Making Artisans: Artisanal Lives and Production in South Asian History

Artisans and their labour have shaped the trajectories of South Asian social, economic, and political history. In the introduction to a special section titled “Making Artisans: Artisanal Lives and Production in South Asia History,” we position the articles that follow within ongoing reconsiderations of South Asian artisanship, emphasizing especially the reinvigoration of studies of artisanship within contemporary practices of labour history. This introduction to the special section considers key themes that connect the subsequent articles. These include the importance of trade-specific practices of artisan work, the occasionally divergent regional experiences of South Asian artisanal communities, and the cultures and relationships of production that shaped how artisans lived and worked. Ultimately, we argue that by disaggregating ‘artisanship’ as a category, the articles in this special issue contribute to new efforts to understand artisans as labouring actors within the South Asian historical political economy.