• Crafting the new city
This synthesising project focuses on the opportunities and challenges facing local making and crafts and their potential to support cities’ sustainable transition that is embedded in local histories and unique skillsets, yet forward looking and responding to urgent ecological challenges. in so doing, this project explores the role and place of manual skills in contemporary urban economies, with a particular focus on post-industrial settings. This sub-project will draw on a European comparative study, with empirical research in France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Romania. Building on expert interviews with policy makers and practitioners and drawing on policy document analysis, this project looks at how different legal, institutional, planning, and educational set-ups shape how local making and crafts practices are pursued, as well as how their contribution to sustainable urban economies is understood and framed. Moreover, this sub-project asks what policy options and consumption practices harness making and consumption practices that are more sustainability oriented, supportive of goals of waste reduction and the responsible use and reuse of resources and materials.
Contact person: Amanda Brandellero
• (Re-) making urban economies. Sustainability Beyond Capitalism
This sub-project focuses on making practices in contemporary urban economies and their potential to facilitate sustainability transformation beyond capitalism. Olga investigates capitalist and beyond-capitalist ontologies and relations in makerspaces; alternatives to work under capitalism; as well as policies that could support local sustainable production.
Contact person: Olga Vincent
- Makers of sustainability
Emanuela Naclerio’s postdoc project focuses on sustainable making practices among micro-entrepreneurs in Turin and France. She explores perspectives on work, identity and production among makers from a comparative perspective.
Contact person: Emanuela Naclerio