Edited by Kimberly M. Grimes and B. Lynne Milgram With new markets opening up for goods produced by artisans from all parts of the world - craft commercialization and craft industries have become key components of local economies. Now with the emergence of the Fair Trade movement and public opposition to sweatshop labor - many people are demanding that artisans in third world countries not be exploited for their labor. Bringing together case studies from the Americas and Asia - this timely collection of articles addresses the interplay among subsistence activities - craft production - and the global market. It contributes to current debates on economic inequality by offering practical examples of the political - economic - and cultural issues surrounding artisan production as an expressive vehicle of ethnic and gender identity. Striking a balance between economic and ethnographic analyses - the contributors observe what has worked and what hasn't in a range of craft cooperatives and show how some artisans have expanded their entrepreneurial role by marketing crafts in addition to producing them. Among the topics discussed are the accommodation of craft traditions in the global market - fair trade issues - and the emerging role of the anthropologist as a proactive agent for artisan groups. As the gap between rich and poor widens - the fate of subsistence economies seems more and more uncertain. The artisans in this book show that people can and do employ innovative opportunities to develop their talents - and in the process strengthen their ethnic identities. ''No other books that I know of address this newly exciting and current issue of Fair Trade.'' ? Joan Gero - American University ''Extremely significant . . . will be a breakthrough volume in economic anthropology and economics in general.'' ? Stanton Green - Clarion University Kimberly M. Grimes is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Delaware in Georgetown and Director of Made By Hand International Cooperative in Bethany - Delaware. She is also the author of Crossing Borders: Changing Social Identities in Southern Mexico. B. Lynne Milgram teaches anthropology at the University of Toronto and is a research associate at the Royal Ontario Museum. Her articles on the commercialization of Philippine crafts have appeared in the journals Museum Anthropology and Research in Economic Anthropology. (208 pages; October - 2000) For more information - visit Global Exchange's Fair Trade Campaigns
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