With Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological view that human beings ‘take in’ the world and experience themselves as subjects through their bodies as a starting point, players in both men’s and women’s teams, kit men, purchasing managers, sporting directors, and a coach from Swedish football clubs have been interviewed about their perceptions and experiences of football clothing. Since the body is both a feeling and knowing entity, clothes are seen as components of body techniques, facilitating or restricting body movements in a material way, but also as creators of senses, like lightness and security; in both ways, influencing the knowledge in action that playing football is. In this article, the content of the in-terviews is discussed in relation to health. When clothes are primarily related to a biomedical view that health means no injuries and illnesses, warm pants and shin guards are mentioned by players, who are rather ambivalent to both, since these garments counteract a feeling of lightness that is connected to the perception of speed. Players want to be fast rather than well protected. If clothes, instead, are interpreted as related to a broad conception of health, including mental, social, and physical components, the relation body–space-in-between–clothes seems to be an important aspect of clothing. Dressed in a sports uniform, unable to choose individual details, the feeling of subjectivity is related to wearing ‘the right-size’ clothes. Also new textile technology, like injury-preventing and speed-increasing tight compression underwear, is perceived by players based on feelings that they are human subjects striving for both bodily and psychological well-being
Craft is a sphere of activities where humans as cultural beings can dwell, a place in people’s lives where processing of thoughts and feelings regarding everyday life and political events can take place. Craft as cultural heritage can also be directed toward the future, since understanding of handmade processes is a base for industrial production. It is a space for dreaming and planning as well as for material encounters between body and matter—in both ways changing the world. Dwelling in craft must not be idealized, though. Its manifold expressions and opposite features have to be studied critically.
Craftwork can be apprehended in various ways: calming but also frustrating, creative, and innovative, as well as boringly routinized. People can earn their living through craft, or they can reside in craft contexts like educational workshops, the DIY or DIT movement, and maker spaces for recreational purposes. Craft can be about healthy people’s creative self-expressions, but it can also be used as a tool in therapeutic processes or in reminiscence work with persons who have dementia. Craft is social when learned and shared but often individually performed with personal bodily knowing as its prerequisite. Thus, it connects people and fosters self-esteem, but it also pinpoints differences regarding bodily performances and may lead to competition and envy. An ethnological “double glance” at the phenomenon is needed. We invite scholars to theorize on craft/making as cultural activities or to present empirical findings from the field.
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