Upplagt för feminism: En etnografisk studie av stickningens kvinnogemenskap och feministiska strävanden

Abstract

This thesis examines the relation between knitting, femininity and feminism within the knitting movement organized through social media. The main material used in this study is interview transcriptions. In total, twelve interviews with female knitters have been conducted. To supplement the transcriptions, field notes has been taken during observations at knitting cafés, organized through social media. The material has been analysed according to Laurel Richardson’s narrative model with outset from her description of cultural and collective stories. The theoretical framework consists of Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology, Judith Butler’s critique on the distinction between public and private and her discussion about interdependency, as well as Berit Larsson’s thoughts on separatism versus organizing separately. The results of the study show how knitters of today act from and reproduce a narrative where knitting is intimately intertwined with femininity and a private sphere. This narrative goes back in history and has created a cultural story about knitting as a pursuit with low social position, conducted by women in the household. The ambition of this thesis has been to examine how knitters of today relate to this narrative, as well as how the ambition to change the cultural story can be understood as a feminist strategy. The conclusions drawn from this study shows an intimate relationship between knitting and women. This intimacy makes the ambition to boost the social position of knitting almost equivalent with feminist intentions. At the same time, the knitting movement comprehends norms which sets the frames for acting. In the material, a wide range of strategies appears for navigating through these norms while simultaneously struggling to increase the social position of the feminine craft of knitting. Two main strategies can be described: to follow the narrative of a feminine craft and claim the sophisticated craft skills, or to admit interdependency.