ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to reorient the geographies of the work to begin to unpick sewing as a development intervention in the Global South. The sewing machine and the needle and thread have become so ubiquitous in development interventions that the reader perceive them as benign, apolitical objects and do not challenge their deployment. The understanding that needlework both constructs, and is constructed by, gendered norms, has laid the foundations for Beaudry M. C, Goggin M. D and Tobin B. F and other vital research into the material politics of sewing. Sewing has come to have a controversial role in development practices, used as a means of 'saving' those engaged in what is perceived as indecent sex work. Although not restricted to needlework, craftivism has been dominated by practices such as cross-stitch, quilting and knitting as third-wave feminists, particularly within the Global North, attempt to reclaim the domestic arts for feminist expression.
