C.S. Peirce Loves Craft Beers: Indexicality and the Anchoring of Craft in Place

We present a perspective on the potential of craft production to strengthen place brands and vice versa, in a positive dynamic enabling local community development. Tradition and innovation are not constructed as mutually exclusive. The perspective is semiotically inspired, more precisely by the work of C.S. Peirce (1839–1914). We expand on Peirce by including concepts of narrative and place brand in our framing of craft potential, but for the key aspect of conceptualizing the rooting of craft products in place, we rely on Peirce, giving central place to his concept of indexicality. Examples from the Canadian province of Alberta, especially its burgeoning craft beer sector, serve to illustrate this theoretical perspective with a variety of practical implications for food policy, tourism, planning, and economic development.