Maker-centricity and ‘edge-places of creativity’: CARE-full making in a CARE-less world

Susan Luckman, citing Katherine Gibson’s call for a return to ‘the grass-roots work of engaging the community and being open developing new economies’, advocates vision creative industries that builds affordances ‘edge-places creativity’. Luckman’s focus is non-urban localities. Her proposal, nevertheless, could equally apply amateur craft groups, organisations independent businesspeople Arts Humanities Research Council–funded projects Co-Producing CARE: Community Asset-based Enterprise, Maker-Centric: Building Place-based, Co-making Communities worked with in deprived inner-city areas British Midlands. Both were undertaken Craftspace other stakeholder organisations, collaboratively employed co-production processes combined hand-making digital fabrication. The aim each project was prototype method communities agencies (cultural, social, economic, skills-based) through making be applied by groups. While CARE concerned collaborative making, Maker-Centric looked at these heritage placed-based lens. This article examines potential local, collaborative, purposeful, social as an ‘edge-place’ activity enterprise inclusive supportive.