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Stitch'nBitch: Cyberfeminism, a Third Place and the New Materiality
Abstract
We discuss the emergence of a new craft movement known as Stitch'nBitch. Prevalent around the globe, particularly among women, this movement is based locally in places such as hotels and cafes, and virtually using the internet. The women meet to knit, stitch and talk. The groups use new technologies as an enabler and resource exchange. At the same time, their presence can be seen, in part, as a negative response to major political, social and technological changes including globalization, terrorism, damage to the environment and the dislocation of the Information Society. We introduce five themes to assist in the development of a research agenda into this new form of material culture, discussing (1) remedial, (2) progressive, (3) resistance, (4) nostalgic and (5) ironic possibilities. Each is considered in terms of their respective foci on community, cyberfeminism, craft, conservation and comment.
... At this time, there were fears that natural resources would be depleted and alternative sources needed to be found. Minahan and Wolfram Cox (2007) suggest this "Flower Power" movement promoted a connection to nature and natural resources, such as yarns (p. 13). ...
... However, while second-wave feminism saw young women rejecting traditionally feminine activities such as knitting, the emergence of third-wave feminism in the early 1990s (Mendes, 2011) meant women were suddenly reclaiming them (Batkin, 2018). According to Minahan and Wolfram Cox (2007), during the rise of third-wave feminism, the proportion of women under 45 that knew how to knit doubled between 1997 and 2002, indicating the beginning of a resurgence. In more recent years, there has been an increased popularity of knitting, with many "hipsters" taking up the pastime. ...
... As knitting becomes a popular new pastime, it is simultaneously associated with sustainability and empowerment (Ervin & Conger, 2016;Minahan & Wolfram Cox, 2007), and has begun to represent an appreciation for handcrafted one-of-a-kind items that are just as much about the journey as the destination (Byron, 2019). Additionally, its revival has much to do with having disposable income and the time to do this craft -a return of knitting as a form of status. ...
While knitting is commonly seen as a feminine craft, a great number of men also participate in this practice despite its association with women. These men who knit integrate their identity as knitters with that of being men, resulting in alternative masculinities that often fall back on features of hegemonic masculinity (Kelly, 2014). This study examines online discourses surrounding men who knit through the analysis of twelve threads from Reddit's r/knitting community in order to identify the ways in which knitters perform their identities and genders online. Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS) is applied as the approach to this study that analyses this data and examines the discursive strategies that knitters use to either resist or reinforce gender stereotypes. In addition to this, I look at the ways in which men who knit construct their identities within these discussion threads. The main findings were that a dominant discourse of legitimisation existed to justify that knitting was an acceptable practice for men. Additional discourses that supported this related to identity, belonging, and empowerment, and were used by members of the r/knitting community to resist stereotypes around knitting as a purely feminine pursuit. Male commenters were found to label themselves and other knitters by emphasising their gender and sexuality in terms that were overlexicalised, suggesting that men who knit were reinforcing the gendered nature of knitting, while others sought to impress the idea that a person's gender had nothing to do with the practice. These opposing positions of both resisting and reinforcing gender stereotypes were found to have the same objective of seeking to legitimise men who knit. ii
... Approaching the topic from the side of craft, for a study of the links between craftivism and cyberfeminism, see Minahan and Wolfram Cox (2007). Furthermore, a significant number of female artists explore the intersection of textile and digital, electronic or new media art, often also working with a resistant feminist agenda. ...
... However, a series of projects that she has conducted since 2015 provide evidence of a more long-term transformative engagement with predominantly Indigenous communities. These projects - For the original Yuca_Tech: Energy by Hand project, 22 Amor was motivated both by a desire to explore the fast vanishing art of weaving with sisal fibres, as well as other textile arts, practiced by Maya communities in the Yucatán Peninsula and to offer creative solutions to problems experienced by rural communities that do not have access to electricity 23 . Together, the artist and the local weavers embedded solar panels, conductive thread and LEDs into woven sandals and traditional hats to provide light for people to see their way home at night. ...
... In terms of the agency available to participants, community members are not paid for their labour but involved in the design and manufacture of artefacts where they remain owners of the objects produced and can continue to produce others if they choose to 21 Muñoz cites as sources of inspiration, the work of Danish art collective Superflex, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, and Mexican artist Eugenio Tisselli (Muñoz, 2015). 22 For an excellent overview of the project, see Amor's video entitled Yuca_Tech: Energy by Hand (2014-15). 23 For an overview of the project, see Muñoz (February 21, 2015). ...
Este artículo se centra en proyectos creativos realizados en la intersección del arte textil y el arte de los nuevos medios en América Latina. En particular, dado que las artes textiles indígenas a menudo constituyen una fuente de inspiración para proyectos dirigidos por artistas no indígenas, se busca examinar cómo se puede decir que tales proyectos funcionan en apoyo de la resistencia indígena, contrastando una modalidad de resistencia táctica con una más táctil . Primero ofrece una visión general del arte latinoamericano en este campo, antes de enfocar el quehacer artístico de Amor Muñoz (México) y Aruma (Sandra de Berduccy) (Bolivia).
... Craftivism, offline and online Needlework, which includes knitting, sewing, embroidery and cross-stitch, has traditionally been relegated to the domestic sphere (Black, 2017;Bratich & Brush, 2011;Parker, 1984Parker, /2010, and devalued as a feminine craft (Kelly, 2014;Minahan & Wolfram Cox, 2007). At the same time, women have also used needlework subversively to convey social and political messages through their subtle choices of theme, color, thread and stitch (Emery, 2017;Parker, 2010). ...
... Despite its social, cultural and political significance, empirical research into craftivism has been limited. Previous research has focused most prominently on the relationship between knitting and feminist politics (e.g., Kelly, 2014;Minahan & Wolfram Cox, 2007;Pentney, 2008). Pentney conceptualized feminist craft practices along a continuum, ranging from knitting as women's community building at one end of the continuum to, at the other end, knitting as activism and political protest in both online and offline venues. ...
... As illustrated by Kelly's research, craft cultures have recently flourished in online spaces like Ravelry, where 'social and financial economies co-exist' (Humphreys, 2009, p. 234). The emergence of online crafting communities have facilitated new forms of participation and community (Minahan & Wolfram Cox, 2007), but also, importantly, new forms of DIY citizenship and critical making through craft (Orton-Johnson, 2014). Within this context, as Orton-Johnson noted, DIY citizenship is not limited to explicit acts of political knitting, but also includes the leisure knitter's 'small acts of citizenship as cultural and political activists ' (2014, p. 152). ...
A powerful visual symbol of social protest and a success story of online organizing, the Pussyhat is a prominent illustration of the revival of craftivism in the current political climate. Analyzing the activity of the Pussyhat Project group within the online craft community Ravelry, this article aims to facilitate a deeper understanding of emerging practices of civic expression and participation, and the ways in which online participation might reflect and support these practices. Our analysis reveals the magnitude and particular characteristics of older women’s civic engagement, the function of craft as a gateway to civic expression and participation, and the significance of the online community as a source of practical and socioemotional support. This research thus sheds important light on evolving notions of activism and civic engagement in the digital age and contributes to a better understanding of the participatory practices of older women in interest-based online spaces.
... The resurgence of crafting in the past two decades (Minahan & Cox, 2007;Walker, 2007) has led to a surge of online platforms devoted to crafts, thus creating a vibrant online craft culture (Bratich & Brush, 2011). Given the empowering capabilities attributed to ICTs (Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2008), coupled with the dominance of women in the vibrant global craft culture (Luckman, 2013(Luckman, , 2015, scholars have been investigating notions of empowerment as they manifest themselves in these virtual craft communities (Gajjala, Zhang, & Dako-Gyeke, 2010). ...
... Against the backdrop of the growing craft movement (Bratich & Brush, 2011), the nature of blogs as a multimedia, interactive platform, render them particularly suitable for empowering crafters, since the interface enables a social learning process that involves student-teacher interaction supplemented by verbal, visual, and audio content. Further, blogs' demonstrated community building capabilities (Jackson, Yates, & Orlikowski, 2007;Nardi et al., 2004) make them particularly suitable for facilitating the creation of a crafting community that may fulfill the social dimension that is regarded an integral component of crafting (Bratich & Brush, 2011;Minahan & Cox, 2007). Arguably such communities make crafting an especially appealing form of labor, since it connects people to each other and to physical materials and thereby improves the quality of life in society (Crawford, 2009;Luckman, 2013;Sennett, 2008;Stavrositu & Sundar, 2012). ...
... In this stage, sharing plays two roles in the crafter's empowerment process: The availability of information shared by other crafters enables the amateur crafter enhanced autonomy in her capacity to independently seek out information that she needs (Benkler, 2006). This exemplifies Minahan and Cox (2007) observation that the internet serves as an enabler and resource exchange for craft communities. This process goes hand in hand with the nature of the connection between the internet and applied arts. ...
The study presents an analysis of the development process that women crafters underwent who began blogging as a hobby and gradually turned their crafts into blog-supported small businesses. The analysis demonstrates the role of sharing via blogging as a driving mechanism for community building and empowerment for economic and personal development. Taking a grounded theory approach, our analysis is based on data collected from semi-structured interviews with top craft bloggers in the local blogosphere. We discuss the findings in light of work on the impact of network technologies on individuals’ and markets. © 2017, © 2017 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
... In particular, this study seeks to uncover the interplay of personal and social processes as women pursue craft making in a group setting, including the factors which motivate them to participate. The notion of craft as gendered, with the act of crafting long-held as 'women's work' (Minahan & Cox, 2007), underscores a rich cultural history of women's crafting; and yet the world of women's craft has all too often been viewed as comprising activities that are simply "'time-fillers', frivolous, and of little intrinsic value" (Gandolfo & Grace, 2010, p. 30). As such, the role of gender in women's crafting groups, particularly as these groups are increasingly popularised in online settings in recent years, has been viewed by some as an important aspect of a resistance movement: in essence, women's craft is moving away from its traditional setting in which it is pursued out-of-view in the privacy of the home, and into an open and shared space (either online or in public settings) as an explicit conduit to connect and learn with other women (Minahan & Cox, 2007). ...
... The notion of craft as gendered, with the act of crafting long-held as 'women's work' (Minahan & Cox, 2007), underscores a rich cultural history of women's crafting; and yet the world of women's craft has all too often been viewed as comprising activities that are simply "'time-fillers', frivolous, and of little intrinsic value" (Gandolfo & Grace, 2010, p. 30). As such, the role of gender in women's crafting groups, particularly as these groups are increasingly popularised in online settings in recent years, has been viewed by some as an important aspect of a resistance movement: in essence, women's craft is moving away from its traditional setting in which it is pursued out-of-view in the privacy of the home, and into an open and shared space (either online or in public settings) as an explicit conduit to connect and learn with other women (Minahan & Cox, 2007). More recent research has also demonstrated how everyday engagement with crafting can be instrumental in the forming of a 'creative identity' for women, which in turn can promote health and the empowerment of women in a collective sense (Elisondo & Vargas, 2019). ...
Crafting has occupied the hands and minds of women over many centuries providing vital connections with cultural skills and with community. While the COVID-19 pandemic has isolated women in their homes, it has also provided opportunities for women to reconnect to crafting through virtual spaces. This paper draws on a thematic analysis of a focus group interview examining the experiences of regional women participating in a crafting group and identifies the ways in which they used craft to support their wellbeing. Drawing on the concept of therapeutic landscapes, the paper highlights that connection in a virtual craft group supports lifelong learning and wellbeing, brings women together in support through a community of women's practice and facilitates opportunities for producing meaningful and commemorative quilting projects This finding has implications for a society experiencing unprecedented levels of stress, mental illness and anxiety about the future. A gendered therapeutic learning landscape: Responding creatively to a pandemic 9
... The emergent politicization of craft owes very much to its appearance in public space. Crafts are not only practiced as a solitary activity in private settings such as homes (Jackson 2010), but are also carried into public space by craft practitioners (Minahan and Cox 2007). This emergence of crafts in public is interpreted within the framework of new domesticity, which, against the old domesticity that regard domestic spaces and practices as the site of female subjugation and devalued labor, aims to make sense of this new phenomenon of domestic practices in public space. ...
... Oldenburg (Simon 2009, 249), conversation does not need to be the only activity that takes place in a third place. Stitch'nBitch groups are an example to this as discussed by Minahan and Cox (2007). Stitch'nBitch is a term used to describe the movement where women meet virtually or physically, on the Internet or in local cafes or pubs to socialize and do crafts, in short "to stitch and bitch." ...
This thesis aims to understand how knitting practitioners organize around knitting know-how and knitting patterns, which exchanges they have with regard to knitting know-how and knitting patterns and what meanings they associate to these exchanges. The fieldwork of this thesis is an ethnography of a community of knitting practice, the knitting course, through participant observations with the aim of first developing insights into practitioner’s production process by practicing knitting, and second into the dynamics of the knitting course. Based on the literature review and findings of the fieldwork, this thesis offers five main conclusions regarding knitting practice and the knitting course. Firstly, knitting practice is a skilled practice. Secondly, knitting practice is a creative practice, for it is based on the creative modification of existing patterns. Thirdly, for skill acquisition is based on observation and imitation, knitting practice helps build communities of practice and helps create third places for the practitioner, informal gathering places in urban environments other than home and work. Fourthly, because of the emancipatory and hierarchical practices it embodies in the way it is organized, knitting course is part of a wider fabriculture, which harbors both the very traditional and the very radical practices in textile. Fifthly, as knitting patterns are adjusted through creative modifications and new patterns make their way into the knitting course and knitting know-how is cultivated and spread, knitting course emerges as an unfolding archive of knitting patterns and knitting know-how. The findings and conclusions of this thesis have implications for design practice. Design practice, as in making practices, could focus more on archives of patterns and instructions to which access is offline and collective, helping to build communities of practice and third places for the practitioner.
... In addition to our guerrilla knitting study (Ahmas and Koivunen 2017), we found Biehl and Reynolds' study about guerrilla knitting in a business school (2018). Knitting as a tactile and emotional form of everyday creativity was studied by Vacchani (2013) There are also theoretical articles about knitting and its links to new cyberfemininity and new materiality (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007), everyday creativity (Vacchani 2013), activism and popular culture (Bratich and Brush 2011) and contribution to urban landscape (Hahner and Varda 2014). We also draw on other work on art-based methods to explore what aspects of handicraft and materiality are relevant for our inquiry. ...
... Another creative tension or alteration to traditional knitting is produced when it is often young women who get excited about knitting in contrast to grandmothers who used to knit in their rocking chairs alone at home. Yet another aspect of creative tension can be identified in virtualityyoung women sharing and exchanging their knitting models via cyberspace (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007). Minahan and Wolfram Cox call this a new domesticity. ...
In this chapter Weston and Farber position food as an arts-based research method that can be used to gain an enriched understanding of organizational life. Food is under-researched in business and management studies and the authors address this gap by examining how food intersects with organizational life. The wide and varied ways that food is woven through everyday life at work demonstrates its value as a context that can deepen understanding of organizational engagement. In this chapter Weston and Farber review food research from three perspectives. First, they show how food has been used as a research context for examining social engagement. Second, they document a range of diverse qualitative research methods that have been applied to investigate food practice in the workplace. Third, they examine food as an arts-based research method wherein food is used as a tool to accentuate and enrich social interaction during the research process. Finally, they offer two illustrative examples to highlight their own use of food as an arts-based research method and as a mode of knowledge dissemination. These illustrative examples aim to guide researchers through the process of using food as an arts-based method.
... In addition to our guerrilla knitting study (Ahmas and Koivunen 2017), we found Biehl and Reynolds' study about guerrilla knitting in a business school (2018). Knitting as a tactile and emotional form of everyday creativity was studied by Vacchani (2013) There are also theoretical articles about knitting and its links to new cyberfemininity and new materiality (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007), everyday creativity (Vacchani 2013), activism and popular culture (Bratich and Brush 2011) and contribution to urban landscape (Hahner and Varda 2014). We also draw on other work on art-based methods to explore what aspects of handicraft and materiality are relevant for our inquiry. ...
... Another creative tension or alteration to traditional knitting is produced when it is often young women who get excited about knitting in contrast to grandmothers who used to knit in their rocking chairs alone at home. Yet another aspect of creative tension can be identified in virtualityyoung women sharing and exchanging their knitting models via cyberspace (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007). Minahan and Wolfram Cox call this a new domesticity. ...
Dancers are increasingly seeing their art as a form of research. This is reflected in the development of new techniques, dance notation, and ever-expanding choices of topics that dancers deal with through their performances. Consequently, dance has become a treasure chest for researchers. In this chapter, I present a range of ideas for how elements from the world of dance can be adopted by researchers in business, management, and humanities. Adopting such elements from the world of dance is particularly useful when studying unconscious, affective, and aesthetic aspects of organisational life. For inspiration, I have included four different research designs drawing on dance. However, the possibilities are endless, and the reader is encouraged to be creative.
... In third-wave feminism, which is greatly indebted to first and second wave, the originality of the urban knitting movement has expressed and revealed itself with respect to other social and political moments. In fact, it has gone to the heart of women's traditions by creating a kind of continuity while at the same time changing its meaning (Groeneveld, 2010;Minahan & Cox, 2007;Parker, 1984). The use of popular culture for feminist ends represents one of the unique aspects of third-wave feminism, which adopts it to expand what counts as political and modes of political activism (Scholz, 2010). ...
... Generally, the first distinctive hallmark attributed to the urban knitting movement is that it primarily involves women (Hermanson, 2012;Minahan & Cox, 2007). ''Mettiamoci una pezza'' is no exception. ...
The aim of this article is to explore urban knitting as a worldwide social movement, rather than solely a kind of “inoffensive urban graffiti” made with knitted fabric. Building on the available literature and original research, the article argues that this movement weaves together elements from craftivism, domesticity, handicraft, art, and feminism. It then explores a specific urban knitting initiative, called “Mettiamoci una pezza” (“Let’s patch it”), carried out in L’Aquila, Italy, 3 years after the earthquake that devastated the city in 2009. To analyze the sociopolitical aspects of this initiative, a series of qualitative research studies was conducted over time, to which were added semistructured interviews with the initiative’s local organizers. The findings show that the initiative in L’Aquila clearly exhibits the five original features of the urban knitting movement that emerge from the literature as being characteristic of this movement.
... Rather, and as Simmel reminds us, 'the attraction of' crafted objects will continue to 'desert the present article just as it left the earlier one' ( ibid : 556). Embedded practices of local making in a place are contrasted with globalized, environmentally damaged, terrorized and masculinized societies (Wolfram Cox & Minahan 2007 ). The tactility of craft work intersects with creativity in a way which is productive of memory and affective relationships with objects (Vachhani 2013 ). ...
... The building of craft work identities based on entrepreneurial subjectivity also relies on eroding the boundaries between work and leisure and co-opting the home as a site of capitalism (Luckman 2015b ). The signifi cance of the home as a place of craft work has a long history in the gendering of craft work identities (Callen 1984 ;Wolfram Cox & Minahan 2007 ). The development of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century positioned craft work as a domestic, community-based, small-scale activity which was the domain of women (Greenhalgh 1997 ). ...
This study investigates the meaning of contemporary craft work and explores the extent to which it represents a distinctive organizational identity formation. The paper focuses on how businesses build brand identities based on authenticity in craft and how craft skills are learnt in organizations. The research is based on a comparative qualitative case study analysis of two organizations, a craft work business in the UK Staffordshire potteries and a textile craft maker in the Southern Italian city of Naples. We explore how, by engaging in learning activities based on knowledge that is shared, socialized and transferred within artisanal contexts, the sense of being holders of unique skills and knowledge is overlaid with identity features, making workers aware of their ability to contribute to a distinctive organizational identity formation. In the full paper, we elaborate on how managers and workers construct competing accounts of organizational identity based on craft as a source of authenticity.
... In third-wave feminism, which is greatly indebted to first and second wave, the originality of the urban knitting movement has expressed and revealed itself with respect to other social and political moments. In fact, it has gone to the heart of women's traditions by creating a kind of continuity while at the same time changing its meaning (Groeneveld, 2010;Minahan & Cox, 2007;Parker, 1984). The use of popular culture for feminist ends represents one of the unique aspects of third-wave feminism, which adopts it to expand what counts as political and modes of political activism (Scholz, 2010). ...
... Generally, the first distinctive hallmark attributed to the urban knitting movement is that it primarily involves women (Hermanson, 2012;Minahan & Cox, 2007). ''Mettiamoci una pezza'' is no exception. ...
This entry introduces the reader to various media effects of mobile communication devices. The special focus is on mobile phones. The entry begins with a presentation of media effects on communication practices, on users, as well as on interlocutors and bystanders. It continues by analyzing the reverse effects of users on the redesign of mobile media. Lastly, the issues of how mobile communication is connected to social and geographical surroundings and how the use of mobile communication devices is related to the social structures of society are addressed. The entry concludes with a discussion of the media effects of mobile communication in the future.
... Sowards and Renegar (2006, p. 67) noted that the focus on the individual of third wave feminism is not narcissistic but rather a 'recognition of the complexities of contemporary activism' . Lichterman (1996) and Minahan and Cox (2007) similarly emphasised that third wavers engaging in self-centred forms of feminism are not inherently selfish but create the basis of a community of individuals who engage in similar activities. For instance, 'Stich'n Bitch' 3 groups, zine collectives and riot grrrl bands show that third wavers do not all work in isolation. ...
... 3. 'Stich'n Bitch' groups are collectives that combine handcrafts with political -often feminist -messages. For more information see Minahan and Cox (2007). 4. ...
Everyday feminist practices are located in the personal lives of feminists, therefore, third wave feminists frequently use the slogan the personal is political to emphasise the political value of such practices. Often, second wave feminists do not agree with this interpretation of the famous feminist catchphrase, which initially meant to call for collective political responses to personal experiences of gender inequalities. This article investigates this dispute that is symbolic of the broader relationship between second and third wave feminism. It compares both perspectives on everyday feminism by relating arguments for and against the political value of everyday feminism to empirical findings of a qualitative study. Based on 40 interviews with second and third wave feminists in New Zealand, I argue that the dispute is based on a number of misunderstandings between the opposing perspectives. Disentangling those misunderstandings, I conclude that although everyday feminism as a manifestation of ‘the personal’ works towards ‘small’ political aims, it is a political practice.
... There are case studies that emphasize the instrumental use of materiality in the work of craftspersons. Examples include work on brewers making beer or kombucha (Garavaglia & Swinnen, 2018;Kroezen & Heugens, 2019;Kuijpers, Popa & Kroezen, 2019) and knit-and-stitch hobbyists who make blankets (Minahan & Cox, 2007). These studies use materiality to either refer to the making process -how craftspersons use certain tools and techniques, or outcomes -what craftspersons are working on. ...
... A growing body of diverse international research about knitting has been concentrated on subjective well-being (e.g., Brooks, Ta, Townsend, & Backman, 2019;Corkhill et al., 2014;Lamont & Ranaweera, 2019;Parkins, 2004;Riley, 2008;Riley et al., 2013;Rosner & Ryokai, 2009;Schofiled-Tomschin & Littrell, 2001), and on the perspective of serious leisure (Court, 2020) andDIY culture (e.g., von Busch, 2010;Farinosi & Fortunati, 2018;Gauntlett, 2018;Kelly, 2014;Kouhia 2015;Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). In addition, craft has also been studied to an increasing extent as a basis for personal, social or political change via new materiality (e.g., Corkhill et al., 2014;Greer, 2008;Hosegood, 2009;Minahan & Cox, 2011;Myzelev, 2006Myzelev, , 2015O´Donald, Hatza, & Springgay, 2010;Springgay, 2010), and in craft web cultures as a basis for knitting as a feminist project (e.g., Humphreys, 2008;O'Donald et al., 2010;Minahan & Cox, 2007). Earlier studies have emphasized the meaning of crafting as a hobby practiced alone at home (Pöllänen, 2015;Kouhia, 2015;Pöllänen & Voutilainen, 2017), and a number of studies have also looked at the interactions within knitting groups in face-to-face contexts (e.g., Prigoda & McKenzie, 2007). ...
The purpose of this study was to describe the reasons for knitting blogging and the importance of blogging for the bloggers’ crafting. A multiphase mixed-methods study focusing on quantitative research methods was the methodological basis. Therefore, the study included both sequential and simultaneous investigation paths. In this study, the quantitative data were collected from the same group of Finnish knitting bloggers by two online surveys in 2008 (N= 501) and in 2013 (N= 212). The quantitative data focused on time-related changes in blogging, whereas the qualitative data, collected by essays (N=50) during 2013-2014, was used to explain the quantitative data. In quantitative analysis, the key features of reasons for knitting blogging were analysed by principal component analysis. The differences in the principal components for the background groups between the surveys were elucidated by means of 2-way analysis of variance. The qualitative data were analysed by data-driven content analysis. The results indicated that there were several reasons for knitting blogging. According to the results, the elements of knitting blogging were: 1) inspiration and materialization, 2) connecting and community support, 3) encouragement and 4) reflection and reminiscence. Knitting blogging has reshaped crafting by combining the material and tactile process of knitting with digital practices of life-streaming and with participatory activities in networked spaces. It appeared that knitting and blogging complemented each other, and that blogging supported development of the blogger’s crafting into a serious leisure activity with meaningful long-term activities and clear goals. Keywords: digital practices, knitting blog, leisure, mixed methods design, online communities
... Here, there is some optimism that the virtuality of the internet allows women and non-binary people to escape embodied inequalities, empowers them to shape their own identities online, and participate in technology on their terms. The Stitch'nBitch movement, for instance, of women meeting offline and online in activist, cyberfeminist knitting communities, is analysed as a phenomenon in which the production and consumption of gender, technology and society collide and exemplifies a new materiality (Minahan & Cox, 2007). ...
Feminist organization theories develop knowledge about how organizations and processes of organizing shape and are shaped by gender, in intersection with race, class and other forms of social inequality. The politics of knowledge within management and organization studies tend to marginalize and silence feminist theorizing on organizations, and so the field misses out on the interdisciplinary, sophisticated conceptualizations and reflexive modes of situated knowledge production provided by feminist work. To highlight the contributions of feminist organization theories, I discuss the feminist answers to three of the grand challenges that contemporary organizations face: inequality, technology and climate change. These answers entail a systematic critique of dominant capitalist and patriarchal forms of organizing that perpetuate complex intersectional inequalities. Importantly, feminist theorizing goes beyond mere critique, offering alternative value systems and unorthodox approaches to organizational change, and providing the radically different ways of knowing that are necessary to tackle the grand challenges. The paper develops an aspirational ideal by sketching the contours of how we can organize for intersectional equality, develop emancipatory technologies and enact a feminist ethics of care for the human and the natural world.
... The punk aesthetic and ethos from the hardcore music scene of the 1970s, with its imagery of hoodlums and rebellion against commercialism, has later informed the more political and protest-oriented subcultures in "craftivism" (Greer 2008). Craftivism entails handicraft performed individually or in groups, such as knitting circles, but directed to political activism, environmental advocacy, artistic protest and/or radical feminism (Minahan/Cox 2007). Particularly when connected to digital technologies, craftivism seeks to resist narratives of traditional gender roles and how they are associated with utilitarian craft, as well as the exclusion of women from innovation and technology imaginaries. ...
... A very different archaeological approach however applies to more recent periods where a profusion in material culture exists alongside infinite other potential sources of evidence while, for the contemporary world at least, most if not all material traces exist on the surface (Harrison and Schofield 2010;Harrison 2011). A further and particular challenge exists in relation to what has been termed the 'new materiality' (DeLanda 2015; Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007), where traces are largely if not entirely virtual, digital, fluid and intangible. Contemporary society is increasingly characterized by this new materiality and its almost infinite abundance. ...
Cybercrime is ubiquitous. People now inhabit a digital environment comprising permanent risk, exponential threats, and multiple virtual/physical harms, forming a global community of malefactors and the criminally exploited. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, through an archaeological lens, to characterize the new materiality of cybercrime (including its artefacts and architecture alongside digital/virtual manifestations). And second, to explore the potential for new perspectives on cybercrime borne out of this archaeological approach. In short: what is the archaeology of cybercrime and can new understandings emerge from an archaeological perspective? In undertaking this research we also challenge the long-held presumption that non-physical traces can be studied archaeologically. It is our contention that they can.
... I believe we are trying to save ourselves from an increasingly robotic and non-sentient world' (Lauren, 2020). Ideological assumptions about the value of the handmade are reflected in recent scholarship that celebrates online craft communities associated with a resurgence of interest in domestic craft, handmade goods, and repair work as resistant to market capitalism (Bratich and Brush, 2011;Minahan and Cox, 2007). Making, it is suggested, is integral to both community livelihood and to bonds between people (Gauntlett, 2011), including as signifiers of family and love. ...
‘Making’ and crafting have been transformed into a reality TV competition, hosted by celebrities, with promotional tie-ins to other media and cultural products. As such, shows like Making It, Craft Wars, and Ellen’s Design Challenge define ‘craft’ according to particular logics familiar to reality TV programming, which highlight making as a competition in which contestants vie for cash prizes and honorific titles engaging with particular gendered logics of neoliberal markets and histories of ‘craft’. This article examines three craft TV shows to interrogate the nexus of craft and reality and consider unstable and shifting meanings of these cultural phenomena. Craft, handmade and DIY invoke various competing politics; when imported into a reality TV context, craft continues to bring into play messy contradictions reflective of broader social anxieties and political economic climates.
... Barbara pointed specifically towards the loss of evening classes and the closing or merging of craft guilds. 11 Yet Barbara's argument needs to be considered alongside the emergence of new forms of craft-based sociality, such as 'knit and natter' (also known as 'stitch and bitch') groups for knitters (Minahan & Cox, 2007). Participants were clear that the formal education system was not the optimal location for engendering interest in making. ...
... Research into knitting has, to some extent, replicated the cultural preoccupation with hipster-knitters and their new knitting practices at the expense of practitioners who may be uncritically classified as granny-knitters. There have been studies of knitting in relation to: avant-garde performance art (Rees, 2018); fan art (Cherry, 2016); celebrity and lifestyle cultures (Drix, 2014;Parkins, 2004); online social networks (Minahan and Cox, 2007;Orton-Johnson, 2014); feminism (Groeneveld, 2010;Kelly, 2014;Pentney, 2008); yarn-bombing and political activism (Black, 2017;Bratich and Brush, 2011;Close, 2018;Hahner and Varda, 2014;Literat and Markus, 2019). These forms of knitting may involve women of all ages but are discursively constructed as youthful activities, representative of a new ethos of trendy, public crafting and the feminist reclamation of knitting from anachronistic 'grannies'. ...
This article outlines the methodological innovations generated in a study of knitting and femininity in Britain. The study utilised 'knit "n" natter' focus groups during which female participants were encouraged to knit and talk. The research design encompassed a traditionally undervalued form of domestic 'women's work' to recognise the creative skills of female practitioners. 'Knit "n" natter' is a fruitful feminist research method in relation to its capitalisation on female participants' creativity, its disruption of expertise and its feminisation of academic space. The method challenges patriarchal conventions of knowledge production and gendered power relations in research, but it also reproduces problematic constructions of gender, which are acknowledged. The study contributes to a growing body of work on creative participatory methods and finds that the 'knit "n" natter' format has utility beyond investigations of crafting and may be used productively in other contexts where in-depth research with women is desirable.
... The majority of respondents were female (99.0%) which is similar to respondents of the survey exploring knitting and wellbeing (98.8%) (18). It is also reflective of the fact that craft is often seen as a domestic craft, and as such, women's work (31). The modal age of respondents was 51-60 years, which was considerably higher than respondents in the knitting survey (21-30 years) (18). ...
Aims
With rising rates of mental health disorders being reported globally, it is imperative that we investigate economical and accessible ways to increase relaxation and reduce stress. While there is a plethora of anecdotal evidence as to the positive effects of domestic crafts on mental wellbeing, there is little empirical research in this area. As such, we aimed to explore perceived links between crochet and wellbeing.
Methods
An online survey was developed and piloted, based on an existing tool that explored knitting and wellbeing. The final survey was promoted through social media, over a 6-week period, resulting in valid responses from 8391 individuals.
Results
Most respondents were female (99.1%), aged between 41 and 60 years (49.5%) and living in 87 different countries. Many respondents reported crocheting for between 1 and 5 years (42.6%). The three most frequent reasons reported for crocheting were: to be creative (82.1%), to relax (78.5%) and for a sense of accomplishment (75.2%). Respondents reported that crochet made them feel calmer (89.5%), happier (82%) and more useful (74.7%). There was a significant improvement in reported scores for mood before crocheting (M = 4.19, SD = 1.07) and mood after crocheting (M = 5.78, SD = 0.82); z = −69.86, p < .001, r = −0.56. Content analysis of free-text responses identified five major themes: (1) health benefits, (2) process of crochet, (3) personal connection, (4) crochet as contribution and (5) online crochet communities.
Conclusion
The data suggests that crochet offers positive benefits for personal wellbeing with many respondents actively using crochet to manage mental health conditions and life events such as grief, chronic illness and pain. Crochet is a relatively low-cost, portable activity that can be easily learnt and seems to convey all of the positive benefits provided by knitting. This research suggests that crochet can play a role in promoting positive wellbeing in the general population, adding to the social prescribing evidence base.
... Artists cover the city by knitted pieces and tell "stitched stories" [15]. Previous research also considered knitting was associated with feminist movement [16,17]. Academic studies regarding knitting usually focus on feminist ideology rather than its benefits and development in educational aspects. ...
... Orton-Johnson (2014) argues that the participatory web culture now integral to new knitting provides a host of benefits for users such as connecting groups, sharing skills, exhibiting projects, facilitating events and the performativity of publicly displaying a traditionally private activity. Indeed, Minahan and Cox (2007) have explored such networked knitting as a radical cyber-feminist project. ...
New discourses of craft construct knitting as young, hip, socially networked and politically conscious and the experiences of knitters who do not fit into this formulation are marginalised. 7.3 million people in Britain knit; the vast majority are women in their mid-thirties and older. Yet popular media accounts of ‘new knitting’ mobilise the derogatory figure of the ‘grandma’ to repudiate knitters who are seen not to properly instantiate contemporary femininity. Although this derision accrues particularly to older women, knitters of all ages can be similarly dismissed. Knitting is thus a site of struggle around new formations of gender in post-feminist culture in which some women fall short. This study uses original qualitative data from focus groups with 15 adult knitters in North-west England and North Wales to give voice to women who do not identify with ‘new knitting’ practices and primarily pursue their hobby in more conventional contexts. The article finds that traditional domestic craft practices continue to play a significant role, particularly in older women’s leisure, and that ‘new knitting’ is alienating for some practitioners. While the article concludes that twenty-first century discourses of craft have devalued established knitting practices, it also indicates that these are useful sources of critique of hipster capitalist post-feminist culture.
... Swapping activities are supposed to be mostly informal, but actually range from the transnationally structured and totally for-profit Rentez-Vous platform, to the small family business run through the website Reoose, and the locally based, but still partially economically oriented Swap in the City ("Sure since I started swapping, I have changed my relationship with things... before I used to care more about my things … now I am more detached, I can more easily get rid of them because I think that probably someone else can take advantage of something I keep without using, so if I discard my dress, it is as if it had another life"), to the more morally and socially oriented Gas or Il tuo armadio, an ethical purchasing group based in Milan where a group of friends volunteer. In repair and knitting circles, the social/political aim is often more important than the economic aim (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007;Reiley and De Long 2011). ...
... Swapping activities are supposed to be mostly informal, but actually range from the transnationally structured and totally for-profit Rentez-Vous platform, to the small family business run through the website Reoose, and the locally based, but still partially economically oriented Swap in the City ("Sure since I started swapping, I have changed my relationship with things... before I used to care more about my things … now I am more detached, I can more easily get rid of them because I think that probably someone else can take advantage of something I keep without using, so if I discard my dress, it is as if it had another life"), to the more morally and socially oriented Gas or Il tuo armadio, an ethical purchasing group based in Milan where a group of friends volunteer. In repair and knitting circles, the social/political aim is often more important than the economic aim (Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007;Reiley and De Long 2011). ...
... Mitchell also describes her work as "messy craft," where, as Mitchell puts it, you can "see the hand of the artist in the work" in its imperfect and handmade qualities (Allyson Mitchell, interview). The traditional distinctions between fine art and craft often reflect social hierarchies, with the former traditionally a masculine domain and valued as a legitimate form of cultural expression, while the latter was often denigrated as utilitarian production engaged by low-status groups, a cultural distinction that masks a social arrangement founded on relations of sexism, racism, classism, cultural centrism, colonialism and capitalism (Markowitz 1994;Minahan and Cox 2007;Pentney 2008;Steele 2009). Craft (when done for activist purposes, often called "craftivism" in contemporary parlance) represents a revitalized interest in handmade, doit-yourself (DIY) skills traditionally associated with the subjugated Indigenous other and feminine domestic skills, and Ladies Sasquatch draws on these sensibilities to legitimize some art world sensibilities while destabilizing others. ...
Discourse analysis often overlooks the role of aesthetic experience in the formation of relations of power through meaning. This paper presents an aesthetic discourse analysis of Canadian artist Allyson Mitchell’s Ladies Sasquatch, a celebrated sculpture-installation of six gigantic naked Sasquatches. I argue that by integrating expectations rooted in fine art sensibilities, playfulness and nostalgia into the physical instantiation of an untamed, separatist collective of queer mythological beasts, Ladies Sasquatch tactically uses aesthetic experience—through feelings of uncertainty, anticipation and belonging—to reclaim public space for radical, political lesbian experience. Aesthetic discourse analysis of Ladies Sasquatch demonstrates how aesthetic experience can influence and shape discourse outcomes in the context of resistance to dominant forms of understanding, in this case by challenging the legitimacies of patriarchal norms while destabilizing the ways radical lesbian experience is delegitimized in mainstream cultural contexts.
... Contemporary theory in DIY culture (Minahan and Cox, 2007;Bratich, 2010;Bratich and Brush, 2011) is interested in how the growing maker communities generate social capital for those involved. It is possible to see in this work a tightly woven discussion of activism and empowerment that has yet to reach game studies. ...
This paper celebrates the rise of indie game making as craft in order to explicate the ways in which this activity is both empowering for those involved as well as at risk of reproducing less desirable aspects of the contemporary cultural landscape. One only has to look at independent game festivals to see how few women and other traditionally excluded groups are visible center stage in this rapidly developing sector – if we are not careful then the very same exclusionary practices that are evident in the mainstream sector will become embedded here. Craft has historically been seen as 'women's work' and my positioning of game making as craft is an intentional feminist act to claim this space and its potential to both play with and against ‘for profit’ game development. This paper blends feminist aesthetics, new craft theory and indie game culture with the intent of identifying opportunities and strategies for inclusivity for the independent games sector. It will elucidate some processes in action but also, importantly, identify routes forward for building a diverse community of independent game developers.
... Although strides in this area have been made in recent years, many of these toys are still geared towards the masculine aesthetic. Additionally, many stereotypically female craft-type hobbies (sewing, knitting, and crocheting) include design, mathematical, and spatial problem solving, but are not identified as an outlet for engineering tinkering or thinking (Bain, 2016; Minahan & Cox, 2007 ). This masculinized tinkering environment stands to present engineering as uninviting and uninteresting to girls. ...
The 21st century has brought an increasing demand for expertise in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Although strides have been made towards increasing gender diversity in several of these disciplines, engineering remains primarily male dominated. In response, the U.S. educational system has attempted to make engineering curriculum more engaging, informative, and welcoming to girls. Specifically, project-based and design-based learning pedagogies promise to make engineering interesting and accessible for girls while enculturating them into the world of engineering and scientific inquiry. Outcomes for girls learning in these contexts have been mixed. The purpose of this study was to explore how cultural gender norms are navigated within informal K-12 engineering contexts. We analyzed video of single- and mixed-gender collaborative groups participating in Studio STEM, a design-based, environmentally themed afterschool program that took place in a rural community. Discourse analysis was used to interpret interactional styles within and across groups. Discrepancies were found regarding functional and cultural characteristics of groups based on gender composition. Single gender groups adhered more closely to social gender norms. For example, the boys group was characterized by overt hierarchies, whereas the girls group outwardly displayed solidarity and collaboration. In contrast, characteristics of interactional styles within mixed gender groups strayed from social gender norms, and stylistic differences across group types were greater for girls than for boys. Learning outcomes indicated that girls learned more in mixed-gender groups. Our results support the use of mixed-gender collaborative learning groups in engineering education yet uncover several challenges. We close with a discussion of implications for practitioners.
Stitching refers to a range of textile crafts which involve use of needles, such as sewing, knitting, crochet, tapestry, embroidery or quilting to create clothing, homewares or other objects. Mostly undertaken by women, there have long been stitchers for whom this activity is inherently a spiritual activity. The rhythmic pattern of the work is said to enable mindful practice or a space to meditate on other concerns or contemplation on religious or spiritual texts, and the connections enabled through stitching may be significant. Stitching has traditionally been a way in which women could mould their identities while helping one another or making charitable donations. At the same time, stitching can aid processes of mourning, remembering and resistance. However, there are many women for whom stitching is the antithesis of an activity which they would denote as being spiritual, especially those for whom stitching is a task or chore they are required to undertake. Stitching has become associated with exploitative practices, including poor pay and poor working conditions. In contrast to those who stitch by choice and can exercise agency over what and when they create, those who stitch for a living are subject to timelines and restrictions on what they create, and hence are less likely to experience stitching as a spiritual activity. This paper contributes to the spirituality literature by demonstrating why a generalised delineation of actions per se, as spiritual or not, is problematic.
This article explores the gender of sewing as well as its relationship to domesticity, femininity, and maternity in the contemporary, western context. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with 30 women who sew in Kingston, Ontario, it is evident that sewing is no longer considered a domestic task but is devalued due to its association with women's work. While sewing for others is no longer the task of a devoted mother and wife, it appears many women sew to communicate love and care to family and friends. At first glance, these gifts and gestures seem unrelated to gender, but analysis suggests they are part of the emotional labour predominantly done by women. Finally, the decision not to sew for others, and prioritize sewing as a leisure practice, is interpreted as a form of feminist resistance. It appears that the relationship between sewing and gender is a difficult seam to unpick.
From medieval romances to twenty-first century popular novels, weaving, sewing, embroidery, and knitting have been a framework for female voices otherwise marginalized by the culture depicted in the text or by the genre itself. The habitus connecting women and textiles is strong enough that, even as textile production has become almost wholly industrialized, the association remains powerful in contemporary popular culture. This article offers a comparative look at the textiles produced by women in Laura Esquivel's novel Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate, Mexico, 1989) and Völsungasaga (The Saga of the Volsungs, Iceland, late 13th century). Although separated by almost a millennium, in these literary texts, Tita and Brunhild each use their skill at textile production to express the things they cannot say out loud. The close readings performed here are part of a larger work examining the varied means by which women in patriarchal societies enact agency through their reproductive labour, particularly women's communication of narrative through production of both texts and textiles.
This article investigates how spirituality relates to craft-making. Spirituality is understood to have both religious and nonreligious content depending on the person. The data was collected in a one-year period of observation and interviews. The results show that spirituality related to craft-making may be both religious and nonreligious. It is noteworthy, however, that religious and nonreligious spirituality are related to different aspects of craft-making: the social and prosocial aspects of craft-making are mostly religiously spiritual, whereas individually centred aspects are not. Altogether, the spirituality of craft-making is largely immanent and wellbeing-oriented. As such, its focus is on getting along in everyday life.
Over the past twenty years, hobby crafting has experienced a revival of interest, as people have started to seek new ways to engage with crafts as creative leisure in an increasingly digital world. Along the way, emerging, digital technologies have provided new tools and ways to engage in hobby crafting. Indeed, today’s hobby crafts are frequently concerned with material mediated via the internet and accomplished with the aid of software, which also affects our understanding of maker identities in online communities. This article argues that digitalization has not only revolutionized hobbyist craft making with new tools and technologies, but has also paved new ways for practising creative skills, which has had a significant impact on makers’ engagements with craft materials, objects and communities of practices. This is demonstrated through netnographic explorations on Facebook’s leisure craft community where digital material practices are increasingly prevalent in hobbyists’ everyday life. As a conclusion, the article speculates on visions of the future of hobby crafts and its relevance as a leisure pursuit.
This project explores social psychological factors and motivation involving vlogs, filling gaps in the understanding of viewing needs and outcomes of this new cultural practice. An exploratory online survey asked over 400 knitting vlog viewers about expected outcomes of viewing, loneliness, identification, perceived homophily, parasocial relationship strength, motivation to knit, and motivation to view knitting vlogs, addressing hypotheses involving common expected outcomes and viewing motivation, how well loneliness predicts parasocial relationship strength, and how these feelings predict motivations to view vlogs and to knit. The results showed that feelings of activity and social connection most strongly predicted motivation to view and to knit. Loneliness did not play a role in parasocial relationship strength. These findings suggest that the social qualities of knitting vlogs may play an important role in motivating viewers to watch and to knit.
There have been continuous debates on the influence of globalization and cultural interactions on the origins and spread of terrorism, Hence, there are numerous attempts to analyze the underlying causal mechanism between these concepts. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the already established body of knowledge, the paper provides a detailed review of the contemporary scholarship on such diverse concepts as “globalization,” “culture,” and “terrorism.” The goal is to systemize the existing approaches used by researchers to analyze the interconnectedness of globalization, culture, and terrorism and present a holistic picture of the current state-of-the-art (which could be used to identify potentials for future research). Relying on the data available from the Scopus abstract and citation database, the paper covers the period from 1998 to 2019. First of all, the paper analyzed a number of quantitative indicators, such as an overall number of papers published, their document types, the leading countries in terms of the scholarly output, and the biggest subject areas. Second, the authors select a total of 40 research papers from the database and conduct a detailed review, the purpose of which is to present a holistic view on the key perspectives developed to analyze such concepts as “globalization,” “culture,” and “terrorism.” The review clearly demonstrates that one could identify the total of five distinct perspectives in the contemporary scholarship: (1) “Postcolonialism,” (2) “Religion and Identity Studies,” (3) “Social Science Approaches,” (4) “Education and Culture,” and (5) “Popular Culture and Mass Media.” The paper provides a summary of each approach, with a detailed account of the relevant papers. Thus, the review presents unique insights into how the current body of knowledge on the concepts “globalization,” “culture,” and “terrorism” is organized, highlighting the critical and well-established research avenues (at least how they are reflected in one of the leading abstract and citation database).
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the potential of knitting and other forms of handicraft as an art-based research method. Many modes of DIY (Do It Yourself) have become increasingly popular in the past ten years, attracting younger generations to rediscover the pleasure of doing something with one’s hands. Knitting and knitting circles are part of this development. We draw on our work on guerrilla knitting as an organizational intervention when organizing an art exhibition in a Finnish museum (Ahmas in Norsunluutornin purkajat. Kollektiivinen asiantuntijuus ja jaettu johtajuus museossa [Dismantling an Ivory Tower: Shared Leadership and Collective Expertise in a Museum]. 2014; Ahmas and Koivunen 2017). The exciting effects of this guerrilla knitting activity encouraged us to explore further the capacity of knitting and other handicraft methods. Guerrilla knitting, yarn bombing, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre. According to Joanna Mann (2005: 66): “Yarn bombing is a technique that merges street graffiti with the fibre work of knitting or crochet. Also known as ‘yarn storming’, ‘knit graffiti’ and ‘guerrilla knitting’, yarn bombing involves stealthily attaching handmade fibre items to street fixtures or parts of the urban landscape”.
This article describes how software is imagined and used to disrupt garment industry practices. Drawing from interviews, fieldwork, and discourse analysis of marketing from two companies, Stoll and Resonance, we argue that software is integral to the creation of a new kind of designer, a “digital craftsman,” that directly interfaces with a new kind of supply chain. This interaction is defined by its “seamlessness”—what we describe as both an emergent technical design element and an imaginary of software-enabled manufacturing free from friction between sites of concept development and its material execution. Counter to this imaginary, we mobilize the “tactile grammar” of seams to foreground the role of embodied communication and labor practices in shaping software-defined industrial futures. Studying the connections between fiber, fingers, and code, this article opens up new lines of inquiry into industrial software and into the links between media production and larger spheres of commodity production.
Only one person at a time works on a piece of knitting and it is often a solitary activity. However, it can also be very social. For some, the opportunity to interact online and in-person with other knitters is a significant motivation for undertaking the activity. Knitters interviewed as part of this qualitative research reported three core inter-related benefits of sharing their knitting with other people: technical support; feeling part of a community; and forming meaningful friendships. This article makes an original contribution by exploring the nature of the benefits of knitting as a way of connecting with others.
It follows that friendships can spring from leisure activities, as participants may be likely to have some similar interests. The article speculates that undertaking a shared and tangible activity seems to offer powerful benefits to ease and facilitate meaningful social interactions. Women were the focus of this study and it is suggested that the opportunity to experience these interactions with other women was core to their experience.
This empirical research project used a grounded theory approach, involving several stages of data collection and analysis. This article is primarily based on the final stage, consisting of in depth interviews with women knitters.
This article explores the role of the crafts of knitting and crochet in memorialization, an aspect of how contemporary knitting culture uses craft as a means of connecting with the sacred. It argues that knitting and crochet as material memorialization is part of wider trends in late modernity: the sacralization of the family; the preoccupation with the past; and the seeking of connection with that which is perceived to have been lost. Drawing on qualitative interviews, it discusses participants’ craft projects used to honor maternal heritage, uncover marginalized histories, make space for reflection in commemoration and grieving, maintain the presence of the dead, and provide tactile comfort in the face of loss.
En este artículo analizamos 14 iniciativas de activismo textil en Bogotá, dando cuenta de cómo el quehacer textil que las soporta y su producción material son ejemplos de posturas feministas que no siempre son explícitas. Las iniciativas fueron identificadas a través de un rastreo por vínculos, sus representantes fueron entrevistadas y la información recogida analizada dando cuenta del tipo de activismo que desarrollan, subrayando sus objetivos y las prácticas que realizan. Tomamos como base la propuesta de continuum feminista desarrollada por Anne Beth Pentney que permitió tipificar los diferentes casos como de construcción de colectividad, orientadas a promover causas sociales o como formas de denuncia o protesta. Discutimos las limitaciones de esta propuesta de continuum cuando se toman en consideración aspectos temporales y espaciales, condiciones materiales de producción de lo textil o cuando se dimensionan las apuestas pedagógicas de transmisión de conocimiento que algunos casos definen como su objetivo central.
Textiles have played a key role in local and national cultures not only because of their utility and functionality, but also in terms of the symbolic value that they have for a particular social group, populace, or nation. Given the erratic and myriad nature of these communities, the focus of this article is on mapping out differentiation in the designs of contemporary wooly socks that find their source of inspiration in an imaginary of Finland celebrating its national centenary in 2017. In this endeavor, the article refines how an idea of a nation is reflected on through knitted craftwork, and how the divergence and layeredness of these designs not only reaffirms and evokes traditions but also develops the culture of knitting in contemporary times. In conclusion, the article contributes to the decoding of a textile design process in reflection of the recollection of the experiences of rootedness, the reproduction of the expression and the use of communicative images, and the negotiation of hybrid social realities voiced through the materiality of making.
‘We did it! We created a sea of pink!’. On 19 January 2017, one day before the Women’s March on Washington, it is estimated that a hundred thousand Pussyhats had been made and distributed. The hats were part of an initiative called the Pussyhat Project. Calling upon knitters, crocheters, sewists and feminists, the Pussyhat Project aims to mobilize the handmade for the purposes of increasing the visibility, representation, and awareness of women’s rights in general, and of women’s rights activists at the Women’s March on Washington in particular. Since its inception, the Project has received numerous accolades and criticisms in mainstream and social media. In particular, the Project has been lauded as an example of craft activism or craftivism. This article explores the Pussyhat Project in relation to craft activism and contemporary craft in the Global North, particularly in terms of gender, race, class, and space. This article provides a critical context for examining the Pussyhat Project, a context that is largely missing in both celebrations and criticisms of Pussyhats thus far. Such contextualizing broadens discussions about the Pussyhat Project. In doing so, it contributes to on-going considerations about how to engage craft as a tool of substantive, feminist social change.
This paper reviews the literature on craft production to explore the ways in which the normative landscape of craft is affecting the contemporary geographies of craft-based manufacturing. Craft forms of production have enjoyed a revival in recent decades in what is now called the “third-wave” craft movement. In this paper, I consider the origins and characteristics of third-wave craft as well as its historical precedents. I highlight 3 distinct geographies associated with contemporary craft-based manufacturing, including a fusion of industrial and cultural production in industrial workspaces, a relocalization of small-scale industrial production in advanced economies, and a tendency towards spatial agglomeration in both urban and rural areas. Drawing on the case of the American craft-brewing sector, I offer a picture of these distinct geographies in a representative manufacturing industry and highlight the need to consider the ways in which craft production and articulations of its values manifest differently in different industries. Finally, I conclude by offering reflections on the landscape of craft-based manufacturing and potential avenues for future geographical engagements with craft production. © 2017 The Author(s) Geography Compass
Special-interest titles represent a dynamic sector of the Australian magazine industry, yet few studies have been undertaken on them or their histories. Quilt-making titles serve as a case study of one of the most successful special-interest categories - craft - and special-interest magazines more generally. By tracing the evolution of magazines for quilters and by taking as its premise the rhetorical function of magazines in forming communities, this article illustrates the symbiotic interaction between publishing histories, including the exploitation of new technologies, and the sense of self engendered by magazines. In quilters' magazines, this sense of self is most recently pronounced in content describing the 'modern quilter', for whom digital media literacy is characteristic. The article's findings are used to advocate further research into the rhetorical and practical responses made by special-interest titles to a competitive publishing environment that is no longer dependent on paper-based delivery of content.
This is a description of a course in occupational science for first semester occupational therapy students in an entry level Master’s degree program. The course is organized around readings chosen from occupational science and other fields and is taught using the learning through discussion process. The author’s reflections on the course follow the description.
Having indicated some of the recurring difficulties in establishing a conceptual or philosophical link between theory and practice, the author examines the relation between organization theory and the practices of academics, managers and other organizational participants. He argues that this relation is shaped by the way organizational theories are disseminated in the face of an expanding hegemony of consumerization and consumerism. Like other commodities, organizational theories are not used passively, in general, but in a creative, opportunistic and individualistic way. In this, they resemble folk knowledge, such as cooking recipes and cookery books, which different users employ or experiment with in widely differing ways, for widely differing ends. In contrast to both programme and paradigm, the author uses the term `paragramme' to indicate a shifting stock of ideas, routines, images and ingredients which invite improvization and elaboration, rather than copying or adherence.
Having indicated some of the recurring difficulties in establishing a conceptual or philosophical link between theory and practice, the author examines the relation between organization theory and the practices of academics, managers and other organizational participants. He argues that this relation is shaped by the way organizational theories are disseminated in the face of an expanding hegemony of consumerization and consumerism. Like other commodities, organizational theories are not used passively, in general, but in a creative, opportunistic and individualistic way. In this, they resemble folk knowledge, such as cooking recipes and cookery books, which different users employ or experiment with in widely differing ways, for widely differing ends. In contrast to both programme and paradigm, the author uses the term 'paragramme' to indicate a shifting stock of ideas, routines, images and ingredients which invite improvization and elaboration, rather than copying or adherence.
Modern Inuit commercial arts grew out of the desires of multiple non-Inuit agencies and persons active during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Competing visions, of art production as substitute for welfare, art as continuity with pre-modern crafts, art as Canadian national symbol, art as the expression of extreme alterity in the form of an animistic hunter-gatherer people's world view, brought into being a dynamic new set of creative forms which surpassed all of those views. In Gell's terms, these new art forms were means of carrying out the will of these competing persons in a complex competition to control social and cultural relationships. Yet this, in some sense, imposed aesthetic category of 'Eskimo Art' was in turn appropriated by the Inuit and transformed in both discourse and practice to express their active (rather than passive) relations with the Canadian state. Indeed by the 1970s the Inuit had come to believe that a major component of their identity in the world was that of artists, and they built on this new strength to establish new economic, social and political institutions. This case illustrates the complex way in which indigenous art can simultaneously proclaim difference or distinctiveness from the surrounding nation-state and also express that nation's identity within the world of nations. Objects, with their multivalent potentials, seem uniquely able to carry out such symbolic projects.
In the latter years of the twentieth century, the social relevance of the leisure field diminished as consumption and individualism came to dominate leisure and recreation research and praxis across modern democratic nations. A consequence of this focus in leisure studies has been a neglect of community and the common good. Now, at the commencement of the twenty-first century, three interrelated crises become increasingly apparent - the crisis of identity or self, a social crisis, and a political crisis. If leisure studies is to contribute to an attempt to address these crises and rebuild community, how might this happen without returning to the norms, duties and traditional structures that have oppressed and marginalized citizens? In this paper the notion of social capital is used to examine community structures and their potential contribution to social cohesion, trust, mutuality, co-operation and openness. The challenge is to develop a concept of community that can provide spaces for the social self and civic engagement to emerge. The paper explores the role of leisure practices in this pursuit. Central to the discussion is Borgmann's notion of focal practices - those pursuits which bring an engagement of mind and body and a centring power - and the way in which such practices create shared meaning and communities of celebration. Participation in communities of celebration entails people coming together in sports, festivals, hobbies, volunteering, and the arts, and finding in these leisure activities common and public goods. This communitarian conceptualization of leisure stands in stark contrast to the privatization of leisure that has become commonplace in recent decades.
Asked about Hello Kitty, respondents judged those interested in this 'character good' within a framework of freedom/self-autonomy versus coercion/compulsion. The former is associated with what may be termed 'consumutopia' (a counter-presence to mundane reality fueled by late capitalism, pop culture industry, consumerism), while the latter is connected to 'control', a critical view of self/collective relations that also comments on Japanese ethno-identity. Hello Kitty also demonstrates the need to focus not just on different tastes within a society, but also on ambiguous and diverse attitudes within the same individual. Such diversity allows Sanrio, Hello Kitty's maker, to link within one individual different modes of self-presentation, chronologically corresponding to girlhood ('cute'), female adolescence ('cool'), and womanhood ('camp'). Thus, as people mature, appeals to nostalgia encourage a reconnection with the past by buying products united by one leitmotif; same commodity, same individual, different ages/tastes/styles/desires.
This paper explores the work of mourning for what was missing in childhood. Specifically, it addresses patients who did not have “good enough” parents and who present in treatment in a state of melancholy or despair. The paper delineates phases of the treatment process and highlights Winnicott's “token of loving” as the vehicle of healing in the therapeutic relationship. Through dreams and case material the paper illustrates the process of recovery.
This paper is a discussion of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, with emphasis on his theory of symbolic violence. Using Sylvain Maresca's work on delegation and representation among the French peasantry as an empirical illustration, I examine Bourdieu's key concepts (capital, field, habitus, symbolic power), his approach to social organisation and dynamics (social space, strategies of conversion and reproduction), and map out the basic structure of his framework. Several difficulties are discussed: the closure of the conceptual system, the form of explanations, the oversight of the state, the underestimate of material determinations, and the lack of a theory of historical transformation. Having underlined the meta- theoretical grounding of his model, I conclude by arguing that Bourdieu offers the means for a dialectical transcendence of interpretive and structural sociologies.
Asked about Hello Kitty, respondents judged those interested in this ‘character good’ within a framework of freedom/self-autonomy versus coercion/compulsion. The former is associated with what may be termed ‘consumutopia’ (a counter-presence to mundane reality fueled by late capitalism, pop culture industry, consumerism), while the latter is connected to ‘control’, a critical view of self/collective relations that also comments on Japanese ethno-identity. Hello Kitty also demonstrates the need to focus not just on different tastes within a society, but also on ambiguous and diverse attitudes within the same individual. Such diversity allows Sanrio, Hello Kitty’s maker, to link within one individual different modes of self-presentation, chronologically corresponding to girlhood (‘cute’), female adolescence (‘cool’), and womanhood (‘camp’). Thus, as people mature, appeals to nostalgia encourage a reconnection with the past by buying products united by one leitmotif; same commodity, same individual, different ages/tastes/styles/desires.
By the year 2000, an important survey of the so-called gender divide in Internet usage concluded that for the first time, the number of U.S. women online equaled that of their male counterparts.1 A year later, it was reported that American women even outpaced men in online participation. However, it should not be surprising that globally the percentage of women online remains low.2 The good news - bad news scenario represented by this empirical data got me thinking about certain qualitative aspects of women's changing position within new media environments and within feminism's changing paradigms. Clearly, such formidable technological and cultural changes are transforming women's roles in all spheres of public and private life, locally and globally, as well as inside and outside the academy. With the striking emergence of the new media-based cyberfeminist movement among women from all walks of life, it seems imperative to look beyond the statistics to appreciate the magnitude of these transformations. © 2010 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved.
The recent shift in attention away from organization studies as science has allowed for consideration of new ways of thinking about both organization and organizing and has led to several recent attempts to 'bring down' organizational theorizing. In this paper, we extend calls for organization to be represented as a creative process by considering organization as craft. Organizational craft, we argue, is attractive, accessible, malleable, reproducible, and marketable. It is also a tangible way of considering organization studies with irreverence. We draw on the hierarchy of distinctions among fine art, decorative art, and craft to suggest that understanding the organization of craft assists in complicating our understanding of marginality. We illustrate our argument by drawing on the case of a contemporary Australian craftworks and marketplace known initially as the Meat Market Craft Centre ('MMCC') and then, until its recent closure, as Metro! Stella Minahan was a board member and then the Chief Executive Officer of the Metro! Craft Centre
1. A Tour of the New Means of Consumption 2. The Revolution in Consumption and the Larger Society 3. Social Theory and the New Means of Consumption 4. Rationalization, Enchantment, and Disenchantment 5. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Extravaganzas and Simulations 6. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Implosion, Time, and Space 7. Landscapes of Consumption 8. The Cathedrals (and Landscapes) of Consumption: Continuity and Change
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be filtered to mask out potentially sensitive ...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1994. Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-244) and index. Photocopy. s
Compilación y edición de una serie de entrevistas realizadas a Jean Baudrillard que en conjunto ofrecen una panorámica del pensamiento de este intelectual francés.
This article outlines some of the problems encountered in evaluating the work of Charles and Ray Eames, the husband and wife
design partnership flourishing in the USA from 1941 to 1978, including issues related to gender, crafts and Modernism. It
focuses on two items of furniture and argues that both gender and pro-Modernist‘anti-crafts biases are at work in the attitudes
of design critics towards them. It goes on to examine the Eameses’ attitudes towards the crafts, before and after they met
in 1940, and considers the role played by ‘functioning decoration’ (their decorative arrangements of objects which encouraged
an interplay between craft and machine work) in the humanizing of Modernist design in the post-war years in the USA
Knit Happens, Craft Makes Come Back with Younger Women
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Net Knitter get the Cyber Knack
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Toward an Aesthetics of Craft
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The Workmanship of Risk: The Re-emergence of Handcraft in Postmodern Art
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Replacing the Myth of Modernism
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The Future Perfect: Activism and Advocacy
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The American Observer 9(8). URL (accessed December 2006): http://observer.
american.edu/2004/apr1404/stitch.html
Time for a Good Yarn at the Pub
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Pearls of Knitting Wisdom
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Category Knitting URL (accessed 21): www. groups/yahoo.com Yanagi, Soetsu (1989) The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty
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groups/yahoo.com
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London: Gillingham House.
William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Design Source Book
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OzYarn (2004) URL (accessed 21 December 2004): http://www.ozyarn.com/
Parry, Linda (1989) William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Design
Source Book. London: Studio Editions.
The Virtual Community: Finding Connection in a
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