Anna Branford

craftivism

Further to recent musings about the meditative aspects of the experience of making things by hand, I’ve been reading a bit lately about the idea that handcrafting has a political aspect too. I had a hunch that this was the case when I began making and selling dolls a few years ago.

Thinking about the prices that my dolls could realistically be sold for changed a lot about the way I saw the process of production and consumption. Most shops, quite reasonably, kept about a third of the actual selling price, so even when my dolls sold for $75 (and I’m still amazed that they did – I really put my heart and soul into those creations, but who on earth has that to spend on a doll?) I only received $50, sometimes for two or three days’ work. 

So naturally I became pretty interested in the kinds of dolls that could be bought for $20 or $10 or even $2 or $1. While most are the products of factories, rendering the handmade variety financially non-viable for most makers and buyers alike, many within this price range clearly have hand-made components. So who is making them, how long does it take them and under what kinds of conditions? What can they possibly be receiving after the companies have made their profits and the sellers have taken their cut? In many, many cases it must certainly be almost nothing. It changed my opinion of ‘bargains’ forever.*

But it turns out that my little glimmer of insight is only the tip of the iceberg. Identifying as ‘craftivists‘, a team on that glorious cyber marketplace of beautiful handmade things, etsy, explain: ‘Some of us use our work to carry messages of protest and political activism. Others believe that the act of making craft can be an act of resistance. Still others see that by buying and selling directly from the maker we are challenging the all pervasive corporate culture that promotes profit over people.’

I’m not deluded enough to imagine that these little glimmers of resistance against social injustice serve as any kind of alternative to thorough, organised activism, but on the whole I am with the radical feminists in their view that the personal is political, not least in the field of consumer behaviour.

*My views on op-shopping bargains remain unaltered however. As far as I can see, buying secondhand clothes from an organisation supporting a cause I believe is worthwhile (and giving them back again once I’m done) comes about as close as I’m likely to get to an ethically sound consumer experience!