Metamorphosing from consumer to producer: The playful work of neo-craft consumer-entrepreneurs

This paper contributes to debates on the blurring boundaries between consumption and production (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010; Campbell, 2005), and on meaningful work (Laaser & Karlsson, 2021;Deery, Kolar & Walsh, 2019), by drawing upon theorizations of libidinal work from thinkers such as Fourier, Benjamin and Marcuse, the growing literature on passionate work (Borghi & Murgia, 2019; McRobbie, 2016), and recent interest in the politics and value of care (The Care Collective, 2020). In doing so, we examine the lived experiences of neo-craft consumers to conceptualise their transformative identity work journeys from hobby-craft enthusiasts to playful entrepreneurial workers. Neo-craft consumers are driven to craft making by leisurely craft values and the pleasures they derive from creating rather than just consuming products and by developing the competencies needed for their craft goals (Alba & Williams, 2013). In blurring production and consumption and breaking the binary distinction between work and play, neo-craft consumers undergo transformative identity experiences in their juxtaposing of homo faber (the making man) and homo ludens (the playing, spiritual man)characteristics (Kim & Kwon, 2017; Huizinga, 1955).

In this work, we advance two main arguments. First, we suggest that neo-craft consumers are ‘hobbyfying’ work by harnessing the power of homo ludens values to develop their entrepreneurial work and work identities, where a significant porosity between work and the consuming passions of the entrepreneurs emerge. Second, we argue that the idea of play is central to the neo-craft values and practices that underpin and define this new hybrid paradigm of ‘playful work’ and the role it plays in neo-craft workers’ identity performances. Play has been theorised as an essential part of the human experience and culture, and its seductive qualities can bring people together, generate group identities, and create a sense of flow (Masters, 2008). As play can also enable people to express their understandings of life (Huizinga, 1955), we argue it can enable identity work transformations, too.

We draw on 40 original qualitative interviews with artisan, mobile street food retailers and bar owners located in the city of Milan, Italy. They are industrious craft entrepreneurs combining manual labour with features that are typical of the creative industries (Arvidsson, 2019;Ocejo, 2017), and are part of the ‘new urban economy’ (Ocejo, 2017).

Our analysis of neo-craft participants’ past trajectories and experiences highlights the blending of work and play experienced by the entrepreneurs. Personal passion is the connecting tissue between the otherwise antagonistic concepts of play and work, representing a mission for the entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, for some neo-craft participants, this fusion of playful hobby and work meant that play-work became all-pervasive, saturating all realms of their lives. The findings also demonstrate that the consequent involvement of the new-craft entrepreneurs in their chosen enterprise is accompanied by a disregard for profits in favour of non-economic rewards, such as cultural and ethical values, care for consumers, and the accomplishment of meaningful work. From the process of hobbyfication of work emerges a new paradigm of ‘playful work’, in which work as an activity undertaken for its playful, pleasure value and work as an activity undertaken for making a living partially coincide. A set of fundamental values characterize this new paradigm, namely passion, care, love, and authenticity.

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