Selling Sustainability within a Capitalist Framework: The Sabai Craft Cluster of Nayagram, West Bengal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58574/jaa.2026.v5.i1.06Keywords:
Sabai Craft Cluster, Commodification, Sustainable Enterprise, Cultural Capital, Culture industry, BrandingAbstract
The present paper examines the prospect of the brand ‘Sabai Art & Craft’ as a sustainable enterprise that has thrived in Raisol village, Nayagram, Jhargram. This craft cluster involves about 50 families with a total of about 200 skilled artisans, who earn their livelihood from the production of Sabai crafts, made from the durable and renewable Babui or Sabai grass (Eulaliopsis Binata). The process starts from scratch with producing and processing this grass into ropes, and finally shaping it into some ornamental or utility products. The whole process surely conforms to the concept of Triple Bottom Line ( Elkington, 1997 ), which mainstreams the idea of sustainability as including three Ps – People, Planet, Profit. Sustainability is indeed ensured as the whole process is an eco-friendly one, at the same time providing livelihood to the local community. Gaining insights from Focus Group Discussions with the artisans, the paper reveals a complex reality.
The craft has become popular only since 2010, when it was rediscovered by capitalist interests, and the property of sustainability was recognised as its unique selling point. Since then, the designing, branding and marketing at high prices are done by external actors, while artisans function mainly as suppliers, often without formal recognition. Hinging upon the Marxist perspective, the theory of the Culture Industry, and the unique concepts of symbolic and cultural capital given by Pierre Bourdieu, the paper aims at decoding the contradiction that exists in commodifying and selling the property of sustainability within a capitalist framework.
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