Oral histories and lacemaking as strategies for resilience in women’s craft groups

This chapter is based on an ethnographic study of a women’s lacemaking network in Kraków, Poland. As such, the chapter has much in common with Reynold’s chapter discussing women’s craft activities in the English Midlands. Indeed, this chapter confirms the value of craft activities as both creative and social that which contribute to the participants’ resilience. However, it also highlights how the place of creativity is understood in historic craft traditions in a manner that is distinct from understandings of creativity that draw on theatre or fine art. Furthermore, the project reported on here encouraged the women in the lacemaking groups to become amateur ethnographic researchers and advocates for the cultural value of their traditions – processes that had consequences for their identities and resilience.

The book uses a range of approaches, including participatory research methods, to bring the voices of older people themselves to the foreground. It looks at how taking part in creative interventions develops different types of social relationships and fosters resilience.