This anthology offers a framework for understanding why people urgently turn to textile handwork as a site of repair in a world on the brink and examines how craft expression aligns with political activism in a sometimes quirky and always colorful way. In a world at a constant crossroads of despair and disruption, chapter contributors provide a clear-eyed assessment of specific craft-activism campaigns since the "Pussyhats," focusing on the most pressing political issues of our time, as people seek to stitch a world aligned with their belief systems that is built on a DIY-ethos of hands-on community building. The chapters explore the impact of craftivism in the late digital age, where hands-on production and creativity can serve as an antidote to the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and a pervasive mistrust of political processes. Does craftivism serve any meaningful purpose at a time when it''s been increasingly corporatized in a capitalistic system devoted to profits and divisive sloganism? Can craftivism do more than amplify political divisions and reinforce suspicions of perceived ideological enemies, or can it model a more expressive and inclusive activist platform around the globe? With contributions from among the most prominent thinkers on DIY civic engagement, Global Craftivism since the Pussyhats: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation, gives politically expressive crafting its due as a powerful social force.

Autorentext
Hinda Mandell is a professor in the School of Communication at RIT in New York, where she was the director of the university's journalism program from 2020-2024. Mandell is editor of this volume, Global Craftivism since the Pussyhats: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation; editor Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); co-curator and co-editor of Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism (RIT Press, 2019); a co-editor of Nasty Women and Bad Hombres: Gender and Race in the 2016 US Presidential Election (University of Rochester Press, 2018); the author of Sex Scandals, Gender and Power in Contemporary American Politics (Praeger, 2017); and co-editor of Scandal in a Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). As a journalist, her work has been published in Politico, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times, among other publications. An avid DIY'er who loves to unleash creativity in others, Mandell is the founder of her university's annual Zine Fest. Her scholarly inquiries into collaborative handcraft as change-agents have been published in Craft Research, the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, and forthcoming in the Journal of Feminist Scholarship. She is on the international advisory board of the Journal of Craft & Communities and on the editorial board the International Journal of Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, and her research has been funded by the Center for Craft and Fiber Art Now. In 2020 she was a guest artist with Visual Studies Workshop, whose residency funded the production of her artist book, The Yarn Must Live: A Polemic on a Pandemic and Public Art, which was acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2021. Since 2017, she has organized maker interventions on issues of social reform tied to geographic place reaching 2,000 craft participants. She is also under contract for an upcoming book with Rowman & Littlefield, Crafting Choice: Abortion Politics and Handwork in the U.S. She's been interviewed by The New York Times and The Associated Press, among other global outlets, on the importance of making objects by hand. She is on Instagram: @crochetactivism.

Inhalt

Table of ContentsPREFACE

PART I: Crafting and Collective Action in the Late Digital Age
Chapter 1
The Agitation (and Comfort) of Textiles in a World on the Brink:'Craftivism' Enters Maturity in its Third Decade by Hinda Mandell

Chapter 2
Digital or Digit-All: A Designer's Manifesto in the Making for Humanistic Futures through Handwork by Donna Maione

Chapter 3
Good in a Crisis: A Conversation on Craftivism's Values of Craft, Collectivity and Care by Kate Just, Alyce McGovern, and Tal Fitzpatrick

Chapter 4
Unraveling Unity: Reflections on the Dynamics of Allyship and Economics by Diane L. Ivey

Chapter 5
The Fierce Fabric of Feminism: Feminist Embroidery as a Tool Against Sexual Violence in Sweden b*y Elisabeth Drion, Karin Milles, and Hanna Söderlund*

PART II: Craftivism as a Response to Healthcare Disparities
Chapter 6
Patients before Profits: Promoting Change in Healthcare through Craftivism by Catherine McGeehin Heilferty

Chapter 7
Stitching aCovid-19transgression:DominicCummingsatBarnardCastle(2020) byLynnSetterington

Chapter 8
Crossing Great Divides: Reckoning with COVID through Collective Threads by Heather Schulte

Chapter 9
Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote: How To Create your Own Craftivist Protest Piece b*y Elizabeth Sovern*

PART III: Craftivism as Civic Engagement
Chapter 10
Why Teaching 20,000 Students across Africa to Knit by 2030, is not just about Craft - but How to Learn b*y Elizabeth Okeyele-Olatunji*

Chapter 11
The Story of the 'Violet Protest:' Deploying Socially Engaged Art with Textile Craft for Political Resistance by Ann Morton

Chapter 12
Knit Democracy Together: Combining Craft and Education by Eve Jacobs-Carnahan

PART IV: Craftivists at War, and Fighting for the Planet
Chapter 13
Speaking Out About the Longest Hatred, Antisemitism and Oct. 7, 2023 by Mirka Knaster

Chapter 14
Blossoms Not Bullets: Craftivist's Love Letter to Humanity in Response to Weaponised Games People Play by Stacey Rozen

Chapter 15
Crafting Survival: Making in Ukraine since the 2022 Russian Full-Scale Invasion by Cynthia Klima and Alla Myzelev

Chapter 16

FramedinBelarus: Stitch It Collective and the Fight for Human Rights in Belarus b*y Sasha Razor*

Chapter 17
Visible Mending as a Political Act by Sandra Markus

Chapter 18
Weather Wisdom and Kit Craftivism by Shirley Wajda

CONCLUSION
Chapter 19
More than a Gimmick in the Attention Economy: Looking ahead to the Tactility of Joy and Craft Action in a Brittle, Brutal World by Hinda Mandell

AFTERWORD
Afterword: The Chocolate-Craft of Activism from a Small-Business Perspective by Lindsay Tarnoff