University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Feeling a way through: affective problem-solving in dressmaking

chapter
posted on 2023-06-08, 16:30 authored by Rebecca PrenticeRebecca Prentice
This chapter contributes to our understanding of craftwork as a multifarious process of production that create interdependent affectivities between people and objects. Drawing on long-term anthropological research with dressmakers in Trinidad, West Indies, I explore the craft of garment production as a form of problem-solving that exemplifies the ingenuity and creative intelligence of dressmakers. Dressmaking requires the orchestration of relationships between people and the artefacts of production, as well as the careful management of the dressmaker’s own social performance, interiority, and techniques of making. Calling upon recent theories of affect in anthropology and sociology (Stewart, 2007; Moore, 2011; Navaro-Yashin, 2009), this chapter argues for the relevance of ‘feeling’ as a mode of diagnosis, problem-solving, and action. Recognising the relevance of feeling helps us to appreciate dressmakers’ practical expertise without drawing a dichotomy between the social and the technical.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Ashgate

Page range

169-182

Pages

286.0

Book title

Craftwork as Problem Solving

Place of publication

Farnham, Surrey

ISBN

9781472442925

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Trevor H J Marchand

Legacy Posted Date

2016-01-05

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC