Jonathan Westin

The ?eld of ‘Craft Sciences’ refers to research conducted across and within di?erent craft subjects and academic contexts. This anthology aims to expose the breadth of topics, source material, methods, perspectives, and results that reside in this ?eld, and to explore what unites the research in such diverse contexts as, for example, the arts, conserva-tion, or vocational craft education. The common thread between each of the chapters in the present book is the augmented attention given to methods—the craft research methods—and to the relationship between the ?eld of inquiry and the ?eld of practice. A common feature is that practice plays an instrumental role in the research found within the chapters, and that the researchers in this publication are also practitioners. The aut-hors are researchers but they are also potters, waiters, carpenters, gardeners, textile artists, boat builders, smiths, building conservators, painting restorers, furniture designers, il-lustrators, and media designers. The researchers contribute from di?erent research ?elds, like craft education, meal sciences, and conservation crafts, and from particular craft subjects, like boat-building and weaving. The main contribution of this book is that it collects together a number of related case studies and presents a re?ection on concepts, perspectives, and methods in the general ?elds of craft research from the point of view of craft practitioners. It adds to the existing academic discussion of crafts through its wider acknowledgement of craftsmanship and extends its borders and its discourse outside the arts and crafts context. This book provides a platform from which to develop context-appropriate research strategies and to associate with the Craft Sciences beyond the bor-ders of faculties and disciplines.

In 1901, Otto Nordenskjöld led the frst Swedish South Polar expedition with a multidisciplinary team of researchers in geology, geography, biology and medicine. The original plan was to hibernate in Antarctica and stay for one year to survey the land, measure the climate, and collect samples, but their ship was wrecked and the expedition came to last more than two years. Today, the remains from this expedition are protected as cultural heritage according to the Antarctic Treaty and they have been maintained by Argentinian efforts. Among five protected cultural environments, the wooden research station on Snow Hill Island stands out. Sweden joined the Antarctic Treaty in 1984 but has not actively engaged in the management of cultural heritage there until the CHAQ2020 expedition in 2020. The fieldwork presented in this report was carried out in Antarctica with the purposes of documenting and assessing the condition of the remains and providing a knowledge base for policy and decisionmaking concerning Swedish cultural heritage in Antarctica.