Podcasts
Tamara Shepherd University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
This podcast is intended for educational use only.
Craftster.org is a not-for-profit web domain that hosts an online forum designed to facilitate community among people who make crafts. Started by computer programmer Leah Kramer in 2003, the Craftster forum now boasts nearly 73,000 registered members. The forum is arranged in groupings of specific message boards, categorized according to types of craft (knitting, sewing, beading, paper crafts, etc.), general discussion, geographical regions, craft swaps, and "crafty business ventures".
The first section of this paper contraposes discourses of sharing and selling. Here I address the question: how does a forum designed for sharing negotiate the pervasive influence of advertising and marketing? This problem opens onto a larger discussion of contemporary crafting and its relation to consumer society. Members describe the thrifty characteristics of crafting as a source of personal satisfaction and accomplishment. Additional motives for crafting examined in the paper include: therapeutic benefits; "cultural capital"; and social and political ideals. Moreover, since the majority of Craftster members are female, their discussion often attempts to re-position craft making as a feminist activity. Yet, nonetheless, crafting takes place against the backdrop of consumption and domesticity: does "crafty" shopping subvert consumerism or traditional domestic roles for women?
Most scholarly work on handicraft deals with developing countries and the economic situations therein, rather than the relatively affluent, computer-savvy Craftster members of this study. The members' postings on the Craftster forum are used as documentary sources; they evidence an awareness of the paradoxes of contemporary crafting, while also affirming how new incarnations of craft communities create bridging and bonding among geographically-dispersed crafters.
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Craftster.org est un domaine d'enchaînement qui hôte un 'online forum' avec l'intention de faciliter un sens de communauté envers ceux interresé dans l'artisanal. L'auteure discute le discour de partage et de vente et adresse la question: comment un forum conçu pour le partage d'objet artisanal négocie l'influence dominante de la publicité et de commercialisation?