Craft psychology has gained traction in recent years. Studies focus on mental health and well-being (Bukhave et al., 2025; Kirketerp, 2024), tapping into a neoliberal agenda that individualizes mental health and views coping as the sufferer’s responsibility, while reducing craft to a ”technical fix”. Although community aspects of craft in learning settings are also part of the agenda (Kirketerp, 2024) it is an add-on which further taps into the decontextualized neoliberal wellness agenda. In this paper I suggest an approach to craft that focuses on the potential for resistance and change inherent, but widely unnoticed in craft. Historically, especially textile craft, is the unheeded art of the oppressed: women, marginalized ethnic groups, and the working class – more often than not intersecting (Leone, 2021). However, historical examples from e.g. the French revolution and the resistance movement of WWII, show that, not only can knitting hold encoded messages, but it can also be the center of strong communities of resistance. A recent example is the Crochet Coral Reef, a collective effort, started by Christine and Margaret Wertheim, and cited by Haraway (2017) as a powerful comment on climate change.

Drawing on anthropology and new materialism, I wish to expand craft psychology beyond the mere solitary, recreational, and coping imaginaries that seem to stick, even in the celebration of craft. With concepts such as Haraway’s String Figures (2016), Manning’s Minor Gestures (2020), and Ingold’s Skill (2021), I wish to address how we may understand craft as a more-than-human multiple endeavor with vast potential for resistance and change.

References:

Bukhave, E. B., Creek, J., Linstad, A. K., & Frandsen, T. F. (2025). The effects of crafts‐based interventions on mental health and well‐being: A systematic review. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 72(1), e70001-n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1630.70001

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.

Ingold, T. (2021). The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (New edition.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003196662

Minor Gesture (pp. 64–85). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822374411-005

Kirketerp, A. (2024). Craft psychology : how crafting promotes health (1. editing). Mailand.

Leone, L. (Ed.). (2021). Craft in art therapy : diverse approaches to the transformative power of craft materials and methods (1st ed.). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Manning, E. (2020). Weather Patterns: or How Minor Gestures Entertain the Environment. In The Minor Gesture (pp. 64–85). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822374411-005