Quiltmakers’ meaning-making in Aotearoa New Zealand: Social interactions, embodied experiences and material mediation

Abstract

The research study focuses on the phenomenon of informal learning and teaching, as it materializes through the quiltmakers’ engagement in idiosyncratic community practices. The present study considers the construction of craft knowledge from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on social and material mediation, and embodiment as a form of meaning-making for quiltmakers. The ethnographic data were collected from two quilting communities in Aotearoa New Zealand and in total 66 quilters volunteered to participate. The fieldwork extended over an eight-month period with data consisting of interviews, observations, fieldnotes and reflective diaries including the visualization of interactive happenings in situ. Chronological content logs were created, and data were analysed by qualitative content analysis. The primary interest was on the verbal (i.e. social), non-verbal (i.e. embodied) and material (inter)actions that were central to the quilters’ meaning-making processes. This praxis and process of informal learning usually make it invisible because it is a ubiquitous element embedded in the quilting community context. Identifying different aspects of multimodal making foregrounds how the quilters’ learning is socially interactive, with ‘hands on’ and ‘minds on’ processes tied to their bodily experiences and material world. This study demonstrates the significance of the ongoing communicative (inter)actions for meaning-making, highlighting the role of the body, mind and environment in shaping quilting practices and appropriating craft knowledge.