Digitally Augmenting Traditional Craft Practices for Social Justice

This book weaves together disparate worlds of crafting, social justice, and digital technologies around The Partnership Quilt. It crafts a manifesto for meaningful action and design processes in charitable organizations through participatory sewing and its digital augmentation. The book charts a history of how sewing has been used to voice concerns of oppression, and how digital technologies can be embedded into textiles to tell stories more powerfully. It explores the relationship between quilting and research, looking beyond the seams of The Partnership Quilt to shed light on the importance of invisible work behind such participatory, justice-oriented design projects. It concludes with a discussion of the impacts and potential future avenues for research on digitally quilting social justice.




"This book is an excellent offering that highlights ways in which visual approaches to research and community work can serve as a canvasfor the outpouring of oppression, anger, hope, resilience and reimagining of a socially just future. It is a great gift and valuable resource for academics, activists and students interested in social justice, participatory action research, and digital technologies."

-Puleng Segalo, Professor, University of South Africa, SA 

"This expansive undertaking exhibits Strohmayer's force as a thinker, author, and partner in design. From the soldering of electrodes through the review on craft-based activism, Strohmayer generously takes us through a design process from start to finish to examines the relationships that shift along the way. She shows us how worlds of textiles partake in the making of collective futures-nurturing forms of connection as a means of creative expression, self-determination, and remembrance." 

-Daniela Rosner, Associate Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington, USA "This book is a highlight for