Traditional Craft Skills Research Articles

The affective micropolitics of craftivism: Organizing social change through the minor gesture

While craft foregrounds the material, embodied, and affective nature of making practices, it also has capacities as a political resource which recognises the value of everyday materiality in creating the conditions for change to emerge. In this article, we explore these possibilities by focusing on craftivism, a diffuse social movement that uses traditional craft skills of hand making to address a wide range of complex societal and organizational causes and challenges. We draw on an empirical study of craftivists to explore how they use craft as a political resource to organise change by generating affective relations between people and material objects in physical and online spaces. We argue that minor gestures of craft, developed through practices of reclaiming historically defined, domestic, and feminine handcrafts, constitute a distinctive repertoire of contention and enable craftivism as a journey of change in the minor key. This helps us to think about change differently, where making is a form of change itself that is at least as significant as the destination of the resulting change. We thus draw attention to activism that subverts traditionally oppositional approaches to organizing resistance and surfaces complex coalitions directed towards individual, community and societal transformation. Such craft practices subversively bring together the politics of the domestic sphere with broader grand challenges, thereby subtly altering how we perceive traditional means of political engagement and different forms of activism. Our contribution offers deeper understanding of the affective potential of minor gestures of craft from the lived experience of those who use craft as a form of organizing change through creative, material, and affective practice. Affective micropolitical acts such as the habits, rhythms, and routines of craft are generative in the sense that they attune us to social change in the minor key.

Cross-Cultural Histories and Traditions Between the Cut and Engraved Glass Scenes of the UK and Japan

Recent research conducted by Heritage Crafts, a prominent national advocacy organisation dedicated to preserving traditional heritage crafts in the UK, has unveiled a concerning trend: several traditional craft skills teeter on the edge of extinction within the UK. This revelation stems from the Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts, an initiative which identifies crafts facing the risk of endangerment. In their recent 2023 publication, Heritage Crafts highlighted the distressing decline of cut and engraved glass craftsmanship in the UK, categorising and placing both brilliant cutting (as endangered) and copper wheel engraving (as critically endangered) on the Red List of Endangered Crafts in the UK. This means that these crafts pose the risk of not being actively practised. In December 2023, the alarming downturn of these crafts in the UK was explored and discussed during a conference held at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), entitled Edo-Kiriko: The Art of Japanese Cut Crystal. This event explored the cross-cultural connection and exchange that exists between Scotland and Japan, drawing upon a rich historical exchange that saw the transmission of Western-style glassmaking from Scotland to Japan in the 1870s–1880s. It also details the more recent exchange that has been in place between Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the Horiguchi Kiriko glass studio in Tokyo, Japan. This modern-day exchange has seen the recent transmission of glass-cutting skills through a masterclass led by Toru Horiguchi at ECA. This paper presents this conference, introducing the invited speakers and creating a commentary on the proceedings and the plenary discussions that unfolded. Focus and discussion will be given to the factors that have contributed to the current decline of cut and engraved glassmaking in the UK and the possible measures that could be taken to support and safeguard this field. The final part of this paper will offer a reflection on the conference proceedings and will conclude by making an urgent call for the future of cut and engraved glass craftsmanship in the UK. It is hoped this paper will draw attention to the urgent need for support from education and funding bodies, to safeguard and protect these vital heritage crafts, which boast a rich history in the UK.

An Examination Of Traditional Craft As A Component Of Tsangaya System Of Education In North Central Zone Nigeria

An examination of traditional craft as component of tsangaya system of education in north central zone Nigeria. A survey research approach and a Multi-Stage Cluster Sampling procedure. Data was gathered from 297 respondents drawn from tsangaya schools from 3 selected states in north-central Nigeria, kwara, Nasarawa and Niger State. The collection of data was using a questionnaire that was structured and well-validated. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the data analysis. The outcome revealed the overall mean score of 3.93 for the ten skills needed as agreed by the respondents. The overall mean score of 3.71 of the five attitudinal items as agreed. The overall mean score of 4.05 of the four awareness statements listed as agreed. The cluster mean score of 3.46 shows serious challenges towards Traditional Craft Skills. The findings show that awareness has the highest Beta value (B=0.729, P<0.05). The findings supported the formulated hypothesis, therefore, we reject H0. Followed by attitude with (B=0.400, P<0.05) the findings also supported the hypothesis, therefore, we reject H0. The challenges had the lowest Beta value of (B=0.022, P<0.05) and also have a significant impact on the traditional craft skills. The findings equally supported the formulated hypothesis, therefore, we reject H0. In conclusion, attitude and awareness had a serious impact on entrepreneurship skills acquisition program. Hence, Adj.R2 of 98.6% as shown on Table 5 is an indication of another 1.4% unexplained factors that are not considered in this study. Therefore, its recommended that Governments at all levels (Federal, State and Local governments) should come up with more effective means of supporting the traditional craft in Tsangaya School’s system in north central Nigeria

Pärandtehnoloogiline käsitööuurimus: lähenemised ja väljavaated / Craft research and traditional technologies: practices and perspectives

The article provides an overview of the practices and perspectives related to craft research and traditional technologies as studied and taught in the Estonian Native Crafts Department in University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. Academic craft research is discussed in the context of neighbouring disciplines in the humanities, such as ethnology, semiotics, archaeology, art history, and conservation, amongst others. Against this background, the distinctive traits of craft research are foregrounded. The article also aims to position Estonian craft research amongst its peer disciplines. We hope that it sparks constructive discussion and further cooperation with interested partners in order to advance craft studies in general.
 Within the framework of an academic institution, craft research inevitably involves difficulties that need to be overcome as academic knowledge is traditionally considered to be abstract, and not skill-related. Traditional craft skills are part of intangible cultural heritage, therefore it is important to pay them due respect in research and higher education.
 The Committee of Craft Terminology was established in 2016 at the initiative of the Estonian Native Crafts Department. The definition of craft skills they work with is: the combined set of manual, bodily and intellectual practices that form part of intangible cultural heritage, the usage of which produces examples of material culture. It is acknowledged that traditional craft skills are not objectively given, but are constantly constructed by the masters of craft as well as by researchers. In craft research orientated to traditional technologies the following objects of study may be listed: artefacts, technologies, materials, tools and workshops, master skills. The chief research questions are: how are artefacts made?, what skills does this require?, what are the reasons behind doing certain things? This article focuses on the application of practice-led research, drawing on examples from four outstanding MA theses defended at the Estonian Native Crafts Department of UT VCA.
 Ethnographic research has provided a firm platform for the development of Estonian craft research. The importance of skills and their documentation was already acknowledged as a vital aspect in understanding local material culture in the 1920s at the beginning of systematic ethnographic data collection by the Estonian National Museum. The questionnaires sent to the members of the network of the museum’s correspondents all over Estonia have yielded a great deal of interesting information about various craft-related practices. And, to date,not all of this material has been exhaustively studied.
 The most interesting ethnographic studies concerning traditional technologies combine thorough fieldwork, skilful use of written responses from correspondents, outstanding observational skills, and a deep knowledge of local dialects and folklore.
 Especially interesting developments in the study of old technologies have been initiated during the past few decades by archaeologists using experimental methods. When dealing with ancient artefacts whose makers can no longer be observed or interviewed and for which there is archival information, novel methods have to be employed. Experimental creation, chemical analyses, or study under a microscope may supply interesting data about the artefacts in question, the ways they were made and the material they were made from.
 Practice-led research usually starts with the question ‘How is it made?’, and the first stage of data collection comprises ‘close observation’, which involves a detailed mapping of all the physical and observable parameters of the object under study, including drawing up a technological description with notes about its wear, defects, repairs, and so on.
 A craft researcher should be a skilled craftsperson him- or herself in order to be able to pose meaningful questions about the technological aspects of the objects being studied. A craft researcher can detect, describe and reconstruct the methods of making of an old artefact in a way that will make it possible to repeat that original process of making, bequeathing us a material object technologically similar to the original.
 How might craft research contribute to the humanities in general? This article offers three keywords: materiality, bodily knowledge, and environmental sustainability. The co-operation between master and his/her material is crucial in skilled craft activities. The notions of embodied knowledge and embodied cognition that originate in phenomenology, as well as the concept of tacit knowledge associated with Michael Polany, are cornerstones in the understanding of traditional crafts. Environmental sustainability is a key question that will increasingly shape human activity. Studying traditional technologies, tools, materials, skills and crafts provides a much-needed basis in the general turn towards a more sustainable lifestyle
 Keywords: Craft research, practice-based research method, material culture, craf

Veneration and Constraint: Do Conservation Philosophies in the United Kingdom and the United States Limit the Continuation of Traditional Building Skills?

The concept of minimal intervention in historic structures has served as a cornerstone of conservation theory for more than one hundred years. But how has this concept affected the persistence of traditional craft skills, and what role do craftspeople serve on modern conservation sites? This paper observes the philosophical underpinning of conservation theory in the United Kingdom and the United States and its impact on heritage craft skills transfer. By studying historical and modern observations of “minimal intervention” concepts, along with the development of international standards, which incorporate wider concepts of “heritage” and “authenticity,” this paper argues that cultures that adhere to the nineteenth-century concepts of materiality should expand their concepts of heritage to include the intangible aspects of craft practice. Additionally, it argues that the hierarchical frameworks that currently exist on-site between practitioners and professionals should be reexamined to identify the enhanced role that craft workers can serve within the decision and execution processes of historic structure conservation.

The Development And Evaluation Of W-Songket Courseware Using Cognitive Apprenticeship Strategy

Preserving the traditional crafts is crucial in order for the new generation to have the knowledge and learning skill. Knowledge about traditional crafts are often handed down secretly by the older generation to the interested descendants. Education in preserving the traditional crafts is seen able to transfer knowledge in cultural heritage in organized manner hence can avoid its extinction. Previous studies found that learning traditional craft skills is less appealing to young people as they perceived it to be unattractive and complex. Learning traditional craft skills requires students to heavily rely on detailed coaching and guidance from instructors. Thus, instructors have difficulty in teaching while at the same time having to monitor and assess students individually. Learning approach using information and communication technology such as courseware is effective in meeting students need and can support teacher's instruction. This study aims to develop a traditional craft web courseware for teaching songket using cognitive apprenticeship instructional strategy. The methods of the study are consisting of courseware development and evaluation methods which is through satisfaction evaluation on cognitive apprenticeship instructional strategy. Analysis of data in satisfaction evaluation is conducted after all data are collected. There are two types of data obtained from the study; quantitative and qualitative data. The outcome of the study is W-Songket courseware and results from satisfaction evaluation on applying cognitive apprenticeship teaching strategies received good feedback in terms of satisfaction level from students and instructors.

Vještine tradicijskih obrta u suvremenoj latvijskoj ruralnoj sredini

This article intends to give an insight into what place the traditional craft skills occupy in the contemporary Latvian rural environment, using as a point of observation the activities of the ‘Meet your Master!’ event, organised by the Latvian National Centre for Culture. The interest of both the society and the individuals in focusing on the traditional cultural heritage is encouraged by the desire for expressing their cultural identity in today's cosmopolitan world. The same motivation prompts the use of traditional knowledge in rural tourism, in the activities of individual manufacturers etc. Traditional skills are the basis for mutual interaction among the community members and a meaningful way of spending leisure time, which as a whole lead to improving the quality of life.

Recovering the Craft of Public Administration

AbstractPublic sector reform has rarely dropped off the political agenda of Western governments, yet the old craft skills of traditional public administration remain of paramount importance. The pendulum has swung too far toward the new and the fashionable reforms associated with New Public Management and the New Public Governance. It needs to swing back toward bureaucracy and the traditional skills of bureaucrats as part of the repertoire of governing. This article discusses the skills of counseling, stewardship, practical wisdom, probity, judgment, diplomacy, and political nous. Although these skills are of wide relevance, the article focuses on their relevance in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. It concludes that the next bout of reforms needs to recover the traditional craft skills. It is not a question of traditional skills versus the new skills of New Public Management or New Public Governance; it is a question of what works, of what skills fit in a particular context.

‘Plumb line scribe’: Using multimedia to preserve traditional craft skills

The skills required in craft practice involve a high degree of tacit knowledge which is frequently difficult for the craft expert to articulate. Nicola Wood, a multimedia designer, has undertaken extensive research over the last ten years seeking to understand the knowledge of skilled craftsmen and find methods of capturing and passing it on. She has developed an elicitation strategy that employs an expert learner to uncover the skilled knowledge of master craftsmen, and a transmission strategy based on the concept of bridges to assist the design of learning resources for novices. Ulrik H. Lassen has used the techniques developed by Wood to record and transmit the skilled knowledge needed to make timber-framed buildings, knowledge that today is in danger of being lost. The focus of the study has been the procedure for scribing timbers, which is a central part of the building process. The aim of the research was to investigate the possibility of combining the two roles defined in Wood’s research as an expert learner and designer. Being a skilled carpenter, Lassen has acted as an expert learner, learning the skills of scribing through a combination of researching existing documentation, working with master craftsmen and his own experimentation. At the same time, he developed and tested a multimedia learning resource to provide ‘bridges’ for new learners to this knowledge. The outcome of the application of Wood’s elicitation and transmission strategy to plumb line scribing is a demonstration of the transferability of Wood’s methods within this new context. This is important because it reveals the potential for other craft practitioners to apply Wood’s methods to their own learning and teaching, and produce learning resources to provide bridges to their craft knowledge and preserve their unique skills.

Weaving a knowledge tapestry of traditional crafts for modern fashion designers: an Indian experience

Design innovations in India’s fashion products result from a fusion of modern technologies and traditional craft skills. This paper highlights the role of the National Resource Centre and the network of resource centres of the National Institute of Fashion Technology in collecting and preserving heritage resources using computer technology. Plans for a National Design Repository and for Shilpakala Jnana Kosha, a digital repository for the tacit craft knowledge of artisans, share the objectives of preserving endangered traditional skills, supporting a process of revival and optimising the use of traditional crafts in contemporary fashion design.

전통공예기술의 현대적 활용

Crafts in our country designated as an Important Intangible Cultural Property. Are protected, but not being utilized less than in everyday life. But now that the culture industry has important strategic and cultural factors that influence the competitiveness of the industrial era was. So on the activation of traditional crafts growing interest and demand, but the nature of traditional crafts are still several issues that are faced. Of course, for the protection and industrial policies and institutional mechanisms, but not without a very negative and is weak. Therefore, preservation of traditional crafts and industrial use of the technology to effectively carry out two tasks have the policy should be sought from every angle. In this study, the kind of important intangible cultural heritage of the traditional craft techniques from various angles by category, by systematically analyze the characteristics of modern man with the utilization of real-world craftsmanship with the highest tradition of finding and preserving traditional craft skills in the limit popular and can be out of the technology industry as a potential development is proposed.

Making Sense: A Case Study of a Collaborative Design-Led New Product Development for the Sensorily Impaired

Industrial design, through rapid technological developments and an increasing emphasis on aesthetics, has contributed significantly to our consumer culture producing a mass of superficial and transient products. This preoccupation with appearance and technical possibilities has distracted the designer from deeper human needs and from looking ‘beyond aesthetics’ (Walker, 2001).We are witnessing a rapidly increasing interest in the developments of new technologies but we fear at the expense of more traditional craft skills, which have stimulated our senses since time began. There is evidence to support the fact that the eye may have taken over the hand as the worker's chief tool. As academics we are witnessing a great demise of practical skills within design education as CAD continues to be perceived by many as a more useful and cost-effective investment. David Pye over 30 years ago recognized the demise of interest in the craftsman. He stated, ‘In practice the designer hopes the workmanship will be good, but the workman decides whether it shall be’. He uses the analogy of designer as a conductor of an orchestra: ‘No conductor can make a bad orchestra play well…and no designer can make a bad workman produce good workmanship’. (Pye, 1968) Maybe we have now reached a point where the machine and control technology can allow the designer to make the decision ‘whether it shall be’, but this can only be if the designer has a working knowledge of the material itself.

Iron and Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875–1920 by Henry M. McKiven Jr

984 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE often gave out money” (p. 109). Indeed, Dessalles’ legitimate con­ cern and affection for some of his slaves contrast sharply with his usually depressing comments about his spouse and legitimate chil­ dren. He came to enjoy the etiquette ofrace relations on the planta­ tion, giving slaves gifts on New Year’s Day, gathering them around him for evening prayers, soliciting gossip about their personal and sexual habits, and even seeking treatment from slave folk healers. While as a young man Dessalles termed Martinique an “accursed country” (p. 66) and aspired to make a killing in sugar and then live comfortably in France, an older Dessalles could not wait to return to Martinique from his French trips without his wife. In Paris in 1846, Dessalles registered how much he missed the warmth, sights, sounds, and smells of Martinique. There “I could at least talk to my little negro children, and I could ask my negroes about their work on the plantation. I was never bored” (p. 196). Dessalles returned to Martinique a year before slave emancipation in 1848. He, like other planters, entered a period of tense, shifting negotiations with his former slaves about the meaning of “free” la­ bor. At one point, Cyrille Bissette, a free mulatto whom Dessalles had unsuccessfully tried to have executed for allegedly plotting to raise a slave revolt in 1823, now returned triumphant to Martinique from exile. Dessalles dreaded a prearranged meeting with him; the very idea of greeting Bissette with an embrace was making Dessalles sick. But Bissette, no radical egalitarian, proved to be a man of order and thus a pleasant surprise tojittery planters. Bissette and Dessalles did embrace. At a banquet they ate, drank, and eventually sang songs together. On second thought, Dessalles’ diary records, Bissette “was really full of wit and charm” (p. 259). Here is a parable for our own time. Robert L. Paquette Dr. Paquette is Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor ofAmerican History at Hamil­ ton College in Clinton, New York. His most recent work, which he coedited with Stanley Engerman, is The Lesser Antilles in the Age ofEuropean Expansion (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996). Iron and Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875-1920. By Henry M. McKiven Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Pp. xiii+223; notes, bibliography, in­ dex. $37.50 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). In recentyears an increasing number ofhistorians have attempted to trace the roots of Birmingham’s massive resistance to racial inte­ gration. In a valuable contribution to this ongoing scrutiny, Henry McKiven argues that skilled white workers were more strongly moti­ vated by racial bias in opposing integration than some scholars had TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 985 previously supposed. He is especially critical ofPaul Worthman, who, in an influential essay published in 1969, stressed the importance of nonracial cleavages between skilled and unskilled workers that were adroitly exploited by Birmingham’s political and business lead­ ers. The evidence presented by McKiven, by contrast, indicates that skilled whites, who ‘‘believed that their social and economic interests were linked to the maintenance of a rigid caste system” (p. 4), tried to retain a superior status in Birmingham by keeping black workers down and resisting any efforts by owners and managers to improve their lot. McKiven traces connections between labor relations and racial prejudice back to Birmingham’s beginnings. During the 1870s, con­ fronted by a scarcity of skilled workers, the city’s leaders persuaded white puddlers, molders, and other craftsmen to come to Alabama from northern states and foreign countries, not merely by offering them higher pay than they could obtain elsewhere but also by prom­ ising to confine black workers to less desirable, unskilledjobs. Con­ trary to Worthman and other scholars who believe that “the long­ term interest of working-class whites and blacks lay in unified resistance to those who exploited them,” McKiven argues that “the ideas about race and class expressed by early boosters reflected the attitudes of the white workingmen they were trying to attract to Birmingham” (p. 167). Later, however, when mechanization and a transition from iron production to steelmaking reduced the need for traditional craft skills...

Deskilling Revisited: Continuity and Change in Craft Work and Apprenticeship in Late Nineteenth Century New South Wales

Twenty years have now passed since the publication of the late Harry Braverman's seminal study of the historical transformation of work under industrial capitalism2 and the beginnings of the post-Braverman debate on the nature and dynamics of the capitalist 'labour process'. Braverman's central thesis, of course, was that the 'major tendential presence' within the capitalist workplace since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been the progressive degradation by industrial employers of traditional craft skills and craft institutions through a pervasive and premeditated process of workforce 'deskilling7. According to Braverman, this has embraced three interrelated elements: firstly, the subdivision of craft work into an ever-simpler series of tasks; second, the mechanisation of an increasing number of craft tasks; and, third, the application by employers in the early decades of the twentieth century of F.W Taylor's theories of 'scientific management'. The Taylorization of craft work is said to have involved the systematic appropriation by management of all traditional craftworker knowledge, autonomy and job control and the replacement of customary payment methods by piece-rate systems determined 'scientifically' by means of time-and-motion studies. In the two decades since its publication, Braverman's deskilling thesis has remained one of the most pivotal and contentious elements in the international debate on the nature of the capitalist labour process. The literature in the antiand post-Braverman mould is now of such daunting magnitude and diversity as to defy ready summation.3 However, some criticisms levelled at the deskilling thesis have enjoyed particularly wide acceptance and would seem to warrant brief enumeration. Six criticisms are particularly worthy of mention. Firstly, Braverman's emphasis on unilateral employer agency and control is said to ignore both worker resistance to work reorganization and the possibility of worker compliance and consent.4 Second, this unilateralism is seen as overlooking interventions and mediations by the state, a point of obvious relevance to the Australian scene, particularly in the twentieth century. Third, the assumption of universal, unilinear skill degradation is said to ignore important differences in structural, technological, and product and labour market possibilities and outcomes between and within industries. The same teleology is also seen as increasing the likelihood of temporary, cyclical phenomena being mistaken for immanent secular trends. Four, Braverman's hypothesis of increasing workforce homogeneity has been criticised for overlooking the importance of labour market segmentation, the growth of internal labour markets, and associated divisions within the working class. Fifth, the deskilling paradigm draws on an objectivist conception of 'skill' which is said to overlook the social, cultural, ideological and, in particular, patriarchal dimensions of job definition and the division of labour. Finally,

Culture and community economic initiatives: The case of Portugal

Abstract Consideration of community level economic initiatives has been weakened by poor conceptualization and analysis of the cultural dimension. Culture is not only important in shaping the emergence and form of community economic initiatives but such initiatives play an important role in the reproduction and modification of local cultures. At the Portuguese national level, an historic culture of apathy and non‐participation is currently undergoing change as a result of processes of political and socio‐economic restructuring, to produce an increase in local‐level actions. The interaction of such processes with local differences in cultural and economic spheres has produced an uneven development of community initiatives. On the Serra do Montemuro, an area of peasant economic practice and culture in the interior of Portugal, community economic strategies are attempting to commercialize traditional craft skills. These initiatives offer some possibilities for diversifying sources of income at a household le...

'No More Amazons': Gender and Work Process in the Victorian Clothing Trades, 1890-1939

In the hundred years that elapsed between the writing of Marx's Capital and the publication of Harry Braverman's book, Labor and Monopoly Capital} there was almost no debate in English-speaking Marxist circles on the labour process. Braverman's account of the history of industrial labour in the intervening period has sparked off renewed interest in the field, producing in turn numerous critiques and reinterpretations of his thesis.2 Although there are several strands to this debate, the ones which concern me here are the questions of deskilling, and the related issue of worker subordination/resistance. I will outline the main points at issue in these discussions before moving on to look at how they relate to the history of the clothing trades in Victoria. Braverman contends that industrial work in capitalist societies since the Industrial Revolution has involved the degradation of traditional craft skills, and with this degradation has come a 'real subordination of labour'. He links these changes with the development of capitalism towards monopoly capital, and the quest by the capitalist to control the labour process, the variable part of capital. According to Braverman's analysis, this quest for control led to three major processes. Firstly, by dividing the processes involved in any task and having these performed by different individuals, the skill of the worker was thereby degraded. This ultimately reduced the bargaining power of workers who could no longer rely on their monopoly of skills as a lever in collective bargaining, while at the same time standardising the way in which tasks were performed. Secondly, the introduction of what became known as scientific management meant increased control over every detail of the work process. Thus conception and execution were separated, and knowledge and discretion were removed from the worker. Workers performed the manual work while mental tasks were reserved to management. Thirdly, the development and use of new forms of technology increased direct control of management over production by tying the work process to particular machines. In the twentieth century Braverman points to the adoption of Frederick Taylor's theories and methods for factory management as being a major element in the process of deskilling of the mass of industrial operatives. Subsequent analysis has suggested five major flaws in this argument. Firstly, the deskilling thesis has been criticized as being too sweeping. Rather than a continuous, even, transformation, it is claimed that the process was in fact much more uneven, involving reskilling as well as deskilling. Braverman's notion of the 'traditional craftsman' is also far too romantic, for at a more fundamental level, the notion of 'skill' itself is under attack as having ideological and political dimensions as well as a technical one. Secondly, the assertion that Taylorism was the major agent of deskilling has been challenged, as has the exact timing of the various changes in industrial organisation. A third area of debate relates