Knitting the Feminist Self: Craftivism, Yarn Bombing and the Navigation of Feminist Spaces

Abstract

In this chapter, we reflect on the possibilities of craftivism — yarn bombing, specifically — in a fourth-year undergraduate seminar on feminist praxis. We suggest that knitting in the classroom, as an ‘everyday [act] of defiance’ (Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 283), opens a productive space for complex and challenging conversations, in the process enabling not only different ways of listening, but also different ways of learning. Knitting, as a meditative and embodied practice, encourages and supports critical attentiveness. We also argue that craftivism can operate to make change in a way that emphasizes collaboration, non-violence and critical self-reflection. Social change, in a craftivist framework, happens in the everyday, and perhaps more radically, within the domestic spaces of the normatively feminine. Finally, our project demonstrated that knitting as feminist praxis serves a bridging function: we contend that systems of power may be challenged through knitting-as-protest, and that students may be able to practice engaged citizenship as they navigate the slippery borders between public and private, and academic and community-based feminisms.

Citation

Boon, S. and Pentney, B. (2017), "Knitting the Feminist Self: Craftivism, Yarn Bombing and the Navigation of Feminist Spaces", Bonifacio, G.T. (Ed.) Global Currents in Gender and Feminisms, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 21-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78714-483-520171004