The CRAFTWORK project (2021-2025), funded by ERC Starting Grants (2020), is a multi-methodological study of the lived experiences, cultures and practices of ‘neo-craft’ work across different sectors and geographical contexts in the EU. Hosted at the University of Milan, Department of Social and Political Sciences, led by Prof. Alessandro Gandini (PI), the overarching goal of the CRAFTWORK project is to produce a new interpretative framework to understand the relationship between identity and work in the context of the ‘new forms of work’ of the digital era.

The CRAFTWORK project investigates the subjectivities and pathways to work of ‘neo-craft’ workers, their perception of class location, and their cultural conceptions of social status. At the same time, it questions the distribution of ‘neo-craft’ work across the urban-rural divide, and the role of social media within this context. The CRAFTWORK project represents the first large-scale, theoretical and empirical inquiry on ‘neo-craft’ work, currently hidden in existing statistical data. Contextually, it experiments an innovative combination of digital methods and qualitative research for the study of innovative work cultures and practices.

Latest Updates

4 April 2023

“Craft and creative cultures” workshop, Milan

31 October 2022

“Reimagining platforms” workshop, Edinburgh

17 May 2023

“The future of work” roundtable, Dublin

15 June 2023

“The future of work” panel, AOIR Flashpoint Symposium, Naples

15 June 2023

“Work and workplace of the future” (ERC event)

1 June 2022

“Global Digital Cultures” conference, Amsterdam

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 948982)