I just finished Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matcher. I think anyone (especially women) who dreams of being the next Pioneer Woman or other DIY-lifestyle/scrapbooking/crafty blogger extrordinaire should read this book. Matcher raises many critical questions about what this turn to domesticity means for women and society.

I don’t quite know where to begin with a review of the book because I have much of the book underlined and notes on numerous pages. I think I’ll just post my comments on the book as they come up through the book.

Chapter 1

While knitting as a craft and blogging about family gets its due in the book, scrapbooking does not. On page 13, Matcher writes

Though it may resemble your grandmother’s homemaking, it’s not–this is something new, different, perhaps even revolutionary.

Substitute the word scrapbooking for homemaking. During my interviews with scrapbookers, I heard all about how this wasn’t your grandma’s scrapbooking. Scrapbooking today is different. Yes, it is different. Today there is a whole industry supporting scrapbooking unlike during my grandmother’s time. I’ll admit that at times I’ve considered scrapbooking revolutionary. It allows people to write their own history–the history that gets left out of official accounts. But is this really revolutionary? I’m not so sure.

On page 15, Matcher outlines several factors influencing what she calls new domesticity. These are:

1. A rising sense of distrust toward the government, corporations, and the food system.
2. Concern for the environment.
3. The gloomy economy.
4. Discontent with contemporary work culture.
5. The draw of hands-on work in a technology-driven world.
6. An increasingly intensive standard of parenting.

How does this contrast with the growth of scrapbooking? 

A rising sense of distrust toward the government, corporations, and the food system.

This didn’t exactly come up during my interviews with scrapbookers. But, several suggested that 9/11 caused an increase in the number of people scrapbooking. I’m not sure if 9/11 fits here or not, but am curious as to whether 9/11 as an explanation is being replaced with the above explanation.

Concern for the environment.

Concern for the environment holds a strange space in scrapbooking. On the one hand, many of us espouse the mantra of “use your stash,” yet at the same time many scrapbooker-bloggers would earn no income without selling products (whether scrapbooking or otherwise). EcoScrapbook and Almost Never Clever are the folks that come to mind when I think about people who consistently promote scrapbooking over products.

The gloomy economy.

If anything, the gloomy economy is blamed for scrapbook stores and manufacturers closing or filing for bankruptcy. I think these closures and bankruptcies are a bit more nuanced than that. I do think that part of the appeal of Project Life is its simplicity. I don’t need any tools to do it. I don’t even need adhesive to do Project Life. I don’t need any other embellishments to do it. I don’t have to buy lots of product “just in case I need it.” I can buy a kit once a year and be done. It’s just photos and paper making it potentially an affordable option for people. My oh my, I might be talking myself into giving it a go again…

Discontent with contemporary work culture.

Scrapbooking grew in popularity due in part to discontent with contemporary work culture. Creative Memories is a direct selling company. Direct selling companies have long held a place for women as a source of income while balancing family responsibilities (though I doubt that many make much money and those that do are working significantly more than they thought they would). Direct selling scrapbooking companies are still around and the today, we have a rise in scrapbooking-blogs. These too, offer the promise of an income while balancing family responsibilities. Again, the most successful tend to hire nannies and housekeepers to make it all work. And if I could just find a housecleaner that worked in the middle of nowhere, I’d have one, too.

The draw of hands-on work in a technology-driven world.

Yes, scrapbooking fits here–at least conventional scrapbooking (i.e., paper/non-digi) (go ahead and send the hate mail…). In my interviews, people talked about how they wanted to get their hands dirty or that scrapbooking was an escape from their computer-mediated work.

An increasingly intensive standard of parenting.

Hmmm….guilting moms into creating scrapbooks for their children has long been a feature of the scrapbook industry. Though my respondents by and large scrapbooked for themselves rather than for the kids even if the subject was her kids. Regardless, scrapbooking is way for people to demonstrate “good” motherhood even if that is not what is pushing them to scrapbook.

As I read the book, I thought a lot about the trade-offs. Baking my own bread is lovely and I do it during the summer, but what could I be doing instead? I could be writing. I could be teaching. I could be doing something that actually earns a wage. And no the money saved by baking bread is not a wage. Heck, I could even spend time with my child. Considering scrapbooking, there are trade-offs, too. I am thinking about the time I spend post-processing photos. I don’t enjoy it. It is time consuming and for the most part, improves my photos only a bit. It delays me printing photos. I’ve begun limiting my post-processing to cropping photos. I could be scrapbooking instead. I could be creating new memories to scrapbook. And honestly, anyone who is going to judge me based on my photo quality and refusal to fully post-process isn’t worth my time.

I also think there needs to be a new rule in the (scrapbooking) blogosphere. If your blog is largely underwritten by a working spouse or other income of your own, then say so on your blog. Without this information, it just feeds the fantacies of people who want to make a living from their blog. Can people make a living from a blog or other web-based business? Sure they can, but we need more transparancy. It’s the responsible thing to do and certainly doesn’t make a person a failure or success either way.

Well that is enough for today. And in the interest of full-disclosure, I make very little money from this blog. The blog is mostly underwritten by my full-time job. I have yet to earn enough from this blog to cover hosting and my domain costs. Of course, I barely promote this blog and have limited advertising. If you click on the photo above of the book, it will take you to an affiliate link at Barnes and Noble. I do have to pay hosting afterall and live in a state where Amazon affiliates earn nothing. I’ll write more about the book at a later date. Maybe next week. In the meantime, do pick up Homeward Bound. It’s well worth your time.

Homeward Bound: A Must Read for Scrapbookers is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Whether a scrapbook has a clear beginning or ending is only one consideration for how complete a scrapbook is. Another aspect to consider regarding how complete a scrapbook is has to do with whether or not the whole story is included on the scrapbook page. Journaling may be missing, for instance.

From my photo-elicitation interviews, I find that very rarely is the whole story included. The oral narrative almost always provides more details than the scrapbook page. Moreover, the photo-elicitation interviews with a family member or a friend of the scrapbooker really drives this point home when they either give me additional details or are unable to communicate anything beyond what is physically in front of them on the scrapbook page. For example, one scrapbook page contains one photograph of the respondent, her son, and her husband and the journaling says “lunch with mom and dad ’04.” That is it. When I looked at the page with my respondent and then looked at it separately with her son, both respondents told me about how this was a real special day because all three family members were able to make it to the lunch at school. Normally, only the respondent (mom) is able to make it to the lunch with her son. This part of the story is not mentioned on the scrapbook page and a person would have no way of knowing this story except through viewing the scrapbook page with the scrapbooker or with her son who was in the photograph.

Scrapbooks are like autobiographies in that they can only be understood in their entirety if one understands who is included in the intended audience (Bjorklund 1998). Scrapbookers only need to provide as much information as they believe their intended audience needs in order to interpret the story. In the above example, if the primary audience is the nuclear family, then the scrapbooker successfully told the whole store on her scrapbook page. If the audience is supposed to extend beyond her nuclear family, then she did not tell the whole story because an oral narrative was prompted to fill me in on what was not recorded on the layout.

Do you think your scrapbooks tell complete stories? Why or why not? What role does audience play in how complete your stories are?

(In)Complete Stories is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

When scrapbookers have completed a beginning of an album they do things such as use a photograph of their child on the first day of school to begin an album about a child’s educational career. One respondent created an album about her husband’s family as a gift for them and it in announced her own pregnancy. She begins the album with a photograph of her mother-in-law and father-in-law and ended the album with the sonogram photo of the child she and her husband were expecting.

Beginning pages may be very specific or somewhat general. For example, one album begins with an introductory page titled, “growing a crop of memories” and includes the year the photos in the album were taken. A couple of respondents take great care in creating title pages that are like a table of contents. One respondent includes a copy of a photograph from each page of the scrapbook, for instance.

Most scrapbooks do not have title pages or concluding pages ending the album because most scrapbooks shown to me are in various stages of completion. In a couple of cases, memorabilia is literally shoved into the page protector for pages to be completed in the future. Some pages are not even in page protectors yet, not even suggesting a beginning or an ending.

How do you begin a scrapbook? Does it depend on the subject? Under what circumstances are you able to successful create a beginning to a scrapbook? Does it even matter?

How Does a Scrapbook Begin? is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

An individual scrapbook album rarely has a beginning or a conclusion unless it is of a very specific topic, which has a natural beginning and ending (like a vacation, for example). Some scrapbooks may be planned to have a beginning and an ending. Many scrapbooks are ongoing and the end comes when the scrapbooker runs out of photos or no more pages fit in the album, whichever comes first, at which point the scrapbooker begins a new album. Though many scrapbooks are really multi-volume ongoing collections, few respondents label their scrapbooks in any way to indicate that the volume continues into another album.

Scrapbookers rarely complete an album from beginning to end but instead work in a more random order and then organize their pages in an order they see fit (most often, chronological). If a scrapbooker does complete a title page, this is typically done once the album is otherwise finished. Some of my respondents have so recently began the hobby that they have not completed a whole album so they have not even considered how it might begin or end. One respondent always makes sure to include a beginning and an ending but believes she does because of her career. She is a published author so is used to writing with an introduction and conclusion and tries to do the same in her scrapbooks.

How do your scrapbooks begin and end?

Neverending Scrapbooks is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

By discussing atypical and typical scrapbook pages, what becomes clear is that most respondents scrapbook in typical ways—at least for them. They have difficulty identifying atypical pages or explaining why a page is atypical. Moreover, though there is variation between scrapbookers, by and large, most scrapbooks look very similar. They contain photographs, words, and embellishments on pretty, and generally colorful, paper. One thing that is true of most scrapbookers is that scrapbooking is never done. There is always more to scrapbook. For this reason, most scrapbooks do not really begin or end but continue on into another scrapbook. Generally, scrapbooks only end if they are about a very specific subject (e.g., a wedding, a vacation). Next week, I’ll begin exploring if scrapbooking is ever done. In the meantime, you can catch up on my posts on typical and atypical scrapbook pages below.

(A)typical Posts:

• Typical and Atypical Scrapbook Pages
• Atypical Scrapbook Pages
• Typical Scrapbook Pages
• Similar Scrapbooks
• Pop Culture in Scrapbooks
• What “Counts” as Journaling?

(A)Typical Scrapbook Post Roundup is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

EcoScrapbooking eBook Launch Party is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Though scrapbooks are rarely identical and there is tremendous variety in terms of scrapbooking styles, scrapbookers do common things on their scrapbook pages.

Most scrapbookers include journaling for instance, but the journaling style may vary. One scrapbooker may include the date the photographs were taken, a title, and caption the photographs. Another scrapbooker may provide extensive journaling talking about how the photographs make them feel.

Some respondents considered a caption (who, what, when, where) as journaling, while others did not. For the purposes of this study, I consider any words to be journaling, even if it is just a one-word title or a date.

What “counts” as journaling?

What “Counts” as Journaling? is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Though scrapbookers are influenced by mainstream American culture in what they choose to scrapbook, they do not often record popular culture in their scrapbooks.

A few scrapbookers regularly include popular culture references but for most this is atypical. For example, one respondent has an entire layout around the CD artwork from one of her favorite artists.

In other cases, the popular culture reference is incorporated into the layout. For example, a respondent includes a quote from one of her daughter’s favorite authors on a page about her daughter.

Do you use pop culture in your scrapbooks? In what way?

Pop Culture in Scrapbooks is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Different scrapbookers showed me pages that are of common events such as holidays or life transitions. Seeing how different scrapbookers capture these moments in their scrapbooks illustrates how standardized scrapbooks can be. Keep in mind that some of my respondents were deeply embedded within the scrapbooking community and others were completely unaware that such community existed. Regardless, patterns among layouts from different scrapbookers emerged.

For example, pages about childbirth and pregnancy typically include sonogram photographs, medical bracelets from the hospital stay, and name cards placed in the baby’s basinet at the hospital.

Atypical pages about the same subject include WIC checks and Medicaid cards. Moreover, it is rare that a respondent emphasizes a lower social class in their scrapbooks through including things indicating government assistance as this respondent did.

Why do you think that scrapbooks come to look similar to one another? Is it really atypical to emphasize a lower social class in a scrapbook or was this a problem with my sample? (Most of my sample was middle to upper middle class based on income and education.)

Similar Scrapbooks is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.

Each Wednesday, I usually write a post from my dissertation.

Respondents, who are better able to recognize atypical things in their scrapbooking, had been scrapbooking for a greater length of time. For them, atypical things are things they primarily did as beginning scrapbookers but no longer do. For example, one respondent inserted a blank piece of cardstock (the paper used as the base for a scrapbook page) into the left-side page protector and only included items on the right-side page protector in her first albums. Another respondent would use paper and embellishments that were completely unrelated to the photographs when she was first starting out.

Most scrapbook albums shown to me are standard albums. They are standard size and format. Scrapbookers typically insert their own paper in the album instead of using the paper provided by the album manufacturer. Some scrapbook albums come with paper already in the page protectors. Most scrapbookers replace this paper because they tend to use more colors rather than the white paper included with many scrapbooks. In some albums, the paper is not removable. In these cases, the scrapbooker may use the paper as the background or cover it up with other paper.

Most scrapbookers use different colored paper throughout the album. Occasionally, scrapbookers use other formats for their albums. The scrapbook industry produces albums in various formats and shapes that scrapbookers use to challenge themselves, to do something different, or because it works better for the scrapbooking purposes. For example, one respondent has made an album out of chipboard that is held together with safety pins.

What is typical about your scrapbooking?

Typical Scrapbook Pages is a post from: Scrapworthy Lives Join the conversation on Twitter and facebook.