Abstract
Drawing on participant ethnography and interviews of members of a knitting circle, this study examines how social psychological processes trigger changes to the meanings and practices associated with knitting. The findings detail how women in the group invoke a range of strategies to reshape the meanings and practices associated with knitting, while also defining and policing the material practices associated with knitting in such a way that the activity corresponds with the self-concept of members. The case illustrates how identity-related processes structure the adoption of new cultural practices. More broadly, the research calls attention to the role of social psychological processes in the production of culture.
Introduction
At 7 p.m. on Tuesday evenings a group of young women meet at a coffee shop. A few are in line for coffee. Others already have drinks and are engaging in some premeeting chitchat. It is not initially apparent how they all know one another. At first glance you might think it is a book club or an investment group. Not until everyone reaches into their bags and pulls out yarn and needles would an outside observer realize what is going on. This is a knitting circle, and the logo on one member’s knitting bag reveals the group’s name: The Neo-Knitterz. 1
In 2002, when fieldwork for this research was conducted, knitting conjured images of a grandmother or “grandma.” In contrast, the members of Neo-Knitterz are young, urban professionals. Groups like Neo-Knitterz are credited with changing the face of knitting and revitalizing the activity for a new generation of practitioners (Nargi 2003; Willis 2007). The group presents an interesting empirical question: What happens to an activity that has long-established associations with one group when new practitioners take it up? The answer to that question provides theoretical insight into how social psychological mechanisms drive changes to both meanings and practices when a cultural object (Griswold 1994) moves from one group to another.
Relying on data from participant ethnography and interviews, I show that the traditional image of knitting is incongruent with members’ self-concept. In response, members deploy a range of identity-work strategies to present knitting in a way that is consistent with how they see themselves. Neo-Knitterz create a parallel version of the knitter, one more creative, agentic, and modern, but still dependent on the devalued, gendered stereotype of the “grandma.” The Neo-Knitterz case illustrates how identity processes direct cultural change while also showing how meanings inscribed on the “original” participants constrain new participants. More broadly, the findings demonstrate the role of social psychological processes in structuring the production of culture.
The New Face of Knitting
The Craft Yarn Council (CYC) reports that over 38 million people are involved in knit and crochet. Other industry groups report lower, but still substantial, numbers. In 2009, the National Needlearts Association reported 1.2 million active knitters with annual industry spending of $629 million. There are over 2,000 independent yarn stores with over $363 million in sales. 2 Ravelry, a website that describes itself as “a community site, an organizational tool, and a yarn and pattern database for knitters and crocheters,” was established in 2007 in response to the increased interest in knitting. In 2008, the site had 100,000 registered users. By 2013, that number had increased to 3 million users. Central to knitting’s resurgence has been an injection of younger knitters that began in the early 2000s. In a 2004 report, the CYC notes a 150 percent increase in participation in knitting and crochet among women aged 25 to 34. 3 Additionally, a number of knitting books targeting the younger market have been published (Nargi 2003; Stoller 2003, 2004; Swartz 2002). Debbie Stoller’s (2003) Stitch ’N Bitch was a New York Times bestseller and spawned a sequel, a series of calendars, a vibrant web community, as well as in-person meet-up groups across the country. Across multiple measures, knitting “has gone through a tremendous revival and perhaps as no other craft at the present time is in the state of transition” (Myzelev 2009:150).
Given that “many of us harbor an image of the knitter as a grandmother in a rocking chair, swathed in afghans of her own making,” this increase in knitting among young women took cultural observers by surprise (Willis 2007:2). Coverage of young knitters focused on how the activity was becoming cool, creative, and trendy (Lee 2005; Scelfo 2004; Willis 2007). Given the conventional images associated with knitters, articles and books about the trend zeroed in on the oddity of young, professional, urban women taking up the hobby (Centor 2003; Weinstein 2003).
Accounts of knitting’s resurgence highlight how young knitters imbue the domestic with value while using knitting as an outlet for creativity (Groeneveld 2010; Minahan and Wolfram Cox 2007; Pentney 2008). Under this framework, knitting’s newfound popularity is part of “reclaiming and repoliticizing activities traditionally associated with the domestic sphere” (Groenveld 2010). Pentney (2008) writes about “feminist knitting practices” and places the emergence of knitting among younger women squarely within the third-wave feminist movement. She argues that, “If second-wave feminists have been historicized as women who put down their knitting, third-wave feminists may be characterized as those who have picked it back up again” (Pentney 2008:4). Now that knitting has been “picked back up again,” it operates as a political act for these new practitioners (Baumgardner and Richards 2010; Buszek 2012; Parker 2010). This duality of the personal and political is also present in the transformation of other craft arts like quilting (Peterson 2003; Stalp 2006).
As knitting’s aesthetics are shifting from rocking chair to riot grrrl, these changes bring new meanings and practices to the activity and alter what it means to be a knitter. The meanings and practices associated with groups like Neo-Knitterz can be understood as an instance of cultural production. While existing accounts explore the impact of feminist ideology as a trigger for changes in both the motivation and practice of knitting, less attention is paid to the social psychological factors driving young women to reshape what knitting is supposed to look like.
Cultural Production, Structure, and the Self
This lack of attention to the social psychological factors that influence the changes around knitting limits our understanding of cultural production. Sociologists frequently rely on structural explanations for the development and proliferation of culture. Work growing out of the “cultural turn” in sociology often evokes a “style of reasoning that presumes to explain culture through extra-cultural factors” associated with social structure (Kaufman 2004:336). Most emblematic of this approach is Richard Peterson’s (1976, 1979, 1997) “production of culture” perspective. Peterson, and much of the work that adheres to the production of culture perspective, applies a structural analysis that focuses on organizational processes that enable or constrain aesthetic choices (see Peterson and Anand 2004 for a review). Becker (1982) takes a similar approach in Art Worlds. Rather than view artistic creation as the providence of individual genius, Becker shows how artists and the objects they create are embedded in social worlds that enable the production and distribution of art. A key contribution of the production of culture approach is that it turns attention to how institutions and organizations are critical in the production of cultural objects. This approach shapes much of the research on cultural production (Hirsch and Fiss 2000). Consequently, less attention is given to the social psychological factors that drive actors engaged in cultural production. This is partly driven by sociologists’ hesitancy to reduce cultural production to individualist, psychological explanations (Griswold 1987b).
Swidler (2001) is a notable exception. Swidler’s “identity” model of culture suggests that people do not rely on culture to give meaning to their lives. Rather, they use culture to enact strategies of action that are based on who they already think they are (Kaufman 2004; Swidler 2001). Her approach calls attention to how “a great deal of culture is organized by and about identities, both individual and collective. The self’s capacities for action . . . shape potential strategies of action and thus in turn influence the ends they are likely to pursue” (Swidler 2001:87). Swidler’s work suggests that theories of cultural production can fruitfully integrate actors’ identity motivations and illustrates how insights from social psychology can provide leverage to scholars of cultural production (Fine and Fields 2008).
Identity theorists have long demonstrated that identity structures our behaviors as we move through the world and interact with culture (Burke and Stets 2009; Stryker and Burke 2000). In identity theory (IT), identities are the meanings that individuals associate with themselves. These meanings set the standard for behavior and have implications for meaning making and action (Burke 1991). When behaviors are consistent with the identity standard, there will be internal and external validation of an identity. Negative feelings result when individuals do not live up to the identity standard. Individuals work to minimize discrepancy between how they act and the standard for how someone with their identity should act. IT posits a world where “individuals bring self-in-situation meanings into alignment with their self-defining meanings held in the identity standard when there is a discrepancy, and they maintain alignment when there is no discrepancy” (Stets and Burke 2005:1).
Identity theory shows that questions like “Who am I?” and “Is this something I would do?” are central to understanding agency and, by extension, culture. Furthermore, identity processes can be seamlessly integrated into cultural analyses. For instance, Griswold (1987a, 1987b) points to the interaction between cultural objects and social presuppositions in accounting for the production of meanings. Meaning is not fixed in cultural objects. Rather, it is fabricated when social actors experience a cultural object, and actors bring with them a “horizon of expectation” when encountering it (Griswold 1987a, 1987b). This horizon, shaped by specific social, historical, and political contexts, frames how cultural objects are understood. In other words, actors come to cultural objects with socially situated presuppositions that guide their expectations and experiences of those objects. Griswold is primarily concerned with how forces external to the individual shape the horizon of expectation, but social psychological processes also shape expectations of action. Self-concept and the desire for identity verification help set the horizon of expectation by providing individuals with guidelines for how to act.
For the women in Neo-Knitterz, the horizon of expectation is shaped by a belief of knitting as a devalued feminine activity (i.e., the social context) and by members’ self-concept. Although knitting is still strongly associated with an older, more domesticated image of femininity, the women in Neo-Knitterz think of themselves as young, cool, progressive professionals. I detail this incongruence in more detail in the following, but for now it is enough to say that members’ role identities are at odds with the gendered perceptions of knitting. This incongruence sets the stage for the ways they fabricate the meaning and practice of knitting.
The Neo-Knitterz Case
Data for this article are drawn from a participant observation study of a knitting circle in a large Midwestern city and supplemented by in-depth interviews. Observations and interviews were conducted from September 2002 through September 2003. Neo-Knitterz was part of a loose national organization with chapters in 12 U.S. cities. Usually, about 10 to 12 people showed up for each meeting. This included a group of 6 to 8 regulars who came to most meetings; the rest were either one-time visitors or sporadic attendees. Meetings were “officially” 2 hours long, but people often arrived early and members would talk after meetings ended.
The group was overwhelmingly female and white. Only one man attended meetings during my observations. With the exception of one Asian American regular and one African American one-time attendee, all meeting attendees were white. The women ranged in age from 21 to 40, but most were between 25 and 35. Almost all members worked in professional, white-collar careers. Those who did not work had been laid off from professional jobs, were graduate students, or were looking for professional, white-collar work. While not representative, the careers of the regulars provide a sense of the professional status of the group. The regulars worked in marketing/advertising, investment banking, publishing, commercial real estate, and Internet/software design. Women in the group embodied the image associated with young, urban professionals in the “creative class” (Florida 2002).
The balance between more practiced knitters and novices varied from week to week. There were some members who had been knitting since childhood, but most were introduced to knitting as adults through friends, not family. As discussed in the following, the women express a range of motivations for knitting and joining the group. Like many new participants in knitting, they all speak to the intrinsic pleasures of knitting and the communal aspects of the knitting circle as motivations for joining the group (Nargi 2003; Willis 2007). Women found out about Neo-Knitterz through friends, the promotional efforts of the regulars, or media accounts about the group. Most of the women attended meetings alone, although occasionally groups of friends attended meetings together. Members appeared to only rarely socialize outside the context of group functions.
Group members were told that I was interested in issues of leisure and social interaction. Being African American and male, I was unique among members of the group, but members eagerly embraced my participation and welcomed me into the group. While initially conceived as an observational study, I ultimately learned how to knit and became a participant, knitting and talking with the women as a member of the group. This provided unanticipated benefits, as the women in the group were able to “teach” me how to be a knitter. I was able to see which elements members felt were important to pass along to new knitters.
I also conducted in-depth interviews with six of the regular members of Neo-Knitterz. The interviews were open-ended and lasted between one and two hours. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed. Responses were coded using a grounded theory approach where central themes of the research emerged in the analysis of the transcripts (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Additionally, in the winter of 2006 I conducted six interviews with knitters with similar demographic profiles to the women in Neo-Knitterz. These later interviews were used to supplement my ethnographic observations and confirm that talk and practices went beyond members of this group. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are recreated from field notes or taken from interviews with members of Neo-Knitterz.
“I’m Just Not One of Them”: Knitting as a Challenge to Self-Concept
As noted previously, analysts and reporters who have written about the rise of knitting often note the association with grandmas. However, to explore the role of identity processes in the practice of knitting, it is also critical to understand the meanings and associations the women in Neo-Knitterz attach to knitting. Members had a complicated relationship to the image associated with knitting. They felt strongly about the pleasure they derive from knitting, but they were also deeply troubled by knitting’s perception in the public imagination. The Neo-Knitterz felt that knitters are stereotyped as “old ladies.” This perception was often reinforced by images of knitters in popular culture. For example, during the Christmas season of 2002, a big-box retailer ran a commercial that featured a grandmotherly woman presenting gifts she had knitted. The punchline of the commercial was at the expense of the grandmother. No one wanted her gifts. The commercial was consistent with portrayals of older women that “suggests that with age comes a loss of happiness, social utility, and declining mental faculties” (Baumann and de Laat 2012:535). The commercial sparked a strong response among the Neo-Knitterz. A message placed on the group’s online discussion boards encouraged members to email the company and inform them that their image of knitters was a gross stereotype that did not represent all knitters. At the next meeting, members continued complaining face-to-face. No one mentioned actually emailing the retailer, but they were clearly annoyed by the portrayal of knitters. Instances like the commercial supported members’ beliefs about knitting’s bad reputation, and on more than one occasion “negative” media portrayals of knitters became fodder for group discussion.
Women in the group often felt that there was an expectation that young women would not be interested in a hobby associated with older women. In an interview, Donnatella mentioned that her work colleagues were unaware of her interest in knitting. When I asked her why the people at work did not know that she was a knitter, she responded with concern that people would not expect it of her: “You know, young people are not supposed to knit; that’s what people think. So you don’t want people to think you’re a freak” (interview, 03/13/03, Donnatella, 37, consultant). This was a common concern among the knitters. Another knitter expresses it this way:
I don’t tell people I knit because I know what kind of things they would think. I wouldn’t just be someone who knits. It would become all about all kinds of other things—I’m not cool, I’m old-fashioned. . . . It’s so stupid I don’t even deal with it. (interview, 02/22/03, Grace, 33, real-estate agent)
Women like Donnatella and Grace see themselves as vulnerable to outside judgment because knitting, like other stigmas, was used to make improper assumptions about them. Despite the low-key nature of the stigma associated with knitting, women in the group feel the need to address it. For a discreditable stigma like knitting, the main task is to manage information (Goffman [1963] 1986). Accordingly, the women distanced themselves from the image of knitting by downplaying the activity as “not a big deal” or just “a hobby.” However, the perceived lack of “fit” with younger women and knitting is not just an external imposition from outsiders.
Members of the group embraced similar opinions about the “average” knitter. In an interview, I asked Morgan to tell me the common perception of knitters. She was quick with an answer: “You know what it is? It’s a group of little old ladies sitting around drinking tea and knitting potholders.” I then asked how that image fit with her perception of knitters. Given that Morgan was a long-time regular to the group, I was surprised that her response was similar: “Honestly, it’s not that different. I can understand why people think that. For the most part it’s an old people’s hobby, but that’s changing. There are a lot of knitters who do fit that description. I’m just not one of them” (interview, 10/11/02).
Morgan’s comment about “not being one of them” marked a clear demarcation between her image of herself and the stereotype of knitters. There were other indications that Neo-Knitterz see a difference between themselves and the stereotypical knitter. The difference between the “average” knitter and the women in Neo-Knitterz also manifested itself in jokes at the expense of the stereotypical knitter. Women in the group often juxtaposed themselves against the image of the traditional knitter for humorous or ironic effect. An excerpt from my field notes provides a telling example:
Cathy talks about a trip she took to the most recent GlamorCon [a convention that focuses on women, sex, and glamor]. She tells us how she met the oldest living Playboy Playmate. Grace mentions that she has a lot of old “girlie mags.” She tells us that she keeps them as collectables and likes to hang the photography as “art.” Grace looks at me, raises an eyebrow and says, “You won’t hear about porno magazines at your grandma’s knitting circle.” The four women sitting closest to us laugh along with us. (field notes, 10/08/02)
The humor was in the difference between the expectations of what a knitter “should be” and the reality of what they actually are. There are threads of ageism, classism, and even sexism in the way that members of Neo-Knitterz framed “grandma” knitters. While members act as if they are just reporting others’ perceptions of knitters, they reinforce those very same beliefs when they attempt to draw boundaries between themselves and the “grandma” image.
Given their devalued perceptions of the activity, knitting offers a dual challenge to the women, threatening both self-esteem and self-consistency. It is a challenge to self-consistency because the image of the activity and its practitioners is incongruent with how the women see themselves. Knitting is a threat to self-esteem because association with the devalued activity does not enhance self-evaluation. For the women in Neo-Knitterz, the two motivations are inextricably linked. The perceived low status of the grandma, which would impact self-esteem, is a large driver of the distance the women see between themselves and the activity. The Neo-Knitterz case suggests that self-esteem and self-consistency both motivate behavior (Elliot 1986; Jones 1973). Accordingly, their efforts to change knitting work both to bring it closer to their self-concept and to raise the status of the activity.
Take Back the Knit: Reconfiguring the Knitter Identity
In regards to the threat that knitting poses to their self-concept, the women in Neo-Knitterz had multiple responses available. They could abandon the hobby causing so much consternation. As discussed previously, some members attempted to distance themselves from the activity. Why not go all the way and just give it up? Another response could include altering their own self-understandings so that they are congruent with the grandma stereotype. Despite these alternatives, women in the group, individually and collectively, adopted a third approach. Women in the group engaged a number of identity work strategies to bring knitting in line with their self-conceptions.
Identity work includes “the range of activities individuals engage in to create, present, and sustain personal identities that are congruent with and supportive of the self-concept” (Snow and Anderson 1987:1348). Although Snow and Anderson focus on the verbal identity work strategy of homeless men, they allow for a range of complimentary activities including:
(a) procurement or arrangement of physical settings and props; (b) cosmetic face work or the arrangement of personal appearance; (c) selective association with other individuals and groups; and (d) verbal construction and assertion of personal identities. (1987:1348)
Neo-Knitterz engaged in both verbal and behavioral identity work strategies to construct new meanings around knitting. By examining the practices of the group, we can see how identity work strategies created symbolic boundaries and material distinctions between the knitters in Neo-Knitterz and the traditional stereotype. Although identity work was invoked to challenge the image of knitting, in the process it altered the practice of knitting and shifted cultural expectations of what a knitter should be. I focus on three identity work strategies: reorienting meaning, focusing on materials, and public meetings. The first strategy centers on meaning and ways of talking about knitting; the last two focus on ways of practicing knitting.
Reorienting Meaning
The women in the group engaged in talk that aimed to reorient the meanings associated with the knitter identity. This was not the only identity talk strategy employed by the group. As noted in the last section, even though the women would occasionally distance themselves from knitting, in the context of the group, reorienting talk was a much more frequent identity work strategy. This, however, required talking about knitting a very specific way. Knitting was a self-focused avenue for personal expression.
For these women, leisure was central in attempts to achieve “balance” in life, and knitting was cast as a way to remain “grounded.” Knitting was juxtaposed against their understanding of themselves as professionals, and only rarely did they talk about knitting in relation to domestic or social life. Knitting gained resonance when it was juxtaposed against work. Instead of locating knitting in relation to domestic life, the activity gained meaning through its relation to their professional lives.
Specifically, the leisure act—knitting—itself was prized. From this perspective, knitting was less about the utility of the projects one makes and more about the fulfillment one gets from the activity. For these women, knitting provided more than just scarves, caps, or sweaters. The process of knitting was as important as the project being knitted. This was especially important given the ways that the women talked about knitting in relation to their professional lives. Knitting counteracted the overwhelming influence of technology and abstraction in their work lives. Multiple women draw upon this theme in explaining why they knit:
You spend all day working with computer code and when you fix a problem [at work] that’s good. But so many times I work a full day and don’t feel like I’ve done anything . . . with knitting, I can see my work [developing] row by row. (interview, 04/18/03, Pattie, 33, web designer) It’s nice to do something tangible. I spend all day dealing with annoying people, routing phone calls, filing papers . . . knitting is actually doing something. (field notes, 11/12/02, Cathy, 26, administrative assistant)
Accordingly, the women placed a premium on the idea of “handmade.” Once, while working on a scarf, I complained about uneven lines. Another member explained to me that the imperfections are what make a hand-knitted article interesting and said, “If you want perfect lines, go to the Gap” (field notes, 10/15/02). This response hinted at the important relationship between the products of knitting and the knitter herself.
Knitting was further personalized through Neo-Knitterz members’ discussions about things they knit as extensions of themselves. This connection between knitter and project was best expressed when members talked about for whom they knitted. From my observations and talking with members during meetings, people knitted things for themselves or for their closest friends and family. When the subject of knitting for others comes up, all of the women expressed reservations about knitting for other people. An excerpt from early in my fieldwork illustrates this point:
Karen explains that once I know how to knit I’ll understand how personal it actually is . . . “I’ve made things just to impress people, like a baby shower gift for someone I only kinda knew from work. It’s nice to get the oohhs and ahhs.” [Members close by laugh at this.] “But most often I’ll only knit stuff for people I’m really close to like family and friends.” [I ask why that’s the case.] “I don’t know. ’Cause it’s me in the scarf or whatever. I can’t just give myself to anybody, can I?” [More laughter.] (fieldnotes, 10/15/02)
Women in the group talked in a way that shifted the meanings associated with the knitter identity. Rather than framing the knitter as a productive role that makes things for others, Neo-Knitterz talk about knitting as an avenue for individual consumption and expression. For this group of women, knitting for others involved nurturing and producing for others in a very broad sense. However, they positioned the activity as very personal and often invoked a language of human fulfillment. Knitting provided balance when juxtaposed against their professional lives and was not a taken-for-granted part of women’s domestic role. In their discussions, they consistently framed knitting in a way that brought it into line with their lives as single, professional women. In doing so, they outlined a very specific vision of knitting and created boundaries between them and “grandma” knitters. Such rhetorical boundary definition was central to identity work efforts (Mason-Schrock 1996).
The way that the women talk about knitting also shed light on the rewards they received from the activity. Given their ambivalent feelings about the image associated with knitting and the identity threat it produces, it is reasonable to question why the women in the group bother to engage in the activity. Knitting served as a counterbalance to their professional lives and provides an outlet for creativity and self-expression. Given the importance of creativity and self-expression, the practice of knitting is as important, if not more, than the way knitting is talked about.
Focusing on Materials
Even in their talk about what knitting meant, the women emphasized the importance of the way that they practiced knitting. Choosing hand knitting over a machine or limiting the recipients of their efforts both illustrate how identity work efforts moved beyond talk and structured how knitting was practiced. Additionally, the materials that they used to make those articles were also important to the identity work of the Neo-Knitterz. Carefully selecting yarns and design patterns distanced them from the perceived “grandma” image of knitting while working to reformulate how knitting should be done.
The women stressed that the things they make are fashionable and stylish. It was also important for the pattern to be “different.” During my observations, a “Vegan Fox Fur” was a popular pattern. This pattern called for a furry, faux-fur yarn to make a fox stole. There was a lot of excitement about the pattern because no one had seen anything like it before. The uniqueness of the pattern and its clever reinvention of a traditional item embodied the ethos of the group. Members all praised the pattern as something that would fit perfectly in pattern books targeted at hip, young knitters. An item like the Vegan Fox Fur signaled that they represented something other than the image of the traditional knitter. Similarly, Neo-Knitterz often used designer patterns from brand names like DKNY and Todd Oldham, and they took ideas from publications like Vogue Knitting. Patterns, while providing the instructions for how to knit an item, also provided an opportunity to separate knitting from its current perceptions:
I asked where people got ideas for the things that they knit and Elizabeth answered, “A lot of difference places.” Ronnie added, “We use patterns from high-end fashion stuff, not crap like Grandma’s Knitting or Knitting American.”
4
(field notes, 09/24/02)
Invoking brand names like DKNY and Todd Oldham and alluding to “high-end fashion” distanced knitting from the grandma image. But, more importantly, it also suggested a distinct way that knitting should be done and repositioned the activity as closer to the image of cool, young, professional women like the members of Neo-Knitterz. This is similar to how other groups use fashion and clothing to carve out a distinct image for themselves that reflects a sense of identity (Abrams 2006; Crane 2000; Hebdige 1981; Wilkins 2008).
The emphasis on materials was evidenced further in the rhetoric surrounding yarn shops. The importance of materials even extended to where members purchased yarns and patterns. The knitters had developed a hierarchy of yarn retailers. While there was not complete agreement within the group about the ordering, most of the women agreed with the assessment. In preparation for a shopping trip, a member sent me an email outlining the differences between the yarn retailers.
Welcome to the subculture of knitters! You are soon to become very familiar with the language and customs. First of all, the yarn retailers segment into 3 general groups. 1. Mass merchants like Wal-Mart and Kmart often carry a small selection of really cheap, acrylic yarns and cheap metal needles. This is exactly where little old grandma knitters shop. I never go there, but some Neo-Knitterz members do once in a while (especially for projects that need to be washable and use a lot of yarn). 2. Chain specialists like Jo-Ann Fabrics and Michael’s also carry a small selection of yarns. While the quality is usually one step up from the Wal-Mart stuff, a great majority of the stock will still be acrylic and pretty cheap. . . . If you visit any of the stores in the first and second categories, you’ll see that the target is older, down-scale, and dowdy (just check out the butt-ugly patterns they carry). I’ve never actually gone to any mass merchandisers or chain specialist for yarn. 3. At the top of the knitting food chain are independent yarn shops, often owned and operated by strange and quirky women. Here, yarns and knitting accessories take center stage. They tend to carry mostly “natural fibers.” Tons of really nice wools, cottons, linens, plus very expensive silks and cashmeres, and blends of the aforementioned. This is where knitting is about fashion, with lots of patterns from Adrienne Vittadini, Rowan, DKNY, Missoni, etc. Vogue Knitting is the bible. In my mind there is no comparison between the yarn stores and Jo-Ann Fabrics. (email, 10/09/02)
This email provided a map of the “language and customs” of knitting as envisioned by a Neo-Knitter. Central to this world were fine-grained distinctions between retail environments. By circumscribing where one could shop and what materials one should use, members reflected their distance from the image of the grandma through material practices. The importance of material practices further manifested itself in the lengths to which members would go to acquire unique materials. Members would often spend time discussing road trips to regional yarn shows or laughing over the unreliable hours at a favorite yarn shop. Objects, in this instance yarns and patterns, played a central role in the reconstruction of identity (Silver 1996).
Although patterns and yarns structured what one knit as a Neo-Knitter, women also engaged in behaviors that worked to reformulate how one was supposed to knit. As women in the group tweaked the performance of knitting to move it away from its perceived “grandma” associations, collective and public group meetings played a central role.
Public Meetings and Promotional Efforts
On a practical level, group meetings gave members a chance to share ideas and seek assistance on projects, but group meetings were also an opportunity for the knitters to knit with other people who had similar self-concepts and shared the same expectation of the knitter role. Knitting can be done alone, and given members’ ambivalent feelings about the hobby’s image, solitary knitting would be an easy way to avoid association with a stigmatized activity. Despite this, women in the group recognized the importance of participating in Neo-Knitterz. The group itself is proof that the stereotype of knitters is inaccurate. Group meetings show that not all knitters conform to the social expectation of what a knitter should be.
One evening the discussion turned to a knitting group that meets at the library in the same neighborhood as the coffee house where the Neo-Knitterz meet. One woman asked if anyone had gone to knit with the group. Another member, Dianne, responded that she hadn’t been, but she had heard that it was just a group of standard knitters. I asked what she meant, “standard knitters.” She replied, “You know, a bunch of old ladies meet at the library and talk about their grandkids. I’m pretty sure there is no overlap between the two groups” (fieldnotes, 12/10/02). At a social event I asked a member why she joined. She replied, “I wanted to knit with people like me. I can knit with my mom in the suburbs if I wanted to, but that’s not fun. They don’t do the kind of knitting I do” (interview, 10/01/02). Members are most interested in knitting with others who reinforce their own style of knitting.
Identity work also serves a policing function that protects “the meaning of an identity” and structures “enforcement of the code for signifying it” (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996:123). This happened at Neo-Knitterz meetings as well. When members were working on projects that did not fit the Neo-Knitterz mold, they were very apologetic. During one meeting, a member who was working on a reading shawl (a large shawl with armholes) walked into the meeting and announced, “Okay, I have to work on my grandma project tonight and I don’t want to hear anything from anybody” (field notes, 05/20/03). On another occasion, a member was showing me the pattern for a cardigan sweater, and after I complimented the pattern she told me it was “a little grandma, but the colors and texture make it nice” (field notes, 01/21/03).
Meeting at a coffee shop, in contrast to the library, placed the Neo-Knitterz in a space where their identity work was visible to outside audiences. Ironically, it is the very challenge that the women faced—incongruence between how the women in Neo-Knitterz looked and their chosen leisure activity—that drew attention to them and allowed them to upset conventional understandings of knitting. The immediate impact was seen in the reactions of other customers in the coffee shop. By meeting in public, the women in the group put their identity work efforts on display. The group’s meetings drew attention from other coffee shop patrons who often commented on their surprise at seeing a knitting group meeting in a coffee shop. This is highlighted in this incident from my field notes:
About halfway through the meeting a woman, probably in her early fifties, comes through the door of the shop. . . . She comes over and asks Linda who we are. Linda explains and the woman expresses disbelief. She explains that it’s been a long time since she’s seen a knitting circle in public, and it “certainly didn’t look like this.” She chuckles and apologizes for interrupting . . . I cock my head at Linda and raise a questioning eyebrow. She gives an exaggerated eye roll and whispers, “The surprise gets kind of old after a while,” and proceeds to ask me about the scarf I’m knitting. (field notes, 10/29/02)
This is just one of a number of similar situations that occurred during my fieldwork with the group. Generally, these exchanges focused on the unexpected nature of seeing young women knitting, and comparisons with the “grandma” knitter were often explicit.
Individual contact points at group meetings made the identity work practices of Neo-Knitterz consequential outside of the group. The incident discussed previously was one of many moments where the identity work on display had larger consequences for how the “knitter” identity was understood. Members were aware of this, and given their own concerns about the image of knitting, it is not surprising that they worked to promote the Neo-Knitterz vision of knitting beyond the confines of group meetings. The group courted media attention to promote their vision of knitting. During my observations, two local magazines and a newspaper wrote stories about the group. The local public radio station had also run stories about the group.
These accounts were effective. Many sporadic attendees or new members reported to me that they had heard about the group through media accounts. It was through these accounts that these attendees learned to rethink what knitting was. As a new attendee noted:
I wouldn’t have really thought of it [knitting] as something to do. But when I came across the article in Midwestern Magazine, the girls here seemed really cool and they were doing some funky stuff. I figured, “Why not?” (field notes, 04/08/03)
Although I only saw this woman at one meeting, her story was not uncommon. The media accounts about the group served as a promotional tool to recruit new members. However, these accounts also worked to restructure the image of knitting.
Even this research was conceptualized as a way to upend attitudes about knitting. When reporters were present, the regulars in the group often highlighted my presence. Not surprisingly, members attempted to use my presence to validate the unexpected nature of the group. As an African American male, I was the perfect illustration of the expansion of the world of knitters. Members steered reporters to me as an illustration of how “knitting is for everyone.” When I refused to be interviewed because of my role as a researcher, a member pointed out to a reporter that knitting has become a serious object of intellectual study. For them, it signaled the seriousness of knitting as an enterprise, and they wanted to ensure that reporters were aware of that.
Publicity and public meetings served multiple purposes. They were occasions to reinforce and police other identity-work strategies. Meetings offered opportunities to publicly display the Neo-Knitterz brand of knitting. Meetings also provided an opportunity to perform knitting in a way that was organized by members’ reoriented meanings. The performance analogy is apt in that it draws attention to the dramaturgical nature of meetings and places an importance on the role of interaction in identity work (Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996; Snow and Anderson 1987). The group meetings showed knitters that there were other women who were doing knitting in a similar way and provided a forum for the display of this identity work. In conjunction with changes in meaning and a focus on materials, the meetings helped bridge the divide between how the women in the group saw themselves and what they imagined as the perception of knitting.
Constraints on Identity Work
While attending to identity work of the women in Neo-Knitterz is important, that work must be understood within a broader social context. Full understanding of the change that knitting has undergone requires understanding that “personal or group choices shape institutional meaning, while simultaneously understanding how these choices depend upon the powerful constraints under which individuals and groups operate” (Fine and Fields 2008:143). Accounting for the evolution of knitting among the Neo-Knitterz requires focusing on both identity processes and structural conditions.
The women do not have free rein in structuring the meaning and practice of their leisure. Like any individual or group engaged in meaning making, the women are constrained by cultural and material resources (DiMaggio 1997; Griswold 1987a; Swidler 2001). Their ability to align knitting with their self-concept is constrained by the existing meanings associated with knitting and the resources, both cultural and material, available to the women in the groups. Members are forced to react to the existing images that are attached to an activity and are enabled or constrained by access to things like yarn, patterns, and donations. For example, the knitters in Neo-Knitterz depend upon a network of people—storeowners, authors, magazine editors, and pattern designers—who facilitate the way Neo-Knitterz members knit. This network is analogous to an art world that “consist[s] of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps other as well, define as art” (Becker 1982:34). This knitting world unites its participants—from the “strange and quirky women” store owners mentioned in Morgan’s e-mail to the knitter at Neo-Knitterz working on a vegan fox stole—in a network of cooperative links. So, although there is a lot of work to align knitting with the self-concept of group members, the way the women talk about and practice knitting are not pulled from thin air and is supported by a wide network of people.
Conclusion
I began by asking what happens to a cultural object when new practitioners take it up. In the case of the Neo-Knitterz, identity processes trigger real-world changes in the practice of knitting. This “new” version of knitting more easily fits within members’ self-concept and transforms knitting from a stigmatized activity to a self-affirming skill with both moral and material meaning. The outer-directed nature of this identity work shows how social psychological processes of identity maintenance can drive shifts in cultural practices (DiMaggio and Markus 2010; Tsushima and Burke 1999).
As cultural objects increasingly move across time and space, questions about how and why they change must be at the forefront of cultural analysis. The resurgence of knitting among new audiences is emblematic of the increasing diffusion of cultural practices across established social, political, and geographic boundaries to new actors. The global expansion of capitalism, increased access to technology and information, and the loosening of traditions all contribute to the breeching of boundaries between and within cultures (Dunn 1998). Part of this breeching includes the movement of cultural objects from one cultural domain to another. These factors, combined with the rise of “cultural omnivores” (Peterson and Kern 1996) who value newness and diversity in experiences, increase the likelihood that leisure pursuits will be picked up by new individuals and groups. As such, it is important to understand the social forces that shape integration of existing cultural practices into “new” contexts.
My findings suggest that as practices cross geographical, cultural, and symbolic boundaries, issues of self and identity are key to understanding how global practices are integrated into local contexts. Increasingly, scholars are calling for more exploration of the role of self-concept in understanding social action (Adler and Adler 1999; Hitlin 2003; Hitlin and Elder 2007). Hitlin and Elder (2007:189) remark that “we select into situations that allow us build and fulfill important identity commitments. . . . Over time, the various identities we internalize motivate our actions, and we exercise agency in the very performance of those identities.” Through the performance of identity, individuals can change culture or the identity performance itself can be understood as a cultural object. Either way, issues of identity are central to cultural production and analysis. More research is needed to explore these issues. Yet even with these considerations in mind, my findings suggest that a research program tied to identity work can shed light on how people manage microlevel identity processes, as well as how the deft deployment of a variety of identity work strategies has the potential to alter the wider cultural landscape.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the women who invited me into their knitting circle. I also want to thank the following colleagues for providing thoughtful comments and suggestions: Ellen Berrey, Japonica Brown-Saracino, Brooke Conroy-Bass, Shelley Correll, Wendy N. Espeland, Gary Alan Fine, Wendy Griswold, Steven Hoffman, Stacy Lom, Carrie Kindleberger, Emily F. Shafer, and Robb Willer.