How Does a Knitted Vagina Work? The Craftivist Response to Current Political Issues through the Utilization of Historically Feminine Crafts
This thesis explores how historically women’s crafts such as needlework and fiber arts have informed acts of political protest with a focus on the craftivist response to contemporary women’s reproductive rights surrounding the Supreme Court Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision (2014). Individuals and organized groups, including Government Free VJJ: Project Snatchel, Knit a Brick, and Wombs on Washington responded to the attempts and legalization of restricting women’s reproductive freedom. I am interested in how contemporary craftivism utilizes the historically feminine mediums of fiber-based craft to further social awareness of political feminine issues. INDEX WORDS: Craftivism, Activism, Knitting, Gender, Women’s Rights, Pro-Choice HOW DOES A KNITTED VAGINA WORK? THE CRAFTIVIST RESPONSE TO CURRENT POLITCAL ISSUES THROUGH THE UTILIZATION OF HISTORICALLY FEMININE CRAFTS
Tactics and technology: cultural resistance at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
My dissertation examines women's unique techniques and cultures of communication at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in Newbury, England between 1982-1985. Often referred to by participants as one of the "last movements before the internet," I look at Greenham as a site through which to think about how activists' communication and cultural practices in the 1980s shaped activist uses of the worldwide web and other new media technologies central to contemporary struggles. I argue that social movement media such as videos, newsletters, postcards, songs and songbooks both create movement culture at the time of their production, and carry movement ideas and their infrastructures into the future. A story told orally, a songbook, a manifesto, a recorded interview, a picture of a mass demonstration, all circulate across time and space. Through this movement, ideas and artifacts are transformed and incorporated as different people encounter and make meaning out of these cultural texts in different ways.%%%%Ma dissertation considere les methodes uniques de communication de femmes activistes lors du Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp de Newbury, Angleterre, de 1982 a 1985. Greenham, que les participantes ont souvent appele la premiere phase des derniers mouvements avant Internet, est un site permettant de penser la communication et les pratiques culturelles aux fins militantes des annees 1980, dans un contexte d'usages activistes du Web et autres technologies nouveaux medias cruciales aux debats contemporains. J'affirme que les medias de mouvement social comme la video, le bulletin d'information, les cartes postales, les chansons et les recueils de chansons creent une culture de mouvement au moment de leur production, et amenent ensuite les idees de ces mouvements et de leur infrastructure dans le futur. Une histoire racontee, un recueil de chansons, un manifeste, une entrevue enregistree, une photo d'une manifestation circulent tous dans le temps et l'espace. A l'aide de cette mobilite, les idees et les artefacts se transforment et s'incorporent au fur et a mesure que les gens decouvrent et donnent differents sens a ces textes culturels.
Same Same But Different - also in Europe! A New Methodological Approach in Cross-Country Analysis of Communication Structuresapplied to five EU member states
The EU still lacks a truly European public sphere. On this level, there is still a clear lack of integration between individual member states. This means that national public spheres and cultures are still of great importance for European communication and media professionals. Comparative research into the similarities and differences between different nations is therefore valuable for cross-border PR communication activities. This paper lays out the methodological foundation for such research, discussing possible approaches and difficulties associated with comparative research. The author then introduces a potential heuristic framework for comparative analysis: the International Corporate Communication Compass. This framework is applied to five case-study EU countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Poland and the UK), showing the differences and similarities in a range of different contexts that affect public communication in all its forms. The conclusion examines how the results of such studies could be used in order to compare communication identities of different countries. This can potentially help in the development of a European public identity on the long run and in a first step can led towards a better, more adapted communication structure about European citizenship. Ultimately, communication structures within the EU might become more Europeanized than they