"Make What You Love": Homework, the Handmade, and the Precarity of the Maker Movement

In this essay, we investigate the rise of the "Maker movement" in the United States, using Alabama Chanin (AC), a company based in Florence, Alabama, at the vanguard of the "ethical fashion," "DIY," and Maker movement, as our case study. Why would the homework model of production—among the most precarious for workers—be embraced as an engine of national economic revival? What are the consequences of transforming forms of production into types of craft? Our findings suggest that members of the creative class are themselves agents in producing, structuring, and leveraging conditions of insecurity, even as they attempt to alleviate those same conditions.