Craft and Place in the Highlands and Islands

The crafts sector is difficult to measure as it is made up of multiple small businesses and sole traders, often working across a range of disciplines, both within and outwith craft businesses, and covering a tremendous range of quality, markets and outputs. The Highlands and Islands region of Scotland faces particular challenges that exacerbate fragmentation in its craft sector. It is from this standpoint that this short report seeks to open up a greater understanding of these contributions and relationships in practice, and provide a better understanding of the role of 'place' for craft makers who have chosen to live and work in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. We did this through a series of interviews with craft makers across three contexts: Orkney Isles, Shetland Isles and a spread of individual cases across the remaining Highlands and Islands region