Diversity work and “niceness”: Addressing racism in the knitting community Event

Dr Patel’s talk focuses on discussions about racism in the knitting community that took place on Instagram during 2019: ‘The discussions were sparked by a blog post by prominent USA knitter and blogger, Karen Templer, who described her ambitions for travelling to India that year. The post caused offence to knitters of colour who felt the author used insensitive and colonising language, and sought to call Karen out online. In response a number of white knitters jumped to Karen’s defence. A group of prominent knitters of colour then used Instagram to collate the experiences of knitters of colour who have suffered racism in knitting spaces, offline and online, and curated and shared these experiences through Instagram Stories to try and raise awareness of the problem of racism in knitting. I highlight how these knitters of colour invest additional emotional labour into this online diversity work, which can have implications for their craft business. I argue that while online platforms can provide a means through which experiences can be highlighted, they are sites where “offline” inequalities are seemingly reproduced. This has implications for the wider sphere of craft entrepreneurship, where makers are increasingly reliant on their social media presence in order to succeed.’

Following this talk, Catherine Polley will introduce and show a selection of historical and contemporary material from Winchester School of Art’s Knitting Reference Library that resonates with the themes of Dr Patel’s talk.

 

Speaker details:

Dr Karen Patel is a Research Fellow in the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research at Birmingham City University. She is currently working on an AHRC Innovation Fellowship with Crafts Council UK, researching inequalities in craft. She is author of The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities and co-editor of Craft Entrepreneurship.

Catherine Polley is Head of Winchester School of Art Library. She has over 30 years’ experience working in art libraries, having held posts at the British Library, National Art Library, and Chelsea College of Art and Design.