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Paper short abstract:

For a recently taught course I put making (concretely: embroidery) at the centre of pedagogy. Students' and my experience show that thus a kind of low-threshold space was created for students to learn to think, reflect and critique, thus empowering them to develop their own voice.

Paper long abstract:

For the course I recently taught entitled DIY in Times of Crisis and Beyond, I went the pedagogical extra mile, putting making at the heart of it all. Creating a space of epistemic uncertainty we developed our thinking from tool-guided making. Temporarily marginalizing the intellectual realm, we allowed it to gain momentum peripherally while stitching away on our embroidery hoops.

I will give insights into how crafting while thinking and vice versa within an academic teaching context serves as a low-threshold approach for students to learn to think, reflect and critique and thus empowers them to develop their own voice. Putting the body and “felt sovereignty” (Cvetkovich 2010) centre stage in a space that has traditionally suppressed the body in favour of reason by bringing tools, materials and crafts into the classroom, also offers haptic certainty in biographically and societally disorderly times.

Ultimately, I will argue that this approach not only fosters creativity and imagination but also offers strategies to detox university (Prior 2022), to mitigate social acceleration and instrumentalisation of education and to cultivate self-care. Bringing the body into the knowledge factory, we take one step further from making knowledge to crafting wisdom.

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Paper short abstract:

We share our experiences about a course at university at whose pedagogical heart was making. While discussing our readings about crafting and crisis, we were embroidering freely on our hoops. Our talk is about different perceptions on how the course setting influenced our learning trajectory.

Paper long abstract:

Last semester, we attended a course entitled DIY in Times of Crisis and Beyond at the University of Graz at whose pedagogical heart was making. While discussing our readings about crafting and crisis, we were embroidering freely on our hoops – far away from academic teaching conventions we were used to. It was not just about our intellectual thinking, but about an embodied learning experience.

For the purpose of this paper, we want to think about how many perspectives anthropologists can take. In the course we discovered four different levels: Me as a researcher, me as a crafter, me as a student and me as an object of research. Bearing with the silence during our conversations and the resistance of the material challenged us. Each of us used the emotion of resistance as an opportunity for research and reflection. We weren’t just ethnographers but also became the object of enquiry of each other. Sometimes we would lay down our needles and grab our pens to write down field notes about our fellow students. Sometimes we became the ones that were written about.

In our talk we will speak about our diverse realities on how the mentioned course setting and pedagogy influenced our learning trajectory and will dwell on our at times diverging corpo/realities in relation to stitching-while-thinking due to our different stages in academic training. We talk about our experiences as beginners and more advanced students and the entanglement between bodily ethnography, emotions and academic knowledge.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses silence as an aspect of listening, and approaches listening in craftwork as an outcome of working together that can leave space for ‘an act of grace’ to occur. It draws on research by the Forces in Translation project, who work along the boundaries of basketry and mathematics.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses silence as an aspect of listening. The author approaches listening as an outcome of working together that can leave space for ‘an act of grace’ to occur.

For this anthropologist, working together with others in craftwork can result in song, conversation, rhythm, space and distributed attention – resulting in both sound and silence - ways of attuning to other participants which can evoke both response and understanding.

A key feature is the turning outwards of attention, into both materials, tools and the wider environment and also to other participants or collaborators. Within these ways of attending, and within the rhythm of work, silence can allow for a moment, when a maker, scientist, performer or other practitioner, can acknowledge (to themselves and others) when there is a moment of ‘stuckness’, an obstacle, even ignorance, or a lack of understanding which, through listening, waiting, and by employing patience, one can perhaps come to understand or develop new understanding.

This paper draws on the studio research of the Forces in Translation project, which explores questions of understanding along the boundaries of textile work (especially basketry) and mathematics in order to address this theme.

Dr Stephanie Bunn

25th January 2024

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Paper short abstract:

This contribution will consider how a group of adults with learning disabilities in north-east London have worked together for a number of years on shared projects in which individual, singular stitches of embroidery, however unruly, are joyfully encouraged and inherently valued.

Paper long abstract:

In the act of hand sewing, a threaded needle pierces the cloth, up from underneath or down from above. Although the pinpointing of the place for the needle to emerge from the out-of-sight underneath can be challenging, especially if there are patterns or rules to be followed, the awkward spaces between visible stitches are rich with unacknowledged connotation. Between optic precision and haptic fumbling, the space/place between certainty and uncertainty is complex and conditional, particularly in situations of shared, community-driven practice.

This contribution will consider how a group of adults with learning disabilities in north-east London have worked together for a number of years on shared projects in which individual, singular stitches of embroidery, however unruly, are joyfully encouraged and inherently valued. The group, which has been active for several years, builds strength through community and trust as well as through subduing the challenges that can occur in effecting a single stitch, let alone in embroidering a flower or animal. What emerges is the conclusion that each person's stitch-action denotes a singular, creative voice at the communal table. Erin Massumi's 'minor gesture', Donna Harraway's 'staying with the trouble', Emma Cocker's 'tactics for not knowing' and Tim Ingold's 'correspondence' may each serve as critical support, but above all the notion that meaning is most alive in the hidden space between the visible stitches will be evident, echoing the notion (Barthes, Merleau-Ponty et al) that meaning is most potent in the space between words rather than in the words themselves.

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Paper short abstract:

When our hands are occupied, our fingers carry the flow of conversation into the objects we are making; how does this sensory ‘distraction’ alter the stream of discussion within a group? and how can we engage with these handmade things as tactile archives of collective discourse?

Paper long abstract:

Within my research in the northwest quilting community, there is an evident and distinct self-orating, remembrance, and engaged discussion that emanates from group stitching. Crafting as a collective slows down time spent together, producing unhurried and absorbed listening. If brought into the seminar room, this biographical and reflexive talking could produce a fruitful pedagogy that engages with personal reflections and shapes a more uninhibited and open conversation. I will demonstrate the power of working on something in your lap, head bent, alleviating the pressure of making eye contact, the needle dipping into the well of emotive discussion.

Secondly, I want to emphasise that stitching-whilst-talking should not be viewed purely as a prop to facilitate ‘serious’ academic discussion. The craft objects made within the classroom are tangible expressions of time spent learning, listening and engaging. Introducing the concept of busy hands carries with it the feminine foil of hobbyism and busywork. In response, I centre my own fieldwork on the notion that what is made in the material is, in and of itself, valuable testimonies of experience. These objects exist as tactile diaries, autobiographical creations that retell how the speaker/listener felt during the lesson, ready to be revisited as if reading back through your notes.

As a researcher in both craft and anthropology, I will address the benefits that making has on discussion and the imprint discussion has on making, drawing out a shared thread that when we seriously engage with the sensorial, we bring something new into being.

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Paper short abstract:

What will it take for anthropology to take on hands on making and doing as a way of crafting concepts. Drawing a leaf from doing toddler theatre, this paper argues how the anthropological can be a play of material in conversation where the conceptual emerges in the interstices of doing and making.

Paper long abstract:

What will it take for anthropology to take on hands on making and doing as a way of crafting concepts. Drawing a leaf from my work as a toddler theater maker, which is essentially about crafting a concept through material and weaving a narrative through the tangible, I want to argue how the anthropological can be a play of material in conversation at its own pace where the conceptual emerges in the silences and interstices of doing and making. In my current work on a new play “Stories in Half”, actors repeatedly weave vertical and horizontal threads in warp and weft, alternating with red, black and white. While warp invites a weft to follow, we realise how each undone act of weaving is a story told in half, waiting to be finished. It is in the act of weaving halfway that we begin seeing stories of a city emerging – a city in its inherent transformation, potential and growth. The unspoken silences in the act of weaving become a story of how we live the city and how the city houses us or not while remaining a promise to weave our lives with. For this panel, I want to share the process of this work, hopefully both in the spoken and the animate to think through the pedagogical potential of anthropological thinking and ask if there can be a doing of anthropology in the classroom, rather than solely studying or imitating from texts and concepts?

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Paper short abstract:

Inspired by the improvisatory style and vernacular materials of Gee's Bend quilts, this exercise in ethnographic dialogue is a work in progress. Participants arrive with 5-7 images of importance to them, cut them up into quilt pieces, then reassemble their pieces in pairs or groups.

Paper long abstract:

Inspired by the improvisatory style and vernacular materials of Gee's Bend quilts, together with Black, Brown and Yellow feminist theories and practices this exercise in ethnographic dialogue is a work in progress, drawn from my own quilting and ethnographic making. Roughly described, participants arrive with 5-7 images of importance to them, cut them up into quilt pieces, then reassemble their pieces in pairs or groups. This process produces connections and juxtapositions that are often uncommon, surprising, unexpected. These, in turn, become moments for reflection, discussion and dialogue. Framing questions and instructions/guides for what images to bring can and should work to delineate specific spaces, topics, or concerns. As the foundation of an "interview" the material and visual become the primary means of meaning-making, and such meaning is sutured together improvisationally rather than being directed by a questionnaire or interview guide. The silences here are metaphorical rather than literal: conversation, dialogue, and discussion are integral and necessary. The ground of quilting, however, shapes these elements in ways that interrogate or expose some types of silence, while allowing other silences to be identified and, perhaps, undone.

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Paper short abstract:

Trying out and making mistakes are crucial for academic knowledge production in teaching and learning. But there are often inhibitions. Formats in which the participants tinker together and silence serves as an accomplice, make such processes transparent, dynamic and change the notions of academia.

Paper long abstract:

Academic teaching and learning occur collaboratively and through material environments. What Science and Technology Studies have shown regarding research is also valid for knowledge production in teaching and learning: it is a sociotechnical, material practice. Over time, dominant ways of teaching and learning have emerged, such as standing in front of a class, using a PowerPoint, flipchart and pens. But through a reflexive pedagogy as participatory practice (Ingold 2018) which also includes things as actors, academia on the level of teaching and learning can be also negotiated, shaped (Künzler 2021) and rearranged.

Experimenting with various (new) teaching-learning formats and with the particular seminar situation in situ sets off reflections and discussions, which have a productive impact on academic knowledge production. Joint tinkering (with the surrounding materiality) makes power relations tangible, discussable and even undermines them. A core element of such actions is the “trial and error” approach, which stimulates intrinsic curiosity and leads to unexpected insights. The focus of this paper is therefore on trying (things) out and making “mistakes”.

In this interplay, silence can be productively included as a multidimensional pedagogical accomplice: for example, silence to gain access to one's own thoughts, to let non-verbal things speak, or to silence dominant notions of academia. These dimensions will be bundled analytically in the paper.

All findings are based on my empirical research, especially on two seminars (“Artistic Knowledge Practices” 2020; “moving” 2023) which are part of my project on the emergence of Cultural Studies through teaching and learning (https://kulturwissenschaft.philhist.unibas.ch/de/forschung/standard-titel/standard-titel/).

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Paper short abstract:

What does it mean when the teacher refuses to “teach”? Traditional Japanese apprenticeship demands silence, forcing the student to adopt new strategies for learning. This paper draws on experiences with a culturally informed apprenticeship model centered around silence as pedagogical method.

Paper long abstract:

Silence in the workshop or classroom is not unusual and is often understood as a feature of concentration on a task. This paper, a collaborative engagement between two educators—one a professional boatbuilder, the other an anthropologist—examines the affordances of silence as an intentional method for learning and the knowledge transmission. What happens when the verbal communication between master and apprentice is constrained, when the teacher refuses to instruct but the student still must learn? In its strictest form an apprentice is sometimes forced to steal their master's secrets.

Over the course of two weeks in 2023, a dozen American university students, most with little to no woodworking experience, built a 22-ft wooden Japanese boat using traditional tools and methods. The workshop adhered to a practice common in Japanese craft spaces—the “silent workshop” where observational learning (Moeran 1982; Singleton 1989) and “stealing secrets” (Jordan and Weston 2003) largely replaced verbal instruction and open exchange. Drawing on journals, individual conversations, and visual documentation, this paper argues that the dispositions of apprenticeship can usefully destabilize assumptions about learning and knowledge transmission and generate opportunities to reflect on social science’s own disciplinary field methods. Participants come to appreciate mastery as a process, one that develops hand-in-hand with necessary values of humility, obligation, observation, and imitation. More broadly, the paper highlights the ways a pedagogy of silence offers new avenues for exploring learning and the potential of engaged anthropology within a campus setting and beyond.

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Paper short abstract:

Based on methodological tinkering in place during fieldwork, the experiments conducted with photography and knitting as alternative means of communication to a linguistic vector supported also the impregnation process and reduced the risks of over-interpretative bias due to a linguistic unfluency.

Paper long abstract:

If a Phd research elaborate between Art/Crafts practices and Anthropological approach can be considered as an opportunity to elaborate educational material, this should be thus my humble contribution to the quilt.

Trough practicing photography and knitting as a research process during the anthropological field trip conducted in Iceland. Crafts practices have been considered in regard of my linguistic incompetence. For the french ethnographer J-P Olivier de Sardan, the linguistic unfluency of the researcher is a major problem while conducting anthropological field trip because it is one of the ways in which various over-interpretative biases can occur. Although he admits that every researcher has to innovate methodologically. He advocates that an 'impregnation' is involved in learning a language. (Olivier de Sardan, J-P, 2001).

But, is speaking the native language really the only way to achieve this impregnation ? I should argue that based on my methodological tinkering set in place, my experiments conducted me to develop alternative means of communication to the mainstream linguistic vector. Those experimental means trough photography and knitting practices, supported my impregnation process, reduced the risks of over-interpretative bias and more than anything else generated meaningful processus based on share practices and co-creation of knowledges.

And rather explore the notion of silence and prevented speech (Ricoeur 2000) as a source of knowledge to be consider into the research’s corpus gathered.

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Paper short abstract:

We are all just hanging on by a thread. My goal as an educator is to leave students better than when they first stepped foot in my classroom. I make the case for string experimentation, where string can literally tie us back together and help us feel comfortable with our vulnerable selves.

Paper long abstract:

We are all just hanging on by a thread. So, I always have a length of string tied around my wrist, preferably homespun, as a reminder of the urgency to live life intentionally – because this is our one chance. My goal as a university educator is to leave my students better than when they first stepped foot in my classroom. And it’s only through string that I am able to do this. That’s why with this talk, I’d like to make the case for string experimentation in the university classroom – focusing on classes and coursework that appear to have nothing to do with crafting. But where string can literally tie us back together and help us feel comfortable with our vulnerable selves. Let’s consider what students are facing on a daily basis:

Anxiety over post-college job placement.

Gun violence.

Mental health spiraling.

Student debt.

Food insecurity.

Getting canceled.

Racial, religious and gender-based violence.

Feeling shamed and ashamed.

If there’s one thing that reigns supreme in the university classroom - it’s a four-letter word that begins with “F.” Fear.

Stress is everywhere for university students the world over, and that’s certainly the case in the US where I’ve been a professor for 13 years. So students find “safety” in silence – but at a high cost to their humanity. Isolation is a default state. What’s the antidote to creating community, camaraderie and - dare I say it, JOY – in the university classroom? It’s the magic of string.

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Paper short abstract:

In this lab participants will use embroidery as a tool of mutual memory-work. How can embroidering, passing a needle between fabric from one side to another, feeling the threads move smoothly or entangle and learning to stitch together stimulate memory, connection and correspondence?

Paper long abstract:

How does embroidering stimulate memory and attentiveness? How can colored thread become a “line [that] grows from a point that has been set in motion, as the plant grows from its seed” (Tim Ingold 2010: 91)? What does it mean to follow the line of another person through stitching together? How is inner attention also attention to each other? What is the time and space of making? What are the rhythms of making? Might we see stitcher and thread in-practice like the flyer and kite “understood not as interacting entities, alternately playing agent to the other as patient, but as trajectories of movement, responding to one another in counterpoint, alternately as melody and refrain” (Tim Ingold, 2010: 96). This lab will reflect and expand upon two embroidery workshops I conducted previously and upon my long-term artistic collaboration with Palestinian-American artist Kanaan Kanaan on durational embroidery-performance-installations. The first workshop “Stitching Lines Together” was created for A Confluence of Ways: Design, Anthropology and Artistic Practice, held in the University of Aberdeen, for the Knowing from the Inside Project of the Anthropology Department, May 2, 2018. The second was an experiential practice-based session entitled “Bordar sobre la memoria: el cuerpo-mente del aprendizaje artesanal,” for the III Encuentro Latinoamericano de investigadores sobre cuerpos y corporalidades en las culturas, held in the Museo nacional de las culturas del mundo, Mexico City, November 6-9, 2018. This lab will gather participants together to embroider material and immaterial lines of entanglements through shared making, discussion, readings, and silence.