ABSTRACT
This chapter compares two instances of craft in two contexts with the aim of showing how variable the status of craft can be in different historical circumstances. More specifically, it explores contrasted accessibility of agency for craftspeople. The first ethnography focuses on female weavers in the Sirwa, southern Morocco, one of the main regions of carpet production for the international market. The second case study involves some thirty organic food producers in the south-west of France whom the author have been interviewing since 2010 in their workplace. Before describing the power relations in which the Moroccan Sirwa producers are involved, the chapter explores how the older positive values associated with craft are becoming challenged by negative perceptions of craft as linked with poverty. In the Sirwa, an arid Berber region to the south-east of Marrakech, almost every household is involved in the industry of carpet making.
