It’s very rare that words elude me but I have to say, I am stumped. I am trying to come up with the right word for an important project and it’s driving me bananas! Last night I dreamed about flipping through the pages of the dictionary, y’all.
I need a word (or short phrase) that describes the current movement towards gardening, cooking, DIY, crafting, etc. I am rejecting “homesteading” and “urban homesteading” both because the word “homestead” is inherently racist and because I don’t think it really describes the majority of my readers and customers. (Too 70s. Too granola.)
“Self-sufficent” is neither catchy nor true- even those of us with giant gardens can’t come close to claiming self-sufficiency. “DIYers” seems too closely tied to home improvement to serve the purpose. I’ve always thought “crafters” was slightly deeming and it only covers a fraction of what I’m trying to describe.
So what do you call the well-read, thoughtful people who are making deliberate decisions to grow their own food, sew their own clothes, maybe keep a couple of hens or beehives while maintaining a serious profession and living in the city or suburbs? There needs to be a word for these people and I can’t find it.
EDITED TO ADD: Keep in mind that it will work best if the word can be used as a noun, a la homesteaders, crafters, intentionalists (clearly I made that one up.)
So I’m turning to you, my well-read, thoughtful readers, for help. And I’m prepared to pay for the perfect word, in the currency that knitters and crocheters like best- yarn, and lots of it. $300 worth, to be exact.
Here’s how it works:
Leave your suggestion in the comments section of this post. One entry per person and only one suggestion per comment. (In other words, you can’t just throw up a bunch of half-assed suggestions.) Entries with more than one suggestion will be disqualified, because it violates the rules and without rules, chaos. UPDATED TO ADD: I am dropping the “one suggestion per person” rule because we still aren’t quite there and I want y’all to keep thinking and coming up with ideas. So consider the floodgates OPENED.
The deadline for entering is 11:59 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 22. Entries posted after that date and time will not be considered.
The winner will be chosen by me, with help from Caroline, Zac and Carrie. The first poster of the winning word or phrase will be declared the winner. The winner gives JMF permission to use their entry in any way we see fit. The winner will receive an enormous amount of yarn and will probably roll around in it when it arrives at his/her house. Photos of said rolling would be appreciated but are not required.
Ready…set…GO!
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lifestyle sustainablers ?
Self-Sustainability Trend
How about deliberate living enthusiasts or partners in production?
Instead of “lightfooters” We could be Gordoners (as in Gordon Lightfoot-ers)
Definition: To gordon: to tread the earth lightly, or lightfootedly, by making thing for yourself and your family whenever possible and giving your own life as much meaning as possible through creativity, imagination, and accomplishment.
Verb forms:
I/You gordon We/You (pl) gordon
He, She, It gordons they gordon
Verb Tenses: to gordon, gordoning will gordon, gordoned.
Gordoner: someone who gordons
Examples: “I spent the whole day yesterday in the shop gordoning.”
“If I don’t get some more gordoning done, we’re going to be cold this winter.”
I gordoned that myself, from my own vegetable garden”
I haven’t read the other entries, so these may be a repeat at this point:
Self reliant living
Urban Crafter
Expert amateur
Urban Reclaim
I had another one, but I have to go find my post it.
The (R)evolution
Resourcefuls?
Okay, so I feel really dumb. I read your post, and then I thought about it for a few days. And then I posted my comment without re-reading your post, and thus totally missed the homestead comment, and I still haven’t clicked on the link to see why it’s racist. But I will, right now.
I’m really sorry, and please ignore/delete my previous comment.
No worries, Dorothy! I had never heard it was racist until Caroline told me a few days before I wrote my post, so we’re in the same boat. Absolutely no reason to apologize whatsoever.
Dynamic Do-ers
“Do-ers” because these kind of people can’t/won’t sit by and do nothing and “dynamic” since that word has several great levels of meaning for what you describe. And because I’m a sucker for alliteration! I hope this helps=)
CultivātUs
Comes from Medieval Latin as part of history of the word cultivate. I capitalized the U to make a play on words “cultivate us” with the older word. After all, cultivating can encompass the farm, the crafts, the garden, everything.
“Terrascapers”
a blend of the idea of landscaping and terraforming, people who are reshaping their urban surroundings/environment into something more natural
I still like stewards, for the reasons mentioned in my previous comment. “Creative Stewards” “Homecraft Stewards” and “Intentional Stewards” are all fitting in addition to my original “Radical Steward.”
To add another one from literature, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Wallace Stegner, used the term “Sticker” to describe those who stayed in one place to cultivate the land and create a sense of cross-generational belonging. Handcrafts, farming, canning, DIY activities do just that by tying us to those who have come before. “Boomers” were the opposite sorts of people. They are hyper mobile and exploit the land and its resources–consumers rather than producers. I think Stegner was right when h said that people were either “Boomers” or “Stickers.”
Habitat Savers, Habitat Reclaimers,orWorld Interventionalists! I will keep thinking!! Keep up the good work.
The New Agrarians
The Viridians
Real. Living.
Back to basics
Basics, Modern.
Self reliant
Hmm…now I’m going to dream about dictionaries!
I feel as if everything you describe to be part of this phenomenon is what my grandmother did. She grew and prepared her own food, created utilitarian beauty, and lived in a city (Hamilton, Ontario). She called herself a homemaker and I think this is a word we need to reclaim. Its not inherently gender-biased, it infers action and creation (unlike stay-at-home mom, or urban housewife – these are both noble professions but not the same as homemaker). And yet, even as I’ve been mulling this over in my head, there’s something a little too passive in that phrase “homemaker”… the way the words run together. So, I’m going to modify it slightly… to give “maker” a little more “umph”.
Home Maker.
I think I might start to call myself one. Proudly.
Here is another suggestion:
smithics, those who’s life centers on creating. like a blacksmith, or wordsmith, but in this case, they craft everything.
In keeping with Julie’s idea, one could use the term lifesmiths, or worldsmiths?
Handmaking / Handmakers
Scratching / Scratchers (as in made from scratch)
Full-circle living/livers (could be called circlers)
Ground-up lifestyle / grounders
Thoughtful Dwellers
Abecedary Living
Urban Entrepreneur
The Essential Entrepreneur (oh, I like this one! this is fun!!!! )
Persevere (because knitters push on) or The Perseverer’s =)
Because of you – I just threw that in there
On Hand – explains everything you’re doing.
Handy
Proficient
Knots and tangles
entwine
entangled
corkscrew
rippled ringlets
writhe and coil…? lol
Felted (meaning touch or stroke… could be something)
Around my finger…
around the finger
wrapped around… twist around…
By my hands(it could be a catchy phrase…)
A touch of love
touch of beauty
a touch of the hand
Knit n’ soil
From my hands, those hands?…
From ground up living
Makeshift hands…
I guess it’s harder than I thought. Hope I gave you some good ideas. Goodluck =)
Roots living / Rooters (or Root-ers), as in:
returning to one’s roots
farming
looking around for what is valuable or useful
cheer!
So I’m still processing the caffeine slowly now, and things are coming to me in fragments. Also in keeping with some of the ideas that have come up here, and in keeping with the new magazine project, instead of ‘homemaker’ you could use some variety of word using ‘hand’, like handworker/handiworker or handmaker, as another of the ideals behind this mode of living is to go back to making things by hand ourselves that we would otherwise have let someone else make for us using a machine (and who knows what processes, chemicals, etc.).
It’s a shame that English doesn’t have a verb like ‘faire’ (to make, to do) which has a long custom of being used in phrases that describe a state of being as well as a state of doing. Ever since I learned French as a schoolkid, I’ve loved the idea that, as a matter of our fundamental nature, we are human beings AND humans doing.
My weekend brought this one home to me as I struggled with spraying my fruit trees with soapy water and brushing aphids off with an old toothbrush *by hand* (!!!) rather than spraying down the trees with insecticide. Now I’m off to buy a box of ladybugs to help with the task going forward!
Live green, feel clean
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read your request for a name for those that grow a garden, preserve food, cook from scratch, craft clothing and home furnishings and strive to find a more wholesome reality. I call it life.
I’m not ancient – mid 50s – but was blessed to be born on a farm. We grew our own food, decorated our home with flowers from the yard, made our clothes and were “green” before anyone ever thought of the term. As one of our favorite neighbors commented, we lived with “an elegant sufficiency”.
I don’t live on the farm any longer. A need for employment in the 1980s took me to a city. But in my suburban back yard, I grow crabapples, blackberries, blueberries, pears, tomatoes, squash, herbs and lettuce. I still make jellies, preserves and sauces. I can’t imagine paying a fortune for a pillow that has only four seams. I knit, crochet, weave and decorate. I hold down a full-time job and managed to rear two wonderful young men who can do their own laundry. And, I still call it life.
But for some of your beautiful yarn, I have been thinking of an appropriate name. I am a homesmith. Just as a silver, tin or blacksmith, I take an unrefined material and turn it into a useful or decorative piece. Yes, I have been homesmithing for my entire life.
But for
I’ve been doing some more brainstorming on this. There are so many descriptive terms that can be used, but it’s difficult to come up with one that’s all-inclusive. Here are a few more ideas:
Urban Nesters
Urban Pioneers
Urban Survivalists
lifewrights.
a wright is like a smith – one who works with his/her hands and what more than making life (w)right could we hope to do in this world?
Here are more suggestions (though it’s really hard to capture this idea in a single noun!):
trailblazers
21st century pioneers (or, more simply, pioneers)
preservationists
essentialists
back-to-basics believers
back-to-basics proponents
back-to-basics practioners
indigenoculturalists
craft conservationists
back-to-the-landers (full disclosure: I read this term on Kristin Nichols’s blog; I had been playing with the concept of back to basics, and I liked her term)
And this one is just in jest, but I can’t resist: Thoreau-backs
P.S. This will edit my last comment (as I apparently can’t spell or spell-check):
back-to-basics practitioners (rather than back-to-basics “practioners” — whatever that may be).
Hand – a – nista’s
Earth’s allies
Handy cultivators
Artisanal cultivators
I think some others have suggested it, but I’ll do it again:
Maker
The good thing about this is that it already has some modern-day traction (mostly due to Make magazine and Maker Faire) and I like that it’s not too specific: Home maker, stuff maker, food maker, whatever-maker.
We make stuff.
And we make it happen!
Sustainable living
Pure living
Artful labor (artful laborers)
Creative labor (creative laborers)
Hearts to work (a play on the Shaker “Hands to Work, Hearts to God”) Heartened Workers? Workers with Heart?
Intentional Avocation
Artisan Avocation
Creative Avocation
Craftivisim/craftivists.
Thanks, Susan. It just goes to show me I should re-read a post before commenting days later.
The first thing I thought of was David Brook’s “Bobos,” but, of course, bourgeois bohemians are merely an overlapping demographic. Besides, it’s not such a flattering term.
I had been thinking “back to basics,” because my activities are partly about that, but it’s an awkward phrase that doesn’t morph well into various parts of speech. Besides, somebody else said it before I was willing to commit.
Frankly, I don’t think there is a neat way to cover everything, but I’ll submit “neo-pioneers,” with the caveat that folks will have questions about exactly what that encompasses, at least before it catches on
.
I was just trying to explain a new project of mine to a friend and we got onto the tangent of this movement everyone’s trying to put a name to. She started complaining about the efforts of a big box retailer to outsource our jobs and manufacturing (and even trash) to other countries, and her comment got me to thinking. What about insourcing/insourcers? Or homesourcing/homesourcers? Or selfsourcing/selfsourcers? All of these get at the idea that, while we aren’t so delusional as to think it possible to be completely self-sufficient, we are trying to be more self-reliant, trying to meet our needs through our own efforts, and by turning to our immediate or close communities.
Insourcing/homesourcing/selfsourcing encourages us not only to be resourceful but to be mindful of the consequences of our choices, and allows us to bring our lives into closer balance with our values by being aware of our stance on and in the world. When you insource your clothing or food or other household items, you know more about how they were produced, and by whom, and what kind of life you are supporting, not only for yourself but also for other producers.
Though (with thanks to Lois and Dragan), I am now also having positive thoughts about ‘artisanalists’!
I like “makers,” too.
I always thought this movement was along the lines of B2B (Back to Basics).
Even though growing your vegetable garden, sewing your clothes, knitting, etc. are not basic but rather complex activities; this new movement brings people more in contact with nature (agriculture, the environment, our inner selves). It helps us removed the blindfold of excessive consumerism to truly understand where things come from and the effort required to get there.
A Conscious Dweller
Living Raw
It represents the aspect of making things and going “back to basics.” It is “raw” because you are using raw materials to construct or make a living. But the raw part can also apply to the city. In the city there is “raw” emotion, a city does not stand still. It takes stills to deal with such raw emotion (because in my experiences in San Francisco, the people can be cold hearted and rude, just because they are in such a hurry all the time.)
This can almost be a paradox, there is the cold raw emotion of the city that takes a professional like yourself to be able to understand and navigate. But then also by living raw, you are breaking out of this professional side of yourself. You are embracing a traditional style of living from the past, the style of living that preceded and fostered and built the professional world in which you now work in.
You could even call it “A Traditional Modern”
There almost isn’t a word for it and I can see how hard it is to come up with a name for this because you are trailblazing a new path. Good luck!
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