Abstract

While once considered the domain of grandmothers and school children, crafts have become a trendy cultural practice among North American youth. The popularity of craft among young people has inspired on- and off-line communities in which craft is understood to have important social and political implications. Layering data from my ethnographic investigation of contemporary craft culture with Foucauldian and feminist theory I examine some of the ways in which young people employ craft as a tool of political resistance. After laying down a foundational model of politics rooted in Foucault's theory of power/knowledge I investigate crafters' contestation of dominant discourses connected to consumerism and gender roles. Crafters are producers in a culture of consumption, seeking fulfilling and ethical alternatives to the alienating life modes that surround them. In this thesis I demonstrate that contemporary craft is a meaningful social and political practice and that an analysis of this mode of resistance generates insights into the nature of the present-day political landscape. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)