The role of the Internet and the urban knitting movement

The aim of this paper is to analyze the fundamental role that blogs and the social network Facebook have played inside the urban knitting movement. This movement represents a worldwide phenomenon that tries to put together a domestic activity, the street or folk art, the reshaping of do-it-yourself culture art with peaceful forms of feminine urban guerrilla protest. The urban knitting activists employ colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth to enhance, beautify, personalize and gentrify abandoned public places. The urban knitting movement, as many others, uses the Internet to share knowledge on techniques and experiences, to organize collective actions, to record and document their creations, and to upload and spread them. This contribution is focused on a urban knitting project, an action - called “Mettiamoci una pezza” (“Let’s patch it”) and realized in L’Aquila (Italy) three years after the earthquake in order to “dress up” the main square, covering the gray metal barricades that still block the entrance of the citizens to some areas of the city center and add a sprinkle of color and warmth to the devastated city. We studied this movement in an ethnographic way by applying a qualitative content analysis of the online materials produced by the activists and non participative observation of this event in L’Aquila in order to investigate the role of the Net in this original and creative kind of collective action. Our research shows how through an intense use of the Internet this movement has been able to promote very complex and meaningful political initiatives.