Care and activism: A study on the use of care in the Knitting Nannas
Hovedinnhold
Master's thesis submitted at the Department of Social Anthropology, spring 2025.
By: Iselin Grone Amundsen
Supervisor: Postdoctoral Fellow Ola Gunhildrud Berta
How is care stitched into the fabric of political resistance? This thesis reveals how care becomes a radical act through the activism of the Knitting Nannas, a group of older women climate activists in Australia. Based on five months of ethnographic fieldwork in Sydney, I examine how the Knitting nannas weave care into their activism.
The first empirical chapter explores three interrelated dimensions of care, care for future generations, for the environment, and for fellow activists. These dimensions are not isolated but mutually reinforcing, revealing how care shapes the group’s identity, strategies, and presence in activist spaces. I argue that care is not a secondary concern, but a sustaining force in social movements.
The subsequent chapter turns inward to examine how is structured within the Knitting Nannas through what they call “disorganization”. I ask, how does this non-hierarchical, flexible structure reflect and enable care among members, particularly older women with caregiving responsibilities? And what tensions arise when care and autonomy intersect in activist organizing? Disorganization, as practiced by the Knitting Nannas, is not a lack of structure, but a form of care-based sustainability. It allows for participation on one’s own terms, while also revealing the emotional labor and informal leadership that sustains the group.
In the final chapter, I turn outwards and explore how the Knitting nannas use grandmotherhood as a strategic identity in their activism. I ask, how cultural scripts of older women, as nurturing, wise, non-threatening, become tools for political legitimacy, visibility, and resistance? And how do the Knitting Nannas navigate the tension between embracing and subverting these roles? By reclaiming and reworking the figure of the grandmother, the Knitting Nannas transform care into a public, political force. Their sense of humor and craft challenges ageist and gendered assumptions, while expanding the repertoire of activist tactics.
