| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this thesis is to investigate time and the values connected to different uses of time.
What use is legitimate, and what is seen as a waste of time? I will argue that a general notion of
time as ‘bad’ or ‘useless’ will place objects, subjects and practices in the marginal, but also
establish what should be seen as important or not, which makes us value things into good and
bad, effective and ineffective, worthwhile and useless. In order to discuss these issues I will use
crafting and different approaches to the practice of crafting, such as temporal, emotional,
political and intellectual, and economical.
Drawing on theorists such as Jack/Judith Halberstam, Elizabeth Freeman, and Sara
Ahmed I will investigate how time is connected to different values and norms that decide what
is possible to do, when and how. By interviewing elderly women who in one way or another
(some as a leisure-time activity, and others as a professional artistic practice) deal with textile
and the practice of crafting, I analyse this in four different themes: ‘Bodily Practices & Tacit
Knowledge’ where I am discussing how the body is emotionally and temporally involved in the
crafting practice, but also how this practice can be read through the understanding of ‘tacit
knowledge’ as an intellectual knowledge, which is a way to challenge the dichotomy between
body and mind. Theme two is called ‘Textile in Action’ and focuses on the textile material, its
agency and effects, and in the third theme ‘Time/Memory/History’ I examine how old textile
artifacts serve as a link to the past that challenges chronologic structures and notions of time.!I
argue that these artifact do not only make you remember thing, but can also bring you back in
time and space. In the last theme called ‘Crafting Conversations’ I argue that crafting and
writing can be read as two ways of practicing a female writing. Drawing from the theory of
écriture féminine I will show how the crafting practice can be used, and seen as a resistance
towards an economy of efficiency. | sv |
