Att sticka: ett diskursivt och autoetnografiskt nystande av stickning som praktik

Sammanfattning: This study is a knitted attempt of academic border crossing. The methods used for this analysis are discourse theory and autoethnography. In using autoethnography the aim is to include other experiences than those who are usually theorized. The material used for the study is five knitting books published in 2013. Concepts are discussed as processes trying to stabilize meaning in the discourse. The discourse is structured by notions about whom, why and how knitting is done and the meaning is challenged by conceptions about time, knowledge and class. Knitting is analyzed as a subversive potential of expanding the understanding of knowledge. The study stresses the need to further examine the textile area of history and the gendered aspects of handcrafting. The autoethnographic procedure has been to knit one pattern of each book and include reflections about the emotions, thoughts, time and place related to the pattern, including pictures of the work. The study consists therefore of three parts, the written, the written-knitted and the knitted. Together they form a critique of academic distance and strive for more complex, contradictive and approachable ways of doing research.