Today, crafts are increasingly being (re)valued and supported by a wide range of people, actors and institutions. Although crafts remain under pressure in a society that continues to structurally undervalue craft knowledge and manual labour, the past decade has witnessed a significant increase in research, projects and funding aimed at strengthening the conditions for the revitalization of crafts in contemporary society.

While each of these initiatives contribute to creating the conditions for a broader structural resurgence of crafts, they are driven by different motives and interests, rely on varying definitions of crafts, and consequently include, shape, and exclude specific people, practices, and forms of knowledge in many different ways. As such, crafts can be understood as a boundary object, to which various actors assign different meanings and values, despite not necessarily sharing the same objectives or addressing the same people, practices, and forms of knowledge.

We therefore argue that unpacking the “black box” of the different ways in which crafts are valued is essential for understanding which frameworks and measures not only support the transmission of crafts knowledge, but also enable crafts to fulfil broader societal roles, e.g., as drivers of sustainable transition, social inclusion, or health and wellbeing. The aim of the symposium is therefore to unpack and critically examine different ways of valuing crafts, and to identify common between them, fostering dialogue across scientific disciplines as well as between researchers and societal stakeholders.