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Description
Crafting Choice: Abortion Politics and Handwork in the U.S. represents the first known inquiry into how people deploy publicly engaged handcraft campaigns as a means for abortion-political action. Whether crafters turn to yarn as a platform to fight for reproductive justice or to limit abortion access, this work takes a holistic approach to study how liberals and conservatives choose yarn as a political-activation tool in a Democracy. As a comprehensive investigation grounded in the shifting legality of abortion through two monumental U.S. Supreme Court decisions (including Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022), this book explains why efforts at persuasive handcrafting galvanize people around abortion politics, and what impacts craftwork serves an ever-polarized American public. While “craftivism” is typically regarded as a tool of the left, with the whimsical and often tongue-in-cheek campaigns, this book also offers rare consideration of how those on the political right are actively engaged in their own craftivism efforts with abortion.
Table of Contents
Chapter 2: A Symbolic Reckoning: Knitting Needles and Crochet Hooks, from Self-Abortions to Political Crafting
Chapter 3: Silent Needles: Exploring the Absence of Political Crafting in 20th Century Abortion Politics
Chapter 4: Blanket for the NeverBorn and Conservative Craftivism
Chapter 5: Liberty Crochet Mural and Reproductive Freedom
Chapter 6: The Future of Political Crafting
Product details
| Published | Aug 06 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 112 |
| ISBN | 9798216439295 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Visual Arts |
| Illustrations | 19 full-colour illustrations |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Set within the context of late-stage capitalism, Hinda Mandell's 'Crafting Choice' is an unflinching, clear-eyed look at how handwork has become a force for activism, removed from the realms of passive domesticity and reclaimed as an act of protest. It's a galvanising, encouraging voice for anyone questioning the role craft has to play in pro-choice body politics and social commentary generally, whichever path you follow. I felt a shiver of recognition and solidarity … and above all, hope.
Geraldine Warner, author of Protest Knits and knitwear designer for Museum Knits
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Using two contemporary craftivist projects as case studies, Crafting Choice affirms the importance of both the materiality of handcrafted textiles and the act of making these objects as central to their raison d'être and, thus, to their impact as scenes of protest. By systematically exploring the performative value of craftivism, Mandell emphasises the value of handcraft itself as expression, as protest, as community, and as a site imbued with collective memory, emotion, and the will to affect social change.
Nicola Moffat, co-editor of Textiles, Community, and Controversy: The Knitting Map

























