Collaborative Craft Capabilities: The Bodyhood of Shared Skills

Abstract With the rise of the Internet, skills, patterns, and ideas are being shared more widely among people engaged in the crafts, which seems to break with some of the underlying assumptions about the lone genius craftsman. Much discourse about craft has been focused on the hands of the artisan, or the “tacit” knowledge used by the maker, but as crafters collaborate in a larger extent some other perspectives could be of use, especially since the surrounding environment seems to take a more active involvement in the production than the mere maker. Increasing Internet prevalence has made this even more obvious, as do-it-yourself instruction and the sharing of skills are abundant in craft forums online, blurring the borders between influences, makers, and situated modes of production. This article examines some concepts and metaphors by which some of the potentials of craft collaborations could be understood. Combining theories of cognition from super-organisms like ant colonies and their “bodyhood” with the “capabilities approach” of Amartya Sen and the concept of educational sloyd, the text builds an associative framework for a perspective on how collaborations actualize new craft capabilities. In conclusion, the article proposes a wider understanding of do-it-yourself activities as a shared endeavor toward expanded collaborative capabilities; do-it-together rather than yourself.