After the devastating earthquake of 2001 in Kachchh, Gujarat, large amounts of international aid and rebuilding monies entered an area of India that was formerly less accessible and not well known. Following the reconstruction phase, the Government of Gujarat promoted Kachchh as a desirable destination resulting in a tourism boom. Long recognised as an area of rich craft production, the influx of visitors increased opportunities for artisans to produce products that would appeal to the tourist market.
This presentation focusses on a small artisan collective whose members have been brought together by a local eco-tourism entrepreneur. The collective is non-hierarchical, non-sectarian, and not connected to an NGO or other institutional source of funding. It is a solo operation whose founder’s vision is to combat the marginality of artisans who are not living on frequented tourist routes. The collective provides access to eco-tourism clients who are seeking an engaged tourism experience that includes interacting with and purchasing handcrafted items directly from artisans. Artisan members also share resources, ideas, and know-how obtained from their networks outside the collective.
In aiming to create a collaborative community to raise the visibility of unaffiliated artisans, the collective wrestles with its members’ varied ideas of what constitutes economic self-sufficiency, success, and contentment. The artisans come from different craft traditions and social locations. This paper argues that the affective bonds of friendship and mutual understanding emerging from the collective are among its most meaningful outcomes. Thus while the collective provides a model for living in precarious times, its benefits also rest in fostering non kinship-based social and affective bonds among its members. The challenge is how to scale up to include more members and balance the production of craftwork in the geographic margins with the expectation that artisans transform themselves in order to attract a wider audience.
