The collaborations, cooperatives, and conundrums described in this collection reaffirm ancient traditions even as artisan production and the preservation of cultural identity interact to create a sustainable future that entails new kinds of producer-consumer relations and partnerships. Contributors to this book explore how crafts--pottery, weaving, basketmaking, storytelling--in Middle America and beyond are a means of making an intangible cultural heritage visible, material, and enduring. Each contribution shows how social science research can evolve into advocacy, collaboration, and friendship--activist work that exemplifies the continuing concerns of applied and practicing social scientists in an anthropology increasingly cognizant of both its past and its potential impact on power and equity.
