Genius loci: between handcrafts, cultural heritage and local development

Abstract

From a cultural perspective, handcrafts are among the few resources that can be mobilised locally and play a key role in defining a place. In fact, they may help to delimit, structure and identify a place within a network and/or social and cultural system. Handcrafts can therefore play a significant contribution in strongly characterising places and their genius loci. This paper aims to define the role of handcrafts in the process of place construction and how it can contribute as a resource in the creative milieu to support local development, by using the contributions of two phenomenological authors, Norberg-Schulz and Binswanger. In our approach, handcrafts as cultural capital are considered to be a product (output) and a resource (input). Without neglecting the former, through which the craft of the place is directly exploited, we will focus on handcrafts as part of the production process along two different lines. Handcrafts, as an asset - participating in the production process of a good - are used to achieve a specific goal and have a precise cultural, social and economic value. Therefore, it is important to understand how this resource - the specific know-how of a place - becomes an asset. Secondly, handcrafts affect and influence other resources to generate new activities and values of a different nature.