Craft-art in the Danish countryside: reconciling a lifestyle, livelihood and artistic career through rural tourism

Abstract

To contribute new insight related to the entrepreneurial strategies adopted by local actors involved in rural tourism, this article explores the array of dynamics and complexities faced by the members of the Arts and Crafts Association Bornholm, Denmark. Besides juggling a livelihood with a desired lifestyle, artists pursue the ambition of professional success, which adds a new and interesting dimension to the conceptualization of individual and collective strategies related to lifestyle entrepreneurship, rural identities, the commercialization of rural symbols and products, and new modes of production in the countryside. In their search for customers and spectators, these craft-artists have created a professional brand and work individually on various entrepreneurial strategies, allowing them to benefit from the short but intensive tourist season on their rural island. These strategies blur the line not only between their lifestyle aspirations, career ambitions and livelihood necessities, but also between the commercial, professional and rural nature of the space they present to tourists. This qualitative study was primarily conducted through open-ended interviews with members of the association. It is discussed lastly that these artists consequently create for themselves a hybrid space, strategized and redefined in relation to the complexities of residing in a countryside integrated within a global system.

Dwelling and tourism: embracing the non-representational in the tourist landscape

“…The purpose of this article is to contribute a perspective to the study of the tourist landscape that centres scientific conversations of tourism on the complex, yet very mundane, material and practical world of those residents inhabiting toured spaces. Tourist landscapes are home to people who negotiate and affirm their positions in the wake of an array of aspirations related to their position in a complex system (Milne & Ateljevic, 2001;Prince, 2017). It is thus important to make these actors' mundane embodied actions and their material world matter in tourism development schemes and landscape research.…”

“…I follow Palmer (2018, p. 21) and contend that thinking about tourism through the dwelling perspective enables researchers to 'locate tourism within the totality of life and of living'. Tourist landscapes are home to people who have to handle tourism in the wake of various other aspirations related to their position in a complex system (Milne & Ateljevic, 2001;Prince, 2017). It is thus important to make these actors' embodied actions and material world matter in tourism development schemes and landscape research.…”

Cultural and creative work in rural and remote areas: an emerging international conversation

“…In 2017, the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management published a special issue on 'Cultural Entrepreneurship and Regional Innovation' (Ratten and Ferreira 2017). Greater attention to craft-art and artisan work is also evident in literature from Denmark (Prince 2017), Portugal (Bakas, Duxbury, and Castro 2018), the Northern Isles of Scotland (McHattie, Champion, and Johnson 2019), among other regions, often interwoven with rural tourism contexts and concerns.…”

Recovering Tradition in Globalising Rural China: Handicraft Birdcages in Da’ou village

“…Accordingly, the development of craft making has been promoted as part of programmes to foster ‘creative industries’ in rural localities, with initiatives such as craft centres, craft fairs and marketing campaigns to tourists (Bell and Jayne ; Lysgard ; Prince , ). The crafts produced may build on historic local traditions and reputations, but are often modified to incorporate translocal influences and fit consumer expectations of rural culture and rural crafts, and in many cases the individuals involved in artisan craft‐working are in‐migrants or return migrants (Kneafsey et al ; Herslund ).…”