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Aspirational Economies of Self and City: The Values and Governance of Independent Crafters in Columbus, Ohio

Barnes, Jessica Ruth
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408691671

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Geography.
Scholars, politicans, and planners posit entrepreneurship and cultural industries as central to economic growth. My examination of crafters’ mentalities, practices, and material conditions for starting and maintaining their businesses shows that such faith in entrepreneurship requires critique. When entrepreneurs try to start new businesses they not only produce new monetary value in a calculated quest for profits, but also consume goods and services within the urban economy and beyond in an effort to earn multiple types of fulfillment (e.g. personal satisfaction, autonomy). Crafters’ consumption yields income for others, signifying their importance in the circulation of capital, even if they reap little to no monetary rewards themselves. Thus, the majority of aspiring craft entrepreneurs experience entrepreneurship as a consumer industry that is booming on their backs rather than a new paradigm for economic growth and sustainable livelihoods. They consume more monetary value through their purchases than they earn from their sales, thereby resulting in a credit debt. Aspirants see through their neoliberal subjectivities these failures to earn a livelihood as personal faults, which can be corrected by self-disciplining for stricter adherence to discourses built on market logics. Craft economies serve as one example of what I call `aspirational economies,’ systems of production and consumption of resources that embed multiple notions of value, and are practiced by people who focus more on experience and hope for future successes than on immediate material gains. I mean for this concept to trouble the static categories associated with professionalized occupations and consider the lengthy and uncertain trajectories people negotiate in order to establish and sustain livelihoods. Researchers tend to focus on professional artists and formal arts events when studying arts economies, but examining only professionals obscures the informal arts economy and an often larger subculture of aspiring artists and practices of arts production in everyday life. I use qualitative methodology to analyze crafters’ practices, values, use of space, governance, and subjectivity in Columbus, Ohio. I have identified key features of crafters’ mentalities from multiple discourses and practices (online and brick-and-mortar retailers’ selling policies, `the market’ as craft consumers individually and in the aggregate, and crafters themselves). Although many crafters understand their work as an alternative practice of capitalism that embraces other types of value (e.g. pleasure) crafters still require monetary value (either from craftwork or self-subsidies) to be sustainable. I critique the online craft marketplace Etsy.com. I reconceptualize aspirants and professionals relationally and dynamically. Crafters’ status is constantly in flux across identities as entrepreneurs and artists and caregivers. These identities help form crafters’ everyday decision making processes, experiences, and uses of space, and intersect with other identities and responsibilities (e.g. care of children and paid work). The arts labor market exemplifies neoliberal and post-industrial employment trends regarding tendencies of risk, flexible specialization, project work, low or no-pay, and self-employment. Although I use craft economies as a lens through which to understand aspirational phenomena, arts economies and aspirational economies are not interchangeable, but such aspirations may drive behaviors across numerous types of activities beyond the arts.
Nancy Ettlinger, Dr. (Advisor)
Malecki Edward, Dr. (Committee Member)
Munroe Darla , Dr. (Committee Member)
Gibson Chris , Dr. (Committee Member)
209 p.
Economics; Gender Studies; Geography
crafters artists craft art Etsy geography aspirational economies Foucault Columbus Ohio neoliberalism subjectivity governmentality informal women entrepreneur caregiver precarity mid-sized city post-industrial self-employment microenterprise

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Barnes, J. R. (2014). Aspirational Economies of Self and City: The Values and Governance of Independent Crafters in Columbus, Ohio [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408691671

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Barnes, Jessica. Aspirational Economies of Self and City: The Values and Governance of Independent Crafters in Columbus, Ohio . 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408691671.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Barnes, Jessica. "Aspirational Economies of Self and City: The Values and Governance of Independent Crafters in Columbus, Ohio ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408691671

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1408691671
165
© 2014, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Aspirational Economies of Self and City: The Values and Governance of Independent Crafters in Columbus, Ohio by Jessica Ruth Barnes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.