Gender, precarity and hybrid forms of work identity in the virtual domestic arts and crafts industry in Canada and the US

Abstract

Over the last several decades, there has been a growing recognition of the precarious nature of employment in creative economies, including craft industries. Despite this work, little research has explored how the rise of the platform economy is affecting labour market precarity. Our article explores the nature of precarity in craft blogging, looking in particular at the domestic arts and crafts. We examine how a growing number of women have left other forms of employment to engage in sewing, knitting, quilting, cooking and baking. Many women have also taken to blogging about their endeavors. However, there is a paucity of research on the variety of types of work that craft bloggers engage in and the challenges they face. Drawing upon interviews with female domestic arts bloggers in Canada and the United States, the article explores the work that craft bloggers engage in, the space and time of labour, and the variable sources of income that they access through their work. The article analyzes the experiences of precarious labour that arise at the interface of craft and the internet, and the multiple identities that stem from hybrid forms of creative work.

Keywords:

• blogging
• craft
• creative labour
• platform economy
• precarity
• women

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our participants for their generous contributions. Without their stories, this article would not exist. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments to earlier versions of this manuscript. These comments helped to strengthen the article. Finally, a warm thank you to Margaret Walton-Roberts, Pamela Moss and the entire GPC team for their time and efforts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Shannon Black is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Shannon holds an MA in Geography and an Honours BA in Women and Gender Studies, both from the University of Toronto. As a cultural and feminist geographer, Shannon’s research focuses on the ways in which visual and material cultures intersect in fibre-based art and craft, and the various impacts these intersections have on subjectivities, labour, politics and space.

Chloe Fox Miller is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Her research considers the relationships between economy, culture and place, with a particular focus on contemporary craft economies. Chloe received her BA in Geography at Simon Fraser University and MA in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.

Deborah Leslie is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Her work focuses on gender, creative labour and urban-economic development. Recently, she has pursued work on the nature of creative labour processes in the Cirque du Soleil. She is currently starting a new project on work integration social enterprises in Toronto and Montreal.