Contested Values and Sustainable Livelihoods of Artisanal Alcohol

Kennesaw State University Research And Service Foundation, Kennesaw GA

Investigators

Abstract

Alcohol is a unique commodity, as it can be both a liability and asset to societies worldwide. The objective of this project is to investigate the dynamics, opportunities, and downsides associated with artisanal alcohol in the context of economic retrenchment and regeneration opportunities through cultural asset management. The interdisciplinary researchers aim to study the complexities of artisanal alcohol as a commons problem that has the potential to both empower and imperil livelihoods. The researchers explore if and how urban and rural communities fashion and protect their heritage while working to mitigate harm to their people. This study helps to clarify how and why artisanal alcohol can become a contested symbol of place, culture, tradition, economics, and health. The researchers partner with crafters of artisanal alcohol, local academicians, students, and policymakers to uncover knowledge, determine best practices, build local capacities, and inform culturally sensitive and effective alcohol-related policies. The proposed case study explores artisanal alcohol’s heritage in the form of community identity, value, health, and social relations, and mobilizes collaborative ethnography to investigate its place in the local economy and society. Interviews, surveys, consumption diaries, and a socioeconomic network of self-portraits are used to generate open access online StoryMaps and publications. The project also includes scientific analysis and examination of the societal impacts of artisanal alcohol to daily life. Capacity-building endeavors include support of underrepresented institutional priorities and student training goals. Advancing theory in the field of economic anthropology, the study reveals the extent to which the valorization and contestation of cultural assets, development, and wellbeing are intertwined, and the study elucidates how producers and consumers may be better positioned for crisis response and economic resiliency when they are closely tied economically, socially, and spatially. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.