| Sumario: | Using participant observation and interview data, I analyse social processes that surround the craft of blacksmithing and its role in post-industrial capitalist society. This inquiry explicates the role of visual experiences and performances of embodied nostalgia in motivating the embrace of historic craftwork. I present visual documentation alongside qualitative data to illustrate the visual features of embodied nostalgia and document the symbolic stage upon which the modern blacksmith identity is reinforced. Blacksmithing as a profession has been deoccupationalized while conversely evolving into a richly social craft, largely driven by nostalgia and performance. Blacksmithing is physically demanding, time-consuming, costly, and once represented a hard day's labour; this study offers an examination of why it became an activity people seek out as a weekend hobby. I find that within the community of hobbyist blacksmiths, a prime motivation is the drive to experience and perform embodied nostalgia for observers, either physically present or for a materially and temporally disembodied gaze of online viewers. The performance of embodied nostalgia is predicated on a romanticised – and mildly subversive – invocation of preindustrial social relations and a symbolic temporary seizure of one's means of production. Ultimately, this study highlights the symbolic meanings expressed in the actions of the post-industrial blacksmithing community, while underscoring an informative case of occupational evolution in the 20 century.
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