Commodity Fetishism—and the crafts to counter it
Photo: Shambhavi Gupta
Personal Essay: Shambhavi Gupta explores why consistent engagement with craft—like crochet—holds the potential to liberate us from the cloud of fetishism, which obscures our vision of the products and services we purchase.
My journey with crochet started when I was about 8 years old. My Nani tried to teach me the basic stitches, but I remember being utterly confused—perhaps, because I was too young.
Last year, a few friends helped me reconnect with this craft, and those dormant memories of my Nani’s hands dancing magically through yarn reappeared. During the pandemic, I worked on understanding crochet consistently, and started making some basic projects like bags, coasters, beanies and mufflers. Once I gained confidence, I bought some supplies: a whole set of crochet hooks of various sizes, and lots of yarn! With my new supplies, I also got more ambitious, I wanted to try tougher patterns and make more complicated projects.
During my engagement with the craft, I realized how mathematical the process is. Each stitch and each row is crucial if one wishes to get the perfect piece. You miss a stitch and the counting for all subsequent rows goes haywire. Trust me, I have been lazy and have tried to ignore a mistake, but ultimately it catches up, and inevitably, you’ll have to start over. Nothing hurts quite as much as unravelling knitted rows; however, undoing and redoing them is an integral and essential part of the process.
And this is not something that only happens to beginners. I have friends who are proficient in crochet, and even they sometimes have to unravel projects. Developing patterns, even just following them, counting, and calculating are all mental processes which accompany the physical aspect of the craft. Yes, as skill improves, one gets faster, and the level of conscious effort required may reduce—but it does not entirely disappear. A handmade shawl, either knitted or crocheted, can take about a week to two weeks to make, even for a professional. Of course, this time also depends on the complexity of the design.
Often people encounter crochet and knitting via their grandmothers who seem to be making projects with such ease and nonchalance while watching T.V. or engaged in conversation. Hence, we often don’t relegate the art the prestige of entailing any mental labour.
I must admit that I have not progressed much in my crochet adventures since last year, and I still remain average at best. Even so, it was when I started to crochet, that a few realizations struck me. The laborious process behind handmade craft projects became clearer, and I also developed a respect for those who are behind the making of such objects. It made visible for me the process as well as the producers of these goods.
After failing to crochet a sweater this winter, I bought a handmade one from a store. I have been to this store multiple times over the years but never bought anything, because I found it too expensive. Well, then why did I buy this sweater? Perhaps, it was my sensitivity towards people’s labour, which was triggered by my practice of the craft.
This experience has led me to believe that taking on a craft, even if one does not achieve excellence in it, serves a deeper purpose, of respect and appreciation of workers’ efforts that are erased from the public psyche under capitalism. “Commodity fetishism” is the term that Karl Marx used to refer to the complete obsession with finished products and goods, and the accompanying intensification of blindness towards what goes on behind the scenes, i.e., the process of production.
Enamoured by end products, we seldom care enough about how they reached this stage. We ignore questions like: How was the raw material converted to this product? Was it made by a machine or a person? What could be the possible reasons for their pricing? Are the workers paid well?
While engaging in craft by oneself is one route to countering commodity fetishism. Another is also through efforts made by various craft-centred brands and small-scale enterprises, which are constantly endeavouring to pull back the curtains and reveal what goes on behind the stage. They sometimes introduce us to the people who are making the products, how the product is made, and show the elaborate planning and packaging process.
Umang, a knitting enterprise and Self-Help Group in Uttarakhand writes the name of each knitter on the label of the garment. This small act reminds people of the human effort and time that was invested into this product: that it was not made by machines, but by a person. These labels bring attention not just to the “made in”, but also to the “made by”.
There are also various clothing and craft brands that are challenging commodity fetishism through content on social media, primarily through Instagram Reels and photo series.
Enamoured by end products, we seldom care enough about how they reached this stage. We ignore questions like: How was the raw material converted to this product? Was it made by a machine or a person? What could be the possible reasons for their pricing? Are the workers paid well?
A video by ‘Chidiyaa’ captures snippets of the passage from dying of the yarn, to weaving, to transportation to Kuchh for block printing, to the final sari. The process of craft production is exposed to viewers, and the investment of time, energy and expertise is expounded.
Tamarind Chutney attempts to achieve transparency by elucidating the logic behind the pricing of products. It draws attention to how much work goes into maintaining a sustainable craft-based brand. One can easily find a cheaper shirt on a fast-fashion site or store, but buying is also about making conscious choices guided by more than just cost minimization. This video can thus start a conversation and encourage potential customers to ask questions and think beyond just the end product.
Often, workers are photographed along with their creations, which gives them a sense of ownership and simultaneously also makes it possible for people to associate craft products with the faces and names of tailors and designers who are engaged in its production.
A photo series by Gaatha shows how grass is converted by women craftsmen into beautiful baskets. It highlights how it is human labour that adds value to a raw material like grass.
Since we are overwhelmed with a deluge of content on social media, connecting meaningfully with everything we encounter is nearly impossible. We mindlessly scroll through the majority of content, and may only be able to make a superficial connection with any of it. A deep connect is often only forged with stories and posts that relate to our interests, and our lives. So, even my awareness and empathy towards the above-mentioned efforts by craft brands on Instagram was sparked off after I started to crochet myself.
Seeing a hank of wool transformed into a ball of yarn through collective effort of me and my mother, and seeing a ball of yarn transfigure into a bag through the meticulous movement of the crochet hook guided by my hands, helps me associate with the effort of other artisans. This is why I believe that consistent physical and virtual engagement with craft holds the potential to liberate us from the cloud of fetishism that obscures our vision of products and services we purchase. The experience can equip us with the ability to gaze behind the scenes, leading to more conscious and sustainable choices.
***
Shambhavi Gupta holds a Masters in Sociology and is currently involved in the field of education. She is a classical dancer and is fond of singing. Her writing attempts to integrate her creative interests with her academic background. She can be found on Instagram: @shambawamba23.
