UC Santa Cruz

Despite the rise of social studies to address craft economy or production in modern society, how the value can be added to a craft-made product is poorly explained. By exploring the global context of the guitar-making industry in the 1960s and interviewing guitar makers in four different countries, in this dissertation, I argue that the rise of the craft-made guitar industry since the 1980s resulted from the invented tradition of "vintage" and the dependence on advanced technology. Additionally, by exploring various guitar builders' life stories, labor processes, and business networks, I create a concept, the ladder towards luthiers, to describe how an inexperienced apprentice may become an independent luthier in a hierarchical structure in the industry. Furthermore, I argue that the traditional definition of craft overvalues male luthiers' role in adding value to a craft-made guitar and overlooks female workers' contributions in the craft industry. In order to highlight different actors' contributions in the craft industry, we need a new definition of craft to help consumers understand that the value of a craft product is also made in a social process rather than by an independent luthier. Finally, this study also sheds light on the relationship between craft production and mass production and figures out that the rise of craft production could reflect a reskilling process of industrial capitalism rather than the opposite of the deskilled mass production.