With Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological view that human beings ‘take in’ the world and experience themselves as subjects through their bodies as a starting point, players in both men’s and women’s teams, kit men, purchasing managers, sporting directors, and a coach from Swedish football clubs have been interviewed about their perceptions and experiences of football clothing. Since the body is both a feeling and knowing entity, clothes are seen as components of body techniques, facilitating or restricting body movements in a material way, but also as creators of senses, like lightness and security; in both ways, influencing the knowledge in action that playing football is. In this article, the content of the interviews is discussed in relation to health. When clothes are primarily related to a biomedical view that health means no injuries and illnesses, warm pants and shin guards are mentioned by players, who are rather ambivalent to both, since these garments counteract a feeling of lightness that is connected to the perception of speed. Players want to be fast rather than well protected. If clothes, instead, are interpreted as related to a broad conception of health, including mental, social, and physical components, the relation body–space-in-between–clothes seems to be an important aspect of clothing. Dressed in a sports uniform, unable to choose individual details, the feeling of subjectivity is related to wearing ‘the right-size’ clothes. Also new textile technology, like injury-preventing and speed-increasing tight compression underwear, is perceived by players based on feelings that they are human subjects striving for both bodily and psychological well-being.

Om ull och ullhandel 1800-tal

According to anthropological research it is fundamental that aspects of conceptuality and materiality are tied together in handicraft products. Objects have a social history and a cultural biography as well as a material form (Appadurai 1996). Thus analyzing crafting knowledge must involve both looking for bodily competences performed in the meeting with the materials (hand operations, touch, rhythm etc) and mapping cultural meanings on craft. In the ongoing project “Design, craft and culture” this is done through visual/sensory ethnography. Participant observations with video-filming and interviewing are done at Vävkompaniet, a cooperative running handicraft shop, and Design Brenner, private family company for tufting. This paper brings up cultural meanings on craft, expressed by the craft practitioners themselves. What producers in both companies tell about work practices, inspiration, how they relate to the textile tradition etc. is discussed. Their definitions of the concepts craft, art craft, sloyd and design are especially highlighted. This is important since debate regarding craft as material expression versus craft as conceptual art implies different focuses when it comes to what counts as important knowledge - skill in using the proper raw material and technique to make useful products, or skill to materialize ideas in creative ways?