Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MAKING FUTURES CONFERENCE: THE CRAFTS IN THE CONTEXT OF EMERGING GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY AGENDAS, Plymouth, İngiltere, 17 - 18 Eylül 2009, cilt.1, ss.96-104, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
Traditional handcrafts have been going through a somehow familiar historical course in Turkey: Through the establishment phase of the nation-state, from mid-1920’s, the new republic had a strong claim on the concept of traditional crafts as a cultural legacy, a constitutive element of the to-be-constructed national identity for about three decades. Exhibitions, ethnographic museums, academic studies were common practices employed to reinforce the nationalist idea of a continuous and noble craft tradition as a proof of the existence of the national culture. However, the same process of republican development also aimed to create an industrial society. The radical change in production and distribution processes with succeeding introduction of industrialization, state capitalism, corporate capitalism and free-market economy not only made it impossible to sustain the craft practice as the dominant mode of production, but also transformed the cultural meaning of crafts. Today, many practitioners either complain about the lack of official support from the state, and consider quitting the practice because of monetary problems, or switch to a so-called degenerate mode of craft production, that is, for cultural tourism.