A Tale of Two Crafts: How Kinship Closure and Institutional Entry Shape Digital Adoption in Heritage Industries

Staying true to traditional work practices is widely understood as a defining value of craft. When craftspeople depart from tradition, existing accounts typically attribute such deviation to individual exceptionalism or maverick behavior. Yet across the craft clusters of wooden handicraft and folk music in India, we discovered a systematic puzzle: some craftspeople embrace digital production that challenges traditional practices, while others resist it. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, we argue that this variation is not individual but social, rooted in the kinship-based organization of work. In heritage craft clusters, kinship closure governs the transmission of skills, access to work, and adherence to tradition among insiders. Alongside kinship insiders, however, outsiders can enter craft occupations through formal training programs sponsored by states and NGOs. Although these programs are intended for cultural preservation, in practice, they provide tech-forward training. We show that kinship insiders largely resist digital production to uphold inherited traditions, while kinship outsiders disproportionately embrace it. By demonstrating how kinship structure and institutionalized interventions systematically shape who adopts and who resists technological change, this study reframes debates about craft, technology, and change in heritage industries.