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THE RUSTED STEEL THAT BINDS: HOW CRAFT PRODUCERS FORM NEOLOCAL ECONOMIES IN PITTSBURGH, PA

Baker, Kevin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640790916709

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts, Miami University, Geography.
As many postindustrial cities shift to service and information economies, former manufacturing legacies still persist. In a city like Pittsburgh, PA amidst the developing tech industries, small scale manufacturers and increasingly craft workers adapt traditions of steel production. Regarding a craft revival, cultural geographers have studied the ways local producers add place representations to their goods and interact to form community bonds. Meanwhile, economic geographers, studying clusters and their path dependencies, explain local craft production can derive as a specialized sector from a larger industrial formation. To better understand craft production as both cultural and economic process, this study questioned how craft can contribute to place making and simultaneously be embedded in a local economy. This project thus asked: how do craft producers collaborate to produce neolocal economies in former industrial Pittsburgh? In order to understand how Pittsburgh metal workers went beyond just a craft and strengthened a larger economic network rooted in place, I studied twenty businesses related to metalworking and craft in Pittsburgh by conducting semi-structured interviews, touring workshops, and administering mapping exercises. The research reveals craft businesses developed ties to place in their branding and methods, but were also deeply embedded in the local industrial network.
David Prytherch (Advisor)
46 p.
Geography
Neolocalism; Path dependency; Cluster; Local Economies; Craft; Pittsburgh

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Baker, K. (2019). THE RUSTED STEEL THAT BINDS: HOW CRAFT PRODUCERS FORM NEOLOCAL ECONOMIES IN PITTSBURGH, PA [Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640790916709

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Baker, Kevin. THE RUSTED STEEL THAT BINDS: HOW CRAFT PRODUCERS FORM NEOLOCAL ECONOMIES IN PITTSBURGH, PA . 2019. Miami University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640790916709.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Baker, Kevin. "THE RUSTED STEEL THAT BINDS: HOW CRAFT PRODUCERS FORM NEOLOCAL ECONOMIES IN PITTSBURGH, PA ." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami15640790916709

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami15640790916709
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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.