Hand craft in the post-industrial world: comparative study of shoemaking in Russian and Indian cities

Abstract

This article is devoted to a social study of manual labor in the contemporary society. The authors compare two models of reproduction of shoemaking: a Russian model (St Petersburg) and an Indian model (Mumbai). The theoretical framework of the study is network concepts of New Economic Sociology and New Institutional Economics. The authors define the handcraft and its place in the postindustrial society.Then, based on observation method and in-depth interviews in Russia and India, they describe how the craft of shoemaking functions in large cities. A comparative analysis is used to reveal general, specific and distinctive features of Russian and Indian handcrafting and to present explanatory models of handcrafted shoemaking reproduction.The authors argue that despite industrialization and post-industrialization in today’s world crafts were not forced out to turn into souvenir business but continue to meet basic human needs. Handcraft survives due to social networking (migrants from the former Soviet republics in Russia and migrants form neighboring rural areas in India) and has the lowest production, transaction and social costs.