Abstract
This chapter considers handcraft, an intimate, reflective—and reflexive—activity through which generations of women have made sense of their lives, as a site of theory making. Bringing together scholarship on knitting, cooking, quilting, and craftivism, it asserts that handcraft, as process-oriented work, is a form of both life writing and theory making through which we stitch ourselves and our thinking into being.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Black, Shannon. 2017. KNIT + RESIST: Placing the pussyhat project in the context of craft activism. Gender, Place and Culture 24 (5): 696–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1335292.
Boon, Sonja, and Beth Pentney. 2017. Knitting the feminist self: Craftivism, yarn-bombing and the navigation of feminist spaces. In Global currents in gender and feminisms: Canadian and international perspectives, ed. Glenda Tibe Bonifacio, 21–34. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Bratich, Jack Z., and Heidi M. Brush. 2011. Fabricating activism: Craft-work, popular culture, gender. Utopian Studies 22 (2): 233–260. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.22.2.0233.
Chansky, Ricia A. 2010. A stitch in time: Third-wave feminist reclamation of needled imagery. Journal of Popular Culture 43 (4): 681–700. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00765.x.
Clarke, Kyra. 2016. Willful knitting? Contemporary Australian craftivism and feminist hisotries. Continuum 30 (3): 298–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2016.1166557.
Cullum, Linda. 1995. ‘A woman’s place’: The work of two women’s voluntary organizations in Newfoundland, 1934–1941. In Their lives and times: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador: A collage, ed. Carmelita McGrath, Marilyn Porter, and Barbara Neis, 93–108. St. John’s: Killick Press.
Duley, Tryphena Chancey. 1916. A pair of grey socks. St. John’s.
Elinor, Gillian, et al., eds. 1987. Women and craft. London: Virago.
Fields, Corey D. 2014. Not your grandma’s knitting: The role of identity processes in the transformation of cultural practices. Social Psychology Quarterly 77 (2): 150–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272514523624.
Greer, Betsy. 2008. Knitting for good! A guide to creating personal, social, and political change, stitch by stitch. Boston: Trumpeter.
———, ed. 2014. Craftivism: The art of craft and activism. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Groeneveld, Elizabeth. 2010. ‘Join the knitting revolution’: Third-wave feminist magazine and the politics of domesticity. Canadian Review of American Studies 40 (2): 259–277.
Harling Stalker, L. Lynda. 2006. She seeketh wool: Newfoundland women’s use of handknitting. In Weather’s edge: Women in Newfoundland and Labrador, ed. Marilyn Porter, Linda Cullum, and Carmelita McGrath, 209–218. St. John’s: Killick Press.
Heldke, Lisa M. 1988. Recipes for theory making. Hypatia 3 (2): 15–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1988.tb00066.x.
———. 1992. Foodmaking as a thoughtful practice. In Cooking, eating, thinking: Transformative philosophies of food, ed. Deane W. Curtin and Lisa M. Heldke, 203–229. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
House, Edgar. 1990. The way out: The story of NONIA in Newfoundland, 1920–1990. St. John’s: Creative Publishing.
Kelly, Maura. 2014. Knitting as a feminist project? Women’s Studies International Forum 44: 133–144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.10.011.
Luckman, Susan. 2013. The aura of analogue in a digital age: Women’s crafts, creative markets and home-based labour after Etsy. Cultural Studies Review 19 (1): 249–270.
Miller, Phebe Florence. 1916. The knitting Marianna. In The distaff, ed. Mabel W. LeMessurier, 10. St. John’s: The Royal Gazette.
Newfoundland Outport Nursing and Industrial Association. 1963. A short history of NONIA. St. John’s: NONIA Gift Shop.
Parker, Roszika. 2011. The subversive stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine. London: I.B.Tauris.
Pentney, Beth Ann. 2008. Feminism, activism, and knitting: Are the fibre arts a viable mode for feminist political action? Thirdspace: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Culture 8 (1). http://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/pentney/210. Accessed 10 Jan 2018.
Prain, Leanne. 2014. Strange material: Storytelling through textiles. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Price, Sally. 2015. On femmage. E-misférica 12 (1). http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/emisferica-121-caribbean-rasanblaj/price. Accessed 28 Dec 2017.
Schapiro, Miriam, and Melissa Meyer. 1978. Waste not want not: An inquiry into what women saved and assembled—FEMMAGE. Heresies 1 (4): 66–69.
Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. 2010. Reading autobiography: A guide for interpreting life narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Springgay, Stephanie. 2010. Knitting as an aesthetic of civic engagement: Reconceptualizing feminist pedagogy through touch. Feminist Teacher 20 (2): 111–123. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.20.2.0111.
Springgay, S., Nikki Hatza, and Sarah O’Donald. 2011. ‘Crafting is a luxury that many women cannot afford’: Campus knitivism and an aesthetic of civic engagement. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 24 (5): 607–613. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2011.600262.
Vaccaro, Jeanne. 2010. Felt matters. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 20 (3): 253–266.
———. 2015. Feelings and fractals: Wooly ecologies of transgender matter. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 21 (2–3): 273–293. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2843347.
Warren, Gale Denise. 1998. The Patriotic Association of the Women of Newfoundland: 1914–18. Aspects: A Publication of the Newfoundland Historical Society 33 (2): 23–32.
———. 2005. Voluntarism and patriotism: Newfoundland women’s war work during the First World War. MA Thesis, Memorial University.
Williams, K.A. 2011. ‘Old time mem’ry’: Contemporary urban craftivism and the politics of doing-it-yourself in postindustrial America. Utopian Studies 22 (2): 303–320.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boon, S., Butler, L., Jefferies, D. (2018). Histories: Stitching Theory. In: Autoethnography and Feminist Theory at the Water's Edge. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90829-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90829-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90828-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90829-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)