Marketing

Abstract

Contemporary craft has gone beyond the pre-industrial stage in terms of technology, transforming into a service sector as well as small and medium industry. Not only does it bring together many of the most technologically and organizationally advanced enterprises, but it also refers to traditional, “craft” ways of production or design. Also, handicrafts and artistic crafts constitute a segment of craft activities. It plays a significant role in modernization and modification of the existing cultural systems by making a more or less conscious selection of elements belonging to both orders defined as traditional and modern. At the same time, craft supplies many reasons to appreciate its contribution to economic and social development. It provides jobs, it is creative and innovative, offering high quality products and services to customers. The aim of the article is to attempt to look at the topic of crafts from a historical and comparative point of view and to fill the cognitive gap by systematizing various concepts of the functioning of crafts. An attempt was made to organize the ways of defining crafts in various countries by characterizing the hitorical, religious and cultural-social dimensions. Then, the marketing potential of crafts, manifested by a large-scale consumer interest in a diversified offer of crafts, was analyzed.