Constructing Common Knowledge: Practice for Social Change in Craft Livelihoods in India Annapurna Mamidipudi

Introduction How can design practice mediate deepening economic, social, and cultural divides between traditional craftspeople and modern markets, to make design truly a paradigm for the social change desired by craftspeople? How can expert design practitioners effect social change, when modern markets risk appropriating 1 The empirical basis for the paper traditional craftspeople as labor, albeit skilled labor, and either comes from interviews and focus group disenfranchising them as objects of charity, or museumizing them discussions with , but the as cultural heritage?1 In this paper, I focus on accounts from primary concerns come from being part 2 of discussions with reflexive designers designers who work with people in vulnerable craft communities. over more than 15 years of collaborative The accounts reveal that seeing craftspeople not as consumers of work in a non-governmental organization design expertise but as active producers of cultural value is an (NGO) in South India. The articulations important step toward their emancipation. and approaches to design practice are clearly the designers’ own; my attempt 1 is to link them to scholarship at the inter- section of , development “What’s wrong with making money?” asks a young Asian de- studies, and science and signer of high-end, handwoven fabric, made by highly skilled yet studies. The designers are thinking anonymous craftspeople whose livelihoods he supports.3 Stress- practitioners who might or might not ing the need for multiple marketing models for traditional agree with my analysis. I would like to thank scholars Govert Valkenburg, Louk crafts, he problematizes the marketing practice of some social Box, and Wiebe Bijker and the editors businesses that create sympathy for the weavers while selling their and reviewers for their thought-provoking expensive products. This contrast of displaying the impoverish- and engaged comments. ment of the producers while selling their expensive products 2 The work in these communities involves makes him uncomfortable; he would prefer that the fabric was pottery, embroidery, leatherwork, brass work, wooden toy making, and handloom bought for its beauty. weaving, to name a few. 3 Designer Sanjay Garg, focus group Designer 2 discussion at the Craft and Innovation A second designer explores the use of tools that make it possible Workshop, Chennai, January 30, 2016. for designers and craftspeople to co-produce the crafted object.4 4 Designer Poludas Nagendra Satish, focus group discussion at the Craft and Sample-making and prototyping become important tools for Innovation Workshop, Chennai, January developing ideas and mobilizing knowledge.5 However, they 30, 2016. should not be used for one-way communication—of training the 5 Because designers and craftspeople generally are dispersed between urban and rural locations, the process during which craftspeople make initial samples according to the design plan, before pro- duction, is a key step in how designers and craftspeople work together. © 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00510 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 4 Autumn 2018 37

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 craftsperson to implement the designer’s plan. Rather, they 6 Designer Sakthivel Vilvapathy, focus group discussion at the Craft and represent an iterative activity that has the potential to open up a Innovation Workshop, Chennai, multiplicity of possibilities. The process becomes a symmetric January 30, 2016. and mutual discovery of material, processes, and exercise of skills. 7 On Gandhi and social innovation, see In his experience, such co-production of craft could become both Shambu C. Prasad, “Innovating at the equitable and financially sustainable. Margins: The System of Rice Intensifica- tion in India and Transformative Social Innovation,” Ecology and Society 21, Designer 3 no. 4 (2016), 7. For an analysis of A seemingly conflicting third perspective is presented by a dyer– Gandhian science and the Khadi move- designer, this time referring to the tension between the financial ment, see C. Shambu Prasad, “Exploring bottom line of business and the cultural value that goes beyond Gandhian Science: A Case Study of the 6 Khadi Movement” (PhD thesis, Indian market interests. Is handmade beauty to be appropriated by the Institute of Technology, 2002). rich? Gandhi advocated for the sustainability of village crafts by 8 According to the All India Census and providing for the needs of ordinary people rather than only for the considering only the craft census, the elite.7 If customers and producers are not both part of a common number is actually up from 4.76 million culture, then the metaphors and stories that connect them to each in 1995–96, according to another report in the “Economic Times,” published other shrink, along with the market transactions. The evaluation of by The Times of India, http://articles. financial value that does not take into consideration the cultural economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04- meaning of the thing being produced might itself cause a displace- 29/news/38904849_1_artisans-handi- ment of dignity for the craftsperson, this designer cautions. crafts-census (accessed June 22, 2016). Approximately nine million people in India, and a growing For the contested nature of definitions of craftspeople that affects census data, number across the developing world, make their livelihoods from 8 see also Brinda Viswanathan, Enumera- craft production. Even as craft activists report large-scale distress tion of Crafts Persons in India (Chennai, in livelihoods of craftspeople, craft continues to be the second larg- India: Madras School of Economics, est provider of rural livelihoods in India.9 National policy makers 2013), http://www.mse.ac.in/wp-con- claim that design is a key intervention for supporting craftspeo- tent/uploads/2016/09/Mono-25-.pdf (accessed November 22,2017). In India, ples’ livelihoods. However, the challenge of designing successfully ritual art forms, whether commoditized and equitably for craft production can weigh heavily even on or not, are identified as craft, as are deliberate and thoughtful designers who try to accomplish this handmade objects that have been made difficult task.10 It calls for designers to step out voluntarily into for different markets over time and risky endeavors, to “combine hand, heart and head” in chronically newer kinds of objects that have bene- 11 fited from design and manufacturing under-resourced conditions. interventions. See Soumhya Venkatesan, Laila Tyabji is a designer and key member of the contem- “Shifting Balances in a ‘Craft Commu- porary crafts movement in India, the objective of which has been nity’: The Mat Weavers of Pattamadai, to sustain vulnerable craft livelihoods.12 She questions the percep- South India,” Contributions to Indian tion of design as “ornamental irrelevance” and argues to conceive Sociology 40, no. 1 (2006): 66. 13 9 The sector has a production output of it as “a paradigm for development.” Such value-based design 13,526 crore rupees [2 billion euros]. thinking, regardless of whether it is articulated as such, acts as http://planningcommission.gov.in/ scaffolding for designers to align their ideals and interventions aboutus/committee/wrkgrp12/wg_ with craftspeoples’ vulnerabilities and capabilities.14 Although handi1101.pdf (accessed May 1, 2017). sometimes conflicting, these different ideals of development bring 10 Focus group discussions with designers 15 Latha Tummuru, Gopi Krishna, Kamal about multiplicity in design outcomes. This multiplicity reminds Kishore, Jinnan K B, Tarun Deep Giridhar, Saktivel Vilvapathy, Sangita Sen, and Aditi Shah Aman, January 10, 2012, Hyderabad. For a discussion on the role of the designer in socially responsible design, see and Sylvia Margolin, “A ‘Social Model’ of Design:

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Issues of Practice and Research,” income and have differing aspirations regarding their futures—in Design Issues 18, no. 4 (Autumn 2002): contrast to the seemingly ideal type of craftsperson who has a sin- 24–30. gular trajectory of development and who is the object of policy.16 11 Latha Tummuru, interview by author, To the larger Indian society, the craft object recalls heritage, June 12, 2012. while the craftsperson—viewed as precarious labor—becomes a 12 In India, the craft movement is linked to sustaining and maintaining vulnerable subject of modern development. This perspective creates contra- craft livelihoods. In the words of Ashoke dictions for designers, who have to bridge the goals both of pre- Chatterjee, the challenge therefore is not serving traditional heritage and of advancing modern one of countering a market threat but of development through design practice.17 This paradox requires that fostering the capacity of artisans to designers have to parse the multiple meanings that craft carries to negotiate effectively with the market and to protect their own interests in craftspeople themselves and to society at large. a situation of constant change and unrelenting competition. http://ccrtindia. Theorizing Design Practice for Social Change for Craftspeople gov.in/downloads/other/lecture_5_ To achieve the objective of this paper, I focus first on individual pro_ashoke_chatterjee.pdf (accessed biographies of designers who try to alleviate poverty in crafts- May 1, 2017). 18 13 http://www.craftrevival.org/voiceDetails. people’s livelihoods. Next, I broaden the unit of analysis from the asp?Code=178 (accessed April 5, 2017). designer and her intervention, or the craftsperson and her liveli- 14 Daniel Christian Wahl and Seaton Baxter, hood, to the socio-technical ensemble in which both designer and “The Designer’s Role in Facilitating Sus- craftsperson participate to produce design. Finally, I propose a fur- tainable Solutions,” Design Issues 24, no. ther broadening from the craft ensemble to study design cultures 2 (Spring 2008): 72–83. The authors use the work of Beck and Cowan on the value that arise within such ensembles. By attending to these shifts, MEME (vMEME) to explain underlying three lenses on design practice can be derived: structures of meta —of • Intervention, where craftspeople are subjects of economic why, how, and what we design. “A development; vMEME transposes itself into a world • Interaction, where craftspeople are active participants view, a value system, a of psycho- logical existence, a belief structure, an within socio-technical ensembles made of many social organizing principle, a way of thinking, groups; and and a mode of living.” Don Edward Beck • Mediation, where craftspeople acquire and are attributed and Christopher Cowan, Spiral Dynamics: expert knowledge of mediating within Mastering Values, Leadership and cultures of design. Change (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996), 40. 15 A modernist understanding of design claims modernization—for which design These three lenses describe the same design world but characterize is a tool—is endogenous and universal. it in three different ways. Not merely alternatives, they each add In the case of Asia, although design is a dimension to analyzing design practice. Design outcomes thus seen as a modern profession, it becomes become cumulative: the first layer focuses on the economic, the both endogenous (an ancient activity of craftspeople), as well as exogenous second layer adds the social, and the third layer combines eco- (linked to “development” as it is framed nomic, social, and cultural. in Western terms), with multiple Design itself is a contested term. Ashoke Chatterjee, for- capacities for both integration and merly the Director of the National Institute of Design in India, marginalization. For a discussion on the comments that the Indian languages do not traditionally have an politics of Asian design, see Rajeshwari Ghose, “Design, Development, Culture, equivalent for “design”; instead, the term kala, which integrates art and Cultural Legacies in Asia,” Design Issues 6, no. 1 (Autumn 1989): 31–48. 16 For a discussion on design policy in the developing world, see Sulfikar Amir, “Rethinking Design Policy in the Third World,” Design Issues 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2004): 68–75.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 and craft, is used more generally in the Indian craft context.19 In Chatterjee’s concept of artistry, traditional repertoires, involving technical, aesthetic, and material knowledge, are inextricably tied together. Mastery over these combined capabilities in craft par- 17 In particular, because students of design lance can be understood as kala—as artistry. This attribute of are drawn from modern educational craftspeople does not differentiate between art, science, and tech- systems, traditional sources of design inspiration often have to be relearned. nique—for example, in the production of a deep blue color from Rajeshwari Ghose, “Design, Develop- natural indigo. ment, Culture, and Cultural Legacies in In this paper, I use the term “design” to refer to the design Asia,” Design Issues 6, no. 1 (Autumn of material objects or “things,”20 as well as to indi- 1989): 31–48. For a discussion on cate the creation of value through innovative products and ser- the role of designers in bridging craft worlds and modern industrial worlds, vices (i.e., services as rigorous creativity undertaken for positive see Singanapalli Balaram, “Design in social and economic outcomes).21 Thus, design can be studied as India: The Importance of the Ahmedabad the combinatory activity across economic, social, and cultural Declaration,” Design Issues 25, no. 4 functions that help to increase economic value by expressing soci- (Autumn 2009): 54–79. etal values.22 I therefore include meaning-making as bringing value 18 On writing biographies as an approach to (taking into account to the idea of design. To do this, I locate traditional craftspeople that design usually does not refer to the and modern designers as economic actors participating in evolving work of only one mind or pair of hands), socio-technical ensembles of production and consumption, embed- see Ellen Mazur Thomson, “Review of ded in contemporary cultures of Indian craft design.23 Martha Scotford, Cipe Pineles: A Life of Design,” Studies in the Decorative Arts 8, no. 1 (2001): 180–82. Design Practice as Intervention: Craftsperson as Economic Unit 19 Ashoke Chatterjee, in an email to the Design practice as intervention in craft livelihoods is structured to author, April 29, 2013. affect economic outcomes of craftspeople by increasing the value 20 For a discussion on the designing of of their products in the market. Design interventions also have “things,” see Erling Bjögvinsson, been shown to be positive in supporting impoverished craft liveli- Pelle Ehn, and Per-Anders Hillgren, 24 “Design Things and Design Thinking: hoods by improving wages and stabilizing incomes. After her Contemporary first encounter with the abject poverty of craftspeople in Gujarat, Challenges,” Design Issues 28, no. 3 designer Latha Tummuru, who took up a career with NGOs that (Summer 2012): 101–16. supported craft livelihoods, noted that, “there is no food to eat. 21 A Telier et al., Design Things (Cambridge You go to their village, they eat only roti [dry bread] and onion or MA: The MIT Press, 2011). 25 22 For an early Indian effort to conceptualize they give you goat’s milk tea.” Her concern translated into worry design not just in economic terms, about the marketability of her “because at the end of the but as expressing contemporary values day you want the design to also sell—that’s how livelihoods can see Balaram, “Design in India: The Impor- carry on.” Tummuru’s own work as designer is invisible; the craft tance of the Ahmedabad Declaration,” group’s labor is what she brings to the forefront, in the market. Design Issues 25, no.4 (Autumn 2009): 54–79. The work of the designer as interventionist has a plan- 23 For an exploration of what constitutes driven intention, while the craftsperson’s work focuses on imple- ‘Indian design practices’ where craft mentation, and a clear boundary is constructed between the two plays an important role in production see roles. The outcome tends to be measured in terms of income Martha Scotford, “Introduction: Indian returns to the craftspeople and of the financial sustainability of the Design and ,” Design Issues 21, no. 4 (Autumn 2005):1–3. designer’s marketing models over time. The young market-savvy 24 Ashoke Chatterjee, “Design in India: The Designer 1, quoted in the introduction, works toward building a Experience of Transition,” ibid., 4–10; Crafts Council of India, “Craft Economics and Impact Study,” (Chennai, India: Crafts Council of India, 2011). 25 Latha Tummuru, in an interview with the author, on June 12, 2012.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 sustainable market that values craft product for its beauty; but this designer’s commitment to market-worthy products runs the risk of making the craftsperson invisible. Tummuru, the NGO designer, strives to bring the craftsperson to the forefront; in turn, she runs the risk of thoroughly concealing her own role, which leads to uncertainty about the sustainability of her marketing model. By bringing their claims together, we could better understand inter- ventionist strategies as needing to sustain both craftspeople and designer marketing models, rather than one or the other. Development theories initially advocated “intervention,” and later vilified it as a tool that would exclude underdeveloped populations from the benefits that people in more developed econ- omies enjoy. Critics of the interventionist approach question the definition of the “problem” of the craftsperson as poverty and cri- tique design’s role as solution-ism. They also reject framing crafts- people as passive subjects of development, in line with top-down development programs that are deployed as “a toolkit” to alleviate poverty. 26 They suggest that this narrow focus risks reproducing implicit power hierarchies—for example, between craftsperson and designer, craftsperson and market, and craftsperson and development agency. Meanwhile, scholars in technology studies unpack the notion of “intervention” as “taking the multiplicity of the settings into account when identifying acting and work- ing on solutions for perceived problems.”27 The result is an inter- ventionist strategy “that abandons ‘control’ as a useful concept for structuring interventions.”28 We are thus cautioned against “solu- tions that concentrate only on the way they [the solutions] func- tion, on their economies, and on their practical results while leaving in the shadows the critical discussion of their meaning and the qualities sought and produced.”29 To address what is left out in this analysis, I propose instead, in the next section, to also capture social dimensions and outcomes of design practice by broadening our analytical frame to the socio-technical ensemble. 26 T. S. Nair, “Institutionalising Micro- finance in India: An Overview of Design Practice as Interaction: Sociotechnical Ensemble as Unit Strategic Issues,” Economic and of Analysis Political Weekly 36, no. 4 (2001): 403. 27 Teun Zuiderent-Jerak and Casper Interventionist approaches have proven to generate incomes, ful- 30 Bruun Jensen, “Editorial Introduction: filling an important economic outcome for craftspeople. However, Unpacking ‘Intervention’ in Science boundaries of social class, power inequalities, and knowledge hier- and Technology Studies,” Science as archies that act to constrain equitable participation of craftspeople Culture 16, no. 3 (2007): 230. in markets are not accounted for. In addition, they reinforce the 28 Teun Zuiderent, “Blurring the Center,” Scandinavian Journal of Information discursive distance between the designer and the beneficiary of Systems 14, no. 2 (2003): 74. design—also possibly creating dependencies. 29 Ezio Manzini, “ and Dialogic Design,” Design Issues 32, no. 1 (Winter 2016): 52–59. 30 Angharad Thomas, “Design, Poverty, and Sustainable Development,” Design Issues 22, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 59.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 The broadening of the unit of analysis helps us grasp the social dimension; we characterize craftspeople, as well as design- ers, as being embedded in complex socio-technical production and consumption ensembles.31 This lens makes visible the different social groups—for example, in weaving, the farmers, spinners, warpers, sizers, dyers, weavers, traders, and even customers—as well as the taxonomy of technical and aesthetic expertise that exists across the ensemble. This taxonomy includes of consumption, such as the Internet and mobile phones. When such an ensemble performs design, it draws on the capabilities of each of the different participants in the craft network, and not only on those of the designer. I introduce here the analysis of design practice in the socio- technical ensemble of craft as “interaction,” which recognizes the social dimension as a significant outcome of relational work.32 A craft ensemble made up of different social groups with diverse expertise and technologies by definition requires such interaction to produce design. In this understanding of design practice, designers are not an external solution to the problem of the crafts- person and do not produce “design from nowhere.”33 Instead, they are socially present in reciprocal relationships with others in the ensemble.34 Consumers, too, now become social, relational, and active participants.35 Symmetry between the designer, craftsper- son, and consumer in the ensemble is a key concept in this lens. This symmetry is by design utopian, particularly in situations of power inequality. Its flattening effect helps in navigating an ana- 31 Wiebe E. Bijker, Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Socio- lytical path away from polarizations and hierarchies of interven- technical Change, Inside Technology tionist design practice that may inadvertently reify current (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995). categories and their tacit power structures. 32 Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, Meanwhile, the frame of interactive ensembles points to the “The Social Construction of Facts and importance of the combinatory activity of the designer who works Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology to bring the different expertise together to create value for the Might Benefit Each Other,” Social Stud- designed product. Designer Gopi Krishna works with deprived ies of Science 14, no. 3 (1984): 399–441. community members who were used to surviving on petty rob- 33 Lucy Suchman, “Located Accountabilities bery and on brewing illicit alcohol.36 He and his weaver colleague in Technology Production,” Scandinavian decided to teach the women how to weave simple straps, on their Journal of Information Systems 14, no. 2 (2002): 95. request. With these woven straps, he decided to bags, 34 Hazel Markus, “The Effect of Mere Pres- again after seeing local shepherds carrying such bags. “Different ence on Social Facilitation: An Unobtru- kinds of local artisans got together, and we discovered local tech- sive Test,” Journal of Experimental Social nologies: the leather strap makers, the brass buckle metal workers, Psychology 14, no. 4 (1978): 389–97. the rope twisters, and so on.”37 Some of his products had as many 35 Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspec- as eight different craft communities working on them. “That story tive (New York: Cambridge University is what sells even to far-away European users; it is the regional Press, 1988). identity that sells it.”38 36 Gopi Krishna, community worker and designer, in an interview with the author, on Jan 10, 2012. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 Gopi Krishna stresses the interactive nature of design- ing, including feedback from merchandisers and retailers. Like Designer 2 in our introduction, sample making and prototyping become tools to mobilize knowledge across the different groups, as tools for interaction. However, by inextricably linking design to products made using the combined expertise of the ensemble, Gopi Krishna also ensures that the designs are not easily appropri- ated and imitated cheaply by mass production technologies, but that they continue to retain value as hand craft. His notion of design thus draws strongly on the instinct of craftiness: an agility of the mind as much as a dexterity of the hand, and equally from all participants.

Mobilizing Value Through Interaction: The Work of the Designer from a Constructivist View Constructivist Science Technology Society (STS) analysis is a heuristic to examine designers’ actions in the social domain, build- ing on the idea from technology studies that technical outcomes are always socially constructed.39 If the designer is not the sole agent of design, what does she do in the craft ensemble? Using a constructivist perspective, I trace the work that is performed by designers to make things happen, to combine expertise, to shape identities, and to create value. Weavers come with large repertoires of motifs and products from generations of practice; consumers come with their repertoire of sarees already owned or newly desired; technologists come with registers of color standardization and quality norms. The designer’s task in the interactionist frame lies in stimulating participation between actors, so that a product 39 Pinch and Bijker, “The Social Construc- with market value can be designed.40 This capacity to stimulate tion of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the participation requires that social dimensions be negotiated, for Sociology of Science and the Sociology which designers might not be prepared in their training.41 Urban of Technology Might Benefit Each Other,” Social Studies of Science 14, no. 3 designers might perceive the move needed to become part of the (1984): 399–441. rural production world as being “downward.” Similarly, integrat- 40 This understanding echoes the starting ing new groups of elite customers into the ensemble might require point of design as participation in designers to move “upward” to these social worlds. “Things,” the kind of socio-material Designers experience these travels as intense learning assemblies that Bruno Latour character- izes as collectives of humans and non- experiences as they strive to overcome their own limitations in humans. Bjögvinsson, Ehn, and Hillgren, negotiating previously invisible power hierarchies that govern “Design Things and Design Thinking: vulnerable craftspeople’s livelihoods.42 Describing the encounter Contemporary Participatory Design with the social world of craftspeople, one designer said, “I go to Challenges,” Design Issues 28, no. 3 the weavers’ houses to design because only then am I able to (Summer 2012): 101–16. 41 Dana Cuff, : The Story of account for its relevance to them.” Another designer says design- a Practice (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, ing craft for elite customers can raise existential issues: “The 1992), 251. 42 Focus group discussions with designers Latha Tummuru, Gopi Krishna, Kamal Kishore, Jinnan K B, Tarun Deep Giridhar, Saktivel Vilvapathy, Sangita Sen, Aditi Shah Aman on Jan 10, 2012, Hyderabad.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 designer’s social background has a key role (…), which cultural background we come from, that can limit the aesthetic group we can cater to.”43 As interaction, the focus of design practice is to enable par- ticipation by all stakeholders, particularly in craft ensembles where all the social groups might not be empowered to participate

43 Focus group discussions with designers on equal terms (e.g., because of their geographical location [global as above on Jan 10, 2012. My foray into south], social status [lower class or caste], or tacit expertise [seen as corporate design through consulting manual labour]). In this analysis, co-design is not only the result of with the jewellery atelier Rasvihar, and participation (the object) but also the means to it (the subject). This its creative director Ahalya S. and her dual role resonates with contributions from the fields of participa- marketing assistant Madhumati Thomas also contributed to this paper. tory design, social design, and alternative design movements. It 44 Toni Robertson and Jesper Simonsen, entails the direct involvement of people in the co-design of tools, “Challenges and Opportunities in products, environments, businesses, and social institutions toward Contemporary Participatory Design,” democratic societal outcomes.44 Design Issues 28, no. 3 (Summer 2012): Participatory design works on two principles: first, the 3–9. 45 Bjögvinsson, Ehn, and Hillgren, “Design social idea of democracy that enables and legitimizes participation, Things and Design Thinking,” 103. and second, affirming the importance of allowing participants’ 46 For discussion on the concept of the tacit knowledge to come into play in the design process.45 As a cor- social shaping of design by society, ollary of the first principle, we observe design practice as being see Edward Woodhouse and Jason W. shaped socially through interactions between diverse groups: No Patton, “Design by Society: Science and Technology Studies and the Social simple boundary exists to delineate what counts as design or who 46 Shaping of Design,” Design Issues 20, engages in it. As a corollary to the second, participation presup- no. 3 (Summer 2004): 1–12 . poses some form of expertise: Effective participation is knowledge- 47 Ibid. able participation.47 This corollary requires the designer’s 48 For discussion on the use of the sensitivity to the capabilities of craftspeople to afford them agency, capability approach for design in devel- 48 opment, see Ilse Oosterlaken, “Design free choice, and value judgments. for Development: A Capability Approach,” Dialogue is essential in resolving enduring conflicts of Design Issues 25, no. 4 (2009): 91–102. interest between actors in an ensemble, and in negotiating hierar- 49 Scholars Wahl and Baxter refer to chies of expertise to coordinate action.49 For example, when hand- trans-disciplinary dialogue as the means loom weavers had to produce for green markets that demanded to contextualize the contributions made by diverse perspectives and to result certifications (e.g., organic or fair trade) for the cotton yarn they in more inclusive decision-making used, this demand generated a conflict for weavers who preferred processes informed by a wider knowl- to work with production standards related to yarn strength. edge base. See Wahl and Baxter, Designers in development practice eventually resolved this con- “The Designer’s Role in Facilitating flict by referencing an entirely different standard: the “count.”50 Sustainable Solutions,” 82. 50 Annapurna Mamidipudi, “Field Reports The count of the yarn is a number that co-ordinates quality of yarn 51 of the Dastkar Andhra Design Program across the different actors. For example, in the transition from 2010–11” for the NGO Dastkar Andhra industrial to organic cotton, this number had to be negotiated back Trust, Hyderabad, 2010. and forth at every stage: between cotton trader and dyer, dyer and 51 The count is a measure that communi- weaver, and weaver and customer. As the new number traveled, cates staple length (of the cotton fiber) to the farmer, weight to the cotton trader, and thickness of thread to the spinner; it also is used to calculate weight in units of length (called hanks). The count indicates the labor required of the weaver, color absorption for the dyer, resolution of the motif for the designer, and weight and drape for the consumer.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 the count emerged as a standard that allowed the diverse groups to participate in designing the new product. It also allowed for entities at different scales, such as individual weavers and large spinning mills, to interact with each other, so that organic cotton and hand weaving could come together in new products. Design- 52 This argument is part of a jointly ers were aware that powerful disciplinary boundaries of expertise authored chapter, Aalok Khandekar, Koen Beumer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, could emerge that would come in the way of communication, so Pankaj Sekhsaria, and Wiebe E. Bijker, they focused on standardization measures that simultaneously “STS for Development,” in The Handbook negotiated these boundaries. However, in creating such trans- of Science and Technology Studies, ed. disciplinary measures, designers had to be sensitive to possible Ulrike Felt, Rayvon Fouché, Clark A Miller, exclusions and new marginalization. Laurel Smith-Doerr (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2016). Power is integral to any discussions of coordinating 52 53 Dean Nieusma, “Alternative Design action. Designers find that they have to pay attention to unequal Scholarship: Working Toward Appropriate power relations and to the many ways that social power operates Design,” Design Issues 20, no. 3 through designed things, as well as through design thinking and (Summer 2004): 13–24. practice.53 Raising questions about how design problems are 54 Todd Cherkasky, “Design Style: Changing Dominant Design Practice,” Design framed, who participates in design, and how material resources Issues 20, no. 3 (Summer 2004): 25–39. are configured allows designers to challenge dominant power 55 Manzini, “Design Culture and Dialogic structures, “making it possible to find revolutionary potential in Design,” Design Issues 32, no. 1 (Winter mundane practices.”54 Including marginalized perspectives goes 2016): 52–59. beyond user-centered design; it has to focus on intelligent and 56 Nieusma, “Alternative Design Scholar- ship,” 21. fair design decision making through dialogic cooperation—a 57 See Jesper Simonsen and Morten mutual conversation in which listening is as important as speaking Hertzum, “Sustained Participatory your mind.55 This approach has implications for how designers Design: Extending the Iterative constrain their own agency to affect design outcomes as they Approach,” Design Issues 28, no. 3 empower marginalized groups, even as they identify opportuni- (Summer 2012): 10–21. 56 58 Wahl and Baxter, “The Designer’s Role ties for such “alternative” practice. in Facilitating Sustainable Solutions,” 73. At the core, we see that design practice as interaction 59 Ashoke Chatterjee, former director of involves values of democratic participation toward positive soci- the National Institute of Design, India, etal outcomes, but the stress is on the relational aspects of col- in an email to the author, April 29th, laborations and conflicts that make up complex, socio-technical 2013. Chatterjee has been an eloquent advocate for craftspeople’s definition of wholes. This iterative approach involves improvisation, experi- design which is closer to artistry [kala], mentation, and learning that challenges conventional, plan-driven which does not seek a distinction approaches in which design and implementation are clearly sepa- between art and craft. rated in time and space57; here, thinking of “[design] outcomes as 60 Ingold suggests that design as intention an emergent property of the complex dynamic system” might be underdetermines the form of the thing 58 that is made. Design does not contain more appropriate. We could describe design itself, then, as being 59 all that one can know to account for crafted—as kala [artistry]. Design in this sense is the weaving of the form. Design intention changes in multiple strands of interests and expertise together toward one of response to the environment, as well as many possible outcomes—which in turn informs the next itera- to use. In this case, the craft object is tion—rather than a singular intention of a master designer.60 more than an expression of the intent of the designer; it also is an expression of the craftsperson’s understanding of form and use. See Tim Ingold, “Beyond Art and Technology: The Anthropology of Skill,” in Anthropological Perspectives on Technology, ed. Michael B. Schiffer (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 17–31.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 Design Practice as Mediation: Cultures of Design as Unit of Analysis The focus of design on the social—as either the object or the subject of design—and on social science frameworks seems to beg the question of object-bound aesthetics, which is traditionally what “design” stands for. Designers might begin to worry about whether social design is good design at all.61 Manzini wonders whether participation taken too far turns into “Post-It” design, in which designers become facilitators who are left with narrow administrative activities and creative ideas and design culture tend to disappear.62 Participation-ism, Manzini suggests, could turn into polite conversations around tables; thus, various interlocutors, design experts included, must define and accept their own respon- sibilities—their —as well as generate creative ideas—aesthet- ics—as they interact and bring their own ideas. This understanding presupposes that a design culture exists that is capable of generat- ing ideas, values, and visions and of cultivating them.63 To explore design practice as cultural mediation between interlocutors carrying different ethical and aesthetic values, I fur- ther broaden the unit of analysis from the socio-technical ensem- ble to the study of craft as design culture. I draw on scholarship in design studies of design culture and mirror the methodological shifts in STS of seeing societies as technological cultures.64 Study- ing design as design culture predicates the everyday presence of design in our designed worlds.65 At the same time, it stresses aes- thetics and ethics as being embedded in culture as constituted by 61 Ilpo Koskinen, “Agonistic, Convivial, and Conceptual Aesthetics in New collectives over time, rather than seeing them as singular inten- Social Design,” Design Issues 32, no. 3 tions of designers. Characterizing Indian craft as design culture (Summer 2016): 18–29. makes visible the cultural meanings of the objects of design—the 62 Manzini, “Design Culture and Dialogic metaphors and stories—that are shared between producers and Design,” 58. consumers. Using mediation as a lens reveals when design suc- 63 Ibid. 64 For the former, see Ben Highmore, ceeds in shifting meaning: In the example of the shift to organic “General Introduction: A Sideboard cotton, handloom cloth comes to mean not only traditional heri- Manifesto: Design Culture in an Artificial tage to be cherished, but now contemporary response to modern World,” The Design Culture Reader, ed. concerns regarding the sustainability of the environment. Ben Highmore (London: Routledge, 2009), To design such meaningful objects, designers have to medi- 2. For the latter, see Wiebe E. Bijker, “Do We Live in Water Cultures? A ate between aesthetics of producers and users—between creative 66 Methodological Commentary,” Social artists and consumers. They have to act as cultural intermediar- Studies of Science 42, no. 4 (2012): ies, as workers engaged in “occupations involving presentation 624–27. and representation (…) providing symbolic goods and services.”67 65 Highmore, “General Introduction: A How do designers mediate between cultural groups that carry dif- Sideboard Manifesto,” 4. 66 Keith Negus, “The Work of Cultural ferent aesthetics? When encountering the aesthetic values of a cul- Intermediaries and the Enduring Distance tural group or its cultural objects, designers in the frame of design Between Production and Consumption,” as mediation generally do not evaluate them as “good” or “bad” Cultural Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 501–15. 67 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Readings in Economic Sociology, ed. Nicole Woolsey Biggart (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 359.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 design, or impose their value judgments on users.68 Instead, they strive to comprehend the value that a particular design culture promotes. They “read” taste, which implies reading particular reg- isters of aesthetic value among producers and consumers through sensitivity to cultural memory.69 However, this evaluation is not an individual one. Woodward and Emmison discuss the personal/col- lective tension in taste, aesthetics, and fashion and the universal characteristic of judgment of taste.70 Differentiating between tastes of different groups is possible because visual and cognitive judgments are inherent in making this judgment.71 Rather than being arbiters of highbrow culture, designers’ role now becomes the translation and mediation of cultures.72 Designer Jinan’s work is with a community that had stopped being potters almost 30 years before his arrival.73 The community members survived by prostituting the women. To avoid imposing his own ideas on their fledgling exploration in pro- duction, Jinan took up what he calls a “do nothing” design approach: He persuaded both men and women to take up simple tasks that regenerated their craft skills. Slowly, the artisans used dormant “kitchen” skills to come up with new ideas for pottery. Encouraged to respond to customer preferences, they learned to read the taste of niche markets. When Jinan’s group reached this 68 Kin Wai Michael Siu, “Users’ Creative point, his intention was served: The potters had become sought Responses and Designers’ Roles,” Design after as artists in their own right and could complete commissions Issues 19, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 64–73. to build on-site murals, even in Jinan’s absence. 69 For a discussion of cultural traditions in Traditional craft education is based on apprenticeships, and design in India, see Lalit Kumar Das, “Culture as the Designer,” Design Issues craftspeople seem to be able to cultivate design expertise through 21, no. 4 (Autumn 2005): 41–53; for associating and working with designers. Craftspeople are pre- a discussion of the Indian equivalent to disposed to acquiring expertise through social learning processes the concept of design, see H. Kumar that are reflexive—that is, through a process characterized by a Vyas, “Design History: An Alternative permanent process of evaluation, monitoring, and feedback, at Approach,” Design Issues 22, no. 4 74 (Autumn 2006): 27–34. both conscious and subconscious levels. This predisposition 70 Ian Woodward and Michael Emmison, explains how cultural mediators (e.g., master weavers), who may “From Aesthetic Principles to Collective not be expert designers but who travel between city and village, Sentiments: The Logics of Everyday acquire this expertise and effectively play the role of designer in Judgements of Taste,” Poetics 29, their networks. no. 6 (2001): 298. 71 Helmut Leder, Benno Belke, Andries Mediation as design practice can now be understood as a Oeberst, and Dorothee Augustin, “A two-step process. We see how craftspeople, by initially producing Model of Aesthetic Appreciation and to satisfy market preferences, learn the designer expertise of read- Aesthetic Judgments,” British Journal ing taste. Over time they acquire the capability to experiment and of Psychology 95, no. 4 (2004): 502. to design objects that the cultural elite desire. They do not imitate 72 Bev Skeggs, Class, Self, Culture (London: Routledge, 2004), 148. fashion as market followers but become trendsetters. This lens also 73 Jinnan, in an interview with the author, makes visible the two-way nature of such mediation: Craftspeople Jan 10, 2012. learn to influence the taste of the cultural elite. 74 Marc Van Lieshout, Tineke Mirjam Egyedi, and Wiebe Eco Bijker, eds., Social Learning Technologies: The Introduction of Multimedia in Education (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2001), 49.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 In general, cultural consumption is predisposed to “fulfil a social function of legitimating social differences.”75 Those con- sumers who are lower in the social hierarchy try to improve their status using consumption that appropriates the fashionable habits of consumers above them in the hierarchy.76 However, when craftspeople produce elite culture, their high artistry—their kala— and aesthetic perception distinguishes them in the social hier- archy, and they acquire cultural capital.77 At this point new trajectories become available to craftspeople. Rather than poverty that acts as a barrier to social mobility, their elevation within the cultural hierarchy paves the way to dignity and status in a society that desires their expertise and values their knowledge.78 This rise leads to a social change that craftspeople experience as empower- ing. In turn, in this pursuit of common craft, the cultural elite implicitly cultivate humility, and markets explicitly become more humane. When designers facilitate this trajectory, their practice is more likely to become transformative, going beyond the contradic- tory imaginaries of museumization or modernization to a liveli- hood in craft that is lived with dignity. This understanding is counter-intuitive; it signifies a gradual reversal of roles between craftspeople and their customers that is almost imperceptible, as 75 Bourdieu suggests that “art and cultural consumption are predisposed, con- the value of craft expertise becomes common knowledge. sciously and deliberately or not, to fulfil a social function of legitimating social Design Practice for Social Change differences” Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: To summarize, this paper investigates the collaborative work of A Social Critique of the Judgement of designers with craftspeople, to their mutual benefit, but especially Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 4. to improve market success of craft production. The analysis looks 76 Georg Simmel, “Fashion,” American at three interrelated dimensions of how designers contribute to the Journal of Sociology 62, no. 6 (1957): process: financial, social, and cultural. Each of these dimensions is 541–58. tied to an analytic lens through which designers characterize their 77 Bourdieu links cultural practices of role: intervention (tied to economic exchange in terms of increasing production and consumption of art and aesthetics to education and social origin. market value of output), interaction (tied to social relationships He defines culture as an internalized and enhanced effectiveness of collaborations among participants), code that is historical and self-referen- and mediation (tied to cultural transformation and how craft pro- tial: “Aesthetic perception is necessarily ducers can play a role in actively shaping culture rather than historical, inasmuch as it is differential, merely responding to it as an exogenous force). The intention is not relational, attentive to the deviations (écarts) which make styles.” See to understand designer actions as mechanistically linked to prede- Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of termined outcomes in one or another domain, but to explicate the the Judgement of Taste, 4; and Bourdieu, complex interactions between domains that can produce uncer- “The Forms of Capital”: 280–91. tainty and inconsistency. 78 Trigg develops Veblen’s idea of culture Design practice as intervention can be a tool for affecting as a barrier to social mobility, and Bourdieu’s idea of a trickle-around model economic outcomes and supporting craft livelihoods, particularly of acquiring cultural capital: feedback when acting within market models that are temporally stable. of taste can be bottom up—from the Design practice as interaction provides designers with a way of lower rungs of the social ladder to the top, bypassing the middle. Andrew B. Trigg, “Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicu- ous Consumption,” Journal of Economic Issues 35, no. 1 (2001): 113.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 thinking about and doing design that takes seriously craftspeo- ple’s expertise and that makes visible the relational and reciprocal aspect of design practice. It helps designers to negotiate issues of democratic participation, social hierarchies, and vulnerabilities that govern craft livelihoods and to deal with the constraints these issues pose to the designers’ own goals of social change. Interaction blurs the conceptual boundaries between the expertise of the designer and the producer in the craft ensemble: design becomes other than simply the intention of the designer, which the craftsperson implements in production. Design as inten- tion underdetermines the form of the thing that is made; it does not contain all that one can know to account for the form of the final outcome. Design as kala adds to this understanding, allowing for form to change in response to the environment, in the making, and in the use.79 Design as kala explains how symmetrically interacting, socio-technical ensembles can craft a multiplicity of creative outputs and outcomes using inputs that may not always be consistent. Design practice as mediation draws attention to design culture. Through the cultural mediation lens, designers are cre- ative learners and teachers who are required to translate ethics and aesthetics across people, place, and time; they create shared cul- tures within which craft retains not just its value but also its mean- ing. Recognizing that design practice can be a process of changing the meaning of craft and disrupting social hierarchies makes it a transformative tool in the hands of a designer. Value-sensitive design treats interactions of all types as a form of meaning mak- ing, which is mutually defining.80 Design as meaning making starts from the comprehension of subtle and unspoken dynamics in socio-cultural models and results in radically new meanings and languages, often implying a change in socio-cultural regimes.81 Thus, a spinning wheel provides livelihoods for weavers and spinners while also becoming a symbol for a nation’s indepen- 79 Tim Ingold, “Beyond Art and Technology: dence and celebrating the continued use of an aesthetic object of The Anthropology of Skill,” in Anthropo- beauty: the hand-spun khadi fabric. This expansion in meaning logical Perspectives on Technology, ed. demonstrates how design practice as cultural mediation of aes- Michael B. Schiffer (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), thetic values already present in society might be perceived as 17–33. incremental change, but in its ability to expand, change, and make 80 Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Nicola J. new meanings, it can become a radical tool of social change. Bidwell, and Edwin Blake, “Community To recognize the implications of cultural mediation, design- Consensus: Design Beyond Participa- ers have to recognize the reversal of social hierarchies that occurs tion,” Design Issues 28, no. 3 (Summer 2012): 90. when production of culture, rather than its consumption, is per- 82 81 Donald A. Norman and Roberto Verganti, formed by craftspeople. When designers facilitate this reversal, “Incremental and Radical Innovation: they shape new trajectories within which craftspeople can reclaim vs. Technology and Meaning Change,” Design Issues 30, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 78–96. 82 Trigg, “Veblen, Bourdieu, and Conspicuous Consumption,” 113.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00510 by guest on 28 September 2021 dignity in society.83 However, when designers focus on design work that enables craftspeople to acquire cultural capital, this out- come might not be recognized externally as a consequence of design practice, or of work done by designers.84 Thus, design prac- tice that facilitates social change for craftspeople must be made 83 This societal shift is not to be confused visible and argued for as an important outcome of design practice. with the socialism pursued by upper class aesthetes, social reformers, Designers who approach their work along these lines are more educators, and clergy at the turn of the likely to respect and advance the interests of the craftspeople with century in England, who aimed to bring whom they collaborate, while contriving new tools to design for beauty and light to the laboring poor social change. Design then becomes a democratizing paradigm for through “institutionalized aestheticism social change that is the indivisible quest for that which is mean- as a species of philanthropy.” See Diana Maltz, British Aestheticism and the ingful, equitable, and beautiful. Urban Working Classes, 1870–1900: Beauty for the People (Basingstoke: Acknowledgement Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 2. Most of what is in this paper is common knowledge among 84 Designers Latha Tummuru, Gopi Krishna, the inspiring and unsung designers who have spent the past Kamal, Jinnan, Tarun Deep Giridhar, Saktivel Vilvapathy, Sangita Sen, two decades and more striving to use their design expertise to and Aditi Shah Aman, in focus group effect social change for vulnerable craftspeople in India. I would discussions with the author, Jan 10, like to acknowledge with deep gratitude their generous sharing 2012, Hyderabad. of that knowledge.

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