Chapter 6: Craftivism: Hand-Crafted Projects as a Means of Social and Political Expression

This chapter examines craftivism, an increasingly popular social movement first coined in 2003 by Betsy Greer, US born crafter and activist (Literat & Markus, 2020). The past few years has seen an increase in social resource mobilisation with a rise in the visibility of social movements such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter and an increased societal and grassroots focus on environmentalism, sustainability and feminist causes. Crafting is not new, people have been sewing, and engaging with arts and crafts for centuries. There has been a new resurgence in craft, especially in textiles (Jefferies, 2016). Craftivism expresses itself in production and distribution of hand-crafted projects as a means of social and political expression. This chapter draws from social movement theory, and seeks to define the term and explain the rationale and motivation behind craftivist social mobilisation and social and critical discourse that surrounds the creative acts.