Artisanal handicraft and public policy in Brazil:

a pathway between economy and culture

Abstract

The term artisanal handicraft has an etymological root in the word art, although socially produced hierarchies assign different positions to works, artists, and artisans, above all from the perspective of the so-called high art, in the domain of power and prestige relations within the artistic field – where a conceptual  tension has been established between artisanal handicraft and art. In Brazil, the public policy approach aimed at artisanal handicraft, considering the nature of the craftsman activity and the conceptual ambivalences related to it, points out some paradigmatic moments: a) until the 1970s; b) from the 1970s to the 1990s; c) from the 1990sto the 2000s; and d) from the 2000s on. Considering the limitations and possibilities of such a periodization, herein, it is regarded as a heuristic tool to think through the place of craftsmanship on the public agenda and in the country as a whole, especially concerning the relations between artisanal handicraft, culture, and economics, based both on the studies already carried out by the authors and on those still ongoing in the State of Piauí, Brazil.