Between Embodied Skill and Digital Abstraction: Reconstructing Cultural Sustainability for Ethnic Handicrafts

Traditional ethnic handicrafts are important carriers of cultural memory and identity, yet their continuity is increasingly challenged by modernization and digitalization. Although digital technologies are widely used to support living transmission, a fundamental tension remains between the abstract logic of digital translation and the embodied experiential value at the core of craft practice. Existing research has not sufficiently explained how digitalization can promote cultural sustainability under this tension. This study develops a grounded theory explaining how digital transmission can support the cultural sustainability of traditional handicrafts. Adopting a constructivist grounded theory approach, it examines Heqing engraving craft in Yunnan and Jiangnan velvet-flower craft as contrasting cases, drawing on semi-structured focused interviews with 34 stakeholders. Through three-stage coding, the study develops a dynamic Subject–Means–Goal transformation model, in which craft cultural resources constitute the Subject, digital thinking functions as the Means, and craft cultural sustainability represents the Goal. The central finding is a feedback mechanism termed “derivatives nurturing the core,” based on a strategic differentiation between core and derivative layers. Through this mechanism, resources generated by digital derivatives are redirected to sustain costly and labor-intensive core craft practices. Authenticity is reconceptualized as dynamic management rather than static preservation. The model explains how different combinations of core-technique preservation and the overcoming of restrictive mindsets produce differentiated cultural-sustainability outcomes. The findings offer theoretical and practical insights into the dynamic sustainability of traditional handicrafts in the digital era.