Slöjd och hälsa -Vad görs på statlig nivå och varför?

Abstract

Based on research showing that craft can be a tool to achieve improved health and wellbeing, this essay investigates whether the area craft and health is present in the Swedish national exercise of authority. Main object of the investigation is The National Swedish Handicraft Council, NFH, which is an administrative authority in the ministry of culture. The essay examines in what way NFH has worked with crafts and health over the past ten years and whether the council communicates the relationship between craft and health today. The study also tries to find out reasons that may underlie the changes in the councils approach during this time. Furthermore the essay investigates whether craft and health is present in other administrative authorities which address issues of culture and/or health.

The material consists of interviews with present and former employees of NFH as well as NFH business plans and annual reports for the relevant years. To get a picture of NFH´s approach to craft and health today, the NFH website and contemporary documents have been analyzed. Furthermore, administrative authorities in the culture and/or health field have been contacted to find out whether they work with craft and health.

The result shows that NFH during the first part of the period adopted crafts and health, as one of their prioritized fields of work. But since 2008 the area is as good as gone. The work that NFH has done concerning craft and health has appeared hard to define. The material shows that there is a positive attitude about the subject, but no one is sure about what has been done or why it was given a lower priority. The area seems hard to maneuver.

The cause of this result is discussed later on in the essay, by putting the collected material about NFH and crafts and health in a wider context. This wider context consists partly of a cultural policy model. It also consists of research concerning craft and health as well as the hemslöjd history and people's perception of the concepts slöjd and hemslöjd today.