Affecting Infrastructures: Crafting and Weaving as Alternative Repairs

Abstract

As two traditional practices performed by rural communities in Colombia, crafting and weaving can be reframed as ontologies that embody alternative material orders and forms of repair. In this context, we explore two specific initiatives: the Crafted Empathy Chair developed by members of campesino social movements in Cauca and Nariño, and Interweaving Material Encounters, a series of collaborative spaces involving women from textile collectives from Chocó, Antioquia, and Bolivar. In the process of exploring these initiatives, we reflect on the role of nonhumans as technologies that allow our interlocutors to share their affect. In addition to discussing strategies for engaging in affective relations when dealing with the aftermath of war violence, we describe how these arrangements affect us as a part of the audience. Thus, we propose the term affecting infrastructure to conceptualize how crafting and weaving can foster everyday spaces and shared grounds for the emergence of emotional engagements as alternative modes of repair.