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Artisan entrepreneurs create social value by engaging in community business practices. Research has shown that the motives of artisan entrepreneurs differ based on the way they are embedded in society. This is due to artisan practices varying significantly. As such, it is useful to analyze the existing body of research with the aim of opening up new opportunities. To date, there has been limited research on artisan entrepreneurship compared to other sub-types of entrepreneurship. This is unusual as artisan entrepreneurship is an interesting topic. This chapter therefore seeks to ascertain what is lacking in the current research and what needs to be done. This will be conducted through a critique of the existing research, which leads to a discussion on the managerial implications of artisan entrepreneurship.

This research examines, in a case study of Pitcairn Island, the meaning of community. Such meanings emerge in the empirical field whereby the ‘field’ offers its own cues to both issue and method. The main lesson learned from this ethnographic study stems from the experiential nature of fieldwork whereby ‘community’ is viewed as a cluster of embodied dispositions and practices. Influenced by Anthony Cohen's ethnographic work (1978, 1985) the case study demonstrates the centrality of the symbolic dimensions of community as a defining characteristic. Described as one of the most isolated islands in the world accessible only by sea, Pitcairn is the last remaining British ‘colony’ in the Pacific, settled in 1790 by English mutineers and Tahitians following the (in)famous mutiny on the Bounty. It represents in an anthropological sense a unique microcosm of social structure, studied ethnographically only a handful of times. Results show symbolic referents contribute to a sense of ‘exclusivity’ of Pitcairn culture that facilitates co-operation and collectivity whilst also recognizing the internal–external dialectics of boundaries of identification. The study reveals culture as a symbolic rather than structural construct as experienced by its members, seeing the community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols whose meanings vary amongst its members. Thus, connection and contiguity of culture continually transform the meaning of community, space and place. As such, community continues to be of both practical and ideological significance to the practice of anthropology.