This doctoral dissertation provides a theoretical examination of amateur craft as a differential practice. Concepts drawn from an inter-disciplinary source base are used to define, characterise and elucidate features of amateur craft practice that have long been presumed superfluous and opposite to valorised ‘professional’ practice. I investigate the attraction, motivation and complexities that lie behind this widespread, yet largely understudied, phenomenon of modern culture. Studies of everyday life, social history, aesthetics, material culture, art criticism and craft theory help conceptualise the position of the amateur, and case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including the paint-by-number mania in 1950s USA, suburban chicken keeping, and amateur railway modelling – serve to substantiate the theoretical claims made. The thesis is not comprehensive in its coverage of either a specific craft medium or a particular chronology or geography. Instead the thesis is divided into three thematic chapters: amateur surface intervention, amateur space, and amateur time. These chapters reveal some of the unexpected consequences of subjecting amateur practice to serious study. The examples demonstrate how amateur craft practice is differential within capitalism,dependant on its structures while simultaneously stretching, refracting, and quietly subverting them. As a reprieve or a supplement to an individual’s primary occupation, the constrained freedom of amateur craft practice fulfils an essential role within modern life, providing a temporary moment of autonomous control over labour-power in which the world can be shaped anew.

L'apparition de parures de style oriental (ou « phénicien ») sur des sites chypriotes et égéens entre le XIIe et le VIIe s. av. J.-C. est un phénomène bien attesté. Sélectionnées sur le critère d'une ressemblance visible, on peut dresser une liste de parures, réalisées en or ou d'autres matières telles que le bronze, trouvées sur le continent grec (Tirynthe, Perati) et sur îles égéennes (Crète, Naxos, Kos et Rhodes).Cependant, la nature de ces échanges, qui ne suivent pas un schéma régulier, reste difficile à cerner. D'une part, il existe des parallèles visiblement étroits entre les parures chypriotes et d'autres découvertes en dehors de cette île. Elles semblent être issues de contacts directs entre les régions. L'étude sur leurs modèles de diffusion et d'autres, qui concernent les produits en métal plus que la céramique, permettent d'aller au-delà d'une étude comparative des parures. Ainsi, il s'est avéré que les contextes contenant non seulement des parures mais aussi d'autres objets d'aspect étranger sont relativement fréquents. Outre ce matériel, nous sommes confrontés à d'autres parures qui ne sont comparables que sous réserve. Leur apparence suggère la présence de contacts indirects, donc une circulation d'idées plutôt que d'objets. En ce qui concerne des futures études, les résultats des fouilles récentes menées sur le site postpalatial de Tirynthe se sont avérés particulièrement intéressants. De plus, il faut signaler que la question de l'origine de la fibule pose un problème qui n'a pas encore été résolu. / The appearance of jewellery of Near-Eastern origin at Cyprus and Greece is a well-known phenomenon which we meet also from the 12th to the 7th century BC. Well-known examples made from gold and from bronze were found at the Greek continent (Tiryns, Perati) and at the Aegean islands (Crete, Naxos, Kos, Rhodes).The nature of these overseas exchanges, however, can hardly be determined and does not follow any regular system. At the one hand, there are striking parallels between certain Cypriot pieces of jewellery and other specimens found outside of Cyprus. They seem to be the result of direct contacts. The studies of the contexts to which these objects belong allow us to go beyond the mere documentation of jewellery. Following this approach, it is evident that various tombs contained not only pieces of jewellery, but also other foreign objects. This seems to support our hypotheses about on-going overseas contacts. At the other hand, there are a number of items which appear to be local products inspired from Cypriot art. Obviously, they are the result of indirect contacts or of a spreading of ideas.Regarding future studies about Cypriot or Cypriot-inspired objects, the more recent discoveries made in Tiryns are particularly noteworthy. Furthermore, one has to consider that the problems related to the origin of the fibula, which occurs at the end of the Late Bronze Age, have still not been resolved.