The creative economy: an ethnographic framework for handcrafts in the Alto Solimões region of the Brazilian Amazon

What is it about?

The objective of this article is to draw on concepts from the creative economy literature to present a proposal for conceptualizing the creative industries from the perspective of the ideas underlying the concepts of industrial districts and the triple helix. The analysis lays out the foundations with a review of the literature on the creative economy and builds upon them with the terminology of creative industries and industrial districts. A three-dimensional representation is developed, from a perspective in which the three dimensions comprise university, creative industries, and government, combined with seven underlying factors that define the archetypal framework from the perspective of the creative economy of the region’s handcrafts. Working from the principal of an analysis of underlying factors, the paper presents an ethnographic study of the potentials and obstacles present in the handcrafts sector and delineates the work that remains to be done to enable construction of a creative economy. Based on the Amazon heritage of the people in the Alto Solimões region, future prospects such as establishment of guilds, clusters, and internationalization of production in a tourism association, represent sui generis potentials for the economic development of the Alto Solimões region of the Brazilian Amazon.

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