SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR PREFERRED CHANGE - 2

1 - COLLABORATING ON DATA

I spent 10 days talking to various artisanal communities at the Dastakar Nature Bazaar. I chose to speak to artisans who have experienced technology disrupt their production or face competition from mechanised goods. I then went on to plot their individual craft journeys on to Janus Cones to look for key shifts that might have occurred within their craft systems which could have perhaps led the craft traditions to their current situation. 

(Barring the Khurja potters, all other artisans spoke of neglect and lack of any future aspirations in the artisanal world. This was a strange revelation as Khurja pottery has seen varied technological interventions being made to it. Tools like molds, slips, etc. were introduced to aid scaling of production. Khurja has also been developed as a production-based artisanal cluster, I wonder if the act fashioning a locational community of artisans has also helped this craft form organise better. This also takes me back to my hypothesis that technology introduced with care can result in resurgence. Will discuss more on this as we go forth.) 

(Readings: Playbook for Strategic Foresight and Innovation, NESTA)

Take a look at the journey maps below.  

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2- A COMPLEX SYSTEM EMERGES 

Post my interactions with the various stakeholders of the system which included Large NGO's and Individual designers, I remapped my understanding of the Artisanal System and it looked nothing like my initial map! This new system was complex beyond recognition ( I think it is still not complete). 

The embedded space of livelihoods exploded into a complex web of human interconnectedness. The external collaborators like NGO's had turned into 'hybrid middlemen' in this new map! 

Here is the system that emerged  - 

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Both from the structural and the manifested front it was fairly evident that each part of the Artisanal System had different values, litanies, and needs. I took note of these to better understand on what points do the 3 systems converge. I also listed what I thought could be possible solutions to these litanies. 

(Readings: An Opportunity to Act for Systemic Change)

A) THE ARTISAN

Values: To continue the process the production to aid a livelihood, earn money and tend a family. Mere survival is the current scenario. 

Goals: Make ends meet today. Work towards moving the future generations of out of the system. 

Litanies: 

1. Artisanal work is not a valuable practice. 
2. White-collar work commands more respect. 
3. Education / Schooling will create a better future and more income. Educating future generations is better than continuing this work. 
4. The new world does not need our ‘outdated’ products. Hence changing our designs (to whatever form) to suit a new order is ok.
5. Governmental systems fail us. We are not powerful enough to take decisions and make changes to our system by ourselves. 
6. Middlemen making large profits are ok as long as our products sell. 

Needs: 

1. Collaborative support systems that appreciate identity and socio-cultural value of artistic traditions beyond the economy. 
2. Sustainable livelihood through crafts.
3. Efforts to situate the crafts in the modern world without leaving it to the mercy of consumer fancy. 
4. Support in training, capacity building, and self-sufficiency in a rapidly changing environment. 
5. Support to market and price without middlemen as decision-makers.  

B) COLLABORATIVE SYSTEMS - (Government)

Values: Focus on poverty alleviation through welfare schemes will resolve the issues faced by artisans. Crafts are a sunset economy. Industrialisation is a national priority. 

Goals: Work towards poverty alleviation of artisans. 

Litanies: 

1. External support in design, marketing and credit are all that is needed to sustain this system. 
2. Artisanal practices can be supported by setting up committees and departments of policy. 
3. Poverty is what is making artisans give up their practice. This can be remedied by welfare measures. 
4. Value of crafts is dwindling as the methods pursued are outdated and the use of technology can change this. 
5. Craft traditions are 'rural' hence low skill. 
6. Providing access to national and international markets will sustain the practice. 

Needs: 

1. Identify the soul of artisanal practices that go beyond livelihood, it is these factors that make the practice relevant to the practitioners. 
2. Work in cohesion with all groups to understand the etymology of craft and culture, beyond the economy.  

C) SUPPORTING SYSTEMS ( Large NGO’s, Retailers, Middlemen)

Values: Create markets for artisanal crafts.

Goals: Create self-sufficiency and sustainability for artisanal crafts. Develop and sustain organisational goals and profit to continue advocacy.

Litanies: 

1. Artisans need help with marketing and design.
2. Developing sourcing and marketing pipelines will encourage artists to continue the tradition. 
3. Creating market-friendly products will sustain the crafts. 
4. Artisans need to create for the consumer. 
5. Quality and uniformity are important to persuade consumers to buy artisanal craft. 
6. Artisans need ‘us’ to survive. 

Needs:

1. Move beyond mere 'market generation'. 
2. Rethink the ‘sourcing outlook’. 
3. Develop an understanding of the craft as a slow, persistent and stubborn ecosystem. 
4. Advocate and situate craft as a societal, historical and traditional system of relevance which can also generate value. 

3 - VALUES WITHIN THE ARTISANAL SYSTEM 

Upon finding that the interventions by all stakeholders in the system was around the idea of 'exchange' or 'creating economy' I tried plotting the 'core values' and 'metaphors' that shape these systems. This meant situating each of these systems within their beliefs and domains of experience generation. I had all along held that Artisanal Systems are a shared experience, they belong as much to creating cultural meaning, as they do in creating economy or livelihood.
Through this Value Map, I could see that, though these varied systems share a few values between all of them, interactions between The Economy and The Artisan are limited to sharing money and exchange alone, and the deeper meanings of artisanal practices are lost in this paradigm of exchange. How had we arrived at such a transactional relationship with our 'shared heritage' was a question that loomed largely.
(Readings: Economies Of Life - Bill Sharpe & Causal Layered Analysis - Sohail Inayatullah)  

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I then went on to use Causal Layered Analysis to see if it would throw a new understanding of the system I was studying. I found the method extremely gratifying and liberating to use. In using this frame I tried thinking metaphorical at all levels and did not restate facts/statistics/policy, for I had used them in other structure-based frameworks. My attempt here was to see if there were large shifts in our myths due to the changing visceral quality of our interaction with the crafts ecosystem and life in general.  I did question if this method is sans any of my internal biases, however, I am pretty bought on few of the ideas that emerged from CLA, and will enquire them further in the next phase. 

Take a look

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4 - PROGRESSION OF THE ARTISANAL SYSTEM 

Craft traditions in India are almost 3000 years old. It is only natural that time and tide change their course in terms of design or usability. However, I found difficult to see this decline only as a byproduct of poor governmental policy, liberalisation or technology. In fact, many of the artisans I spoke to were happy to have E-commerce in their lives. The weavers wished they had got more support in the early days to install power-looms so as not to give up on their craft completely! We could have retained the handlooms too if we had a reason to continue weaving, they said.

The artisans were unhappy however with their rural status, or with what the rural economy had to offer them. Their aspirations for the future is mostly urban. They understand that the middleman makes money off them, that they create for an audience they don't understand. And yet India is the second-largest exporter of handicrafts in the world! That the Indian artisan cannot navigate his home market makes me wonder whether our detachment from these traditions began a long while ago. As we are talking of a social system that is centuries old, on a Progression Map, I plotted the craft economy to understand what movements, people and values changed at specific points in history, and what the implications of these changes dealt with the craft eco-system.

Take a look.

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After engaging with Progression Map and the other tools that I used, some of my big emerging ideas in this phase of inquiry are - 

1. Reducing artisanal practices to a system of production, exchange, and consumption has destroyed the integrity and identity of the artisanal community and its practices. 
2. The 'economy of meaning' has been distorted by 'the economy of exchange'. 
3. Restoring the disconnection must begin by finding ways to rebuild the balance between the artisan and his craft. 
4. 'Urban' and 'Rural' are words that evoke strong metaphorically meanings of two opposing worlds. 

5 - THINKING THROUGH THE 3 HORIZONS 

Post these findings I was feeling so completely down with the dismal state of affairs. Isn't there anything happening I wondered, that could reverse some of these conditions? It was the sheer problematic, disheartening state of my data that compelled me to look deeper, probe at new emerging trends, and take note of how these could perhaps be the murmurings of a new order taking shape within the system.

I plotted these ideas on the 3 Horizons, not with the intention of conclusively plotting the future but to locate, identify, and recognise new emerging trends within the current system. The future aspirations on this graph are purely based on my current understanding and are bound to change. 

Take a look.

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In using the framework of the 3 Horizons I experienced these learnings - 

1. Situate current/ present data as the start point, while being aware of the values and embedded social factors that have emerged from previous methods. 
2. Probe deeper into the current societal patterns to locate shifts. These could perhaps we extrapolated to the future.
3. Look at the system through varied other economies, I looked at tourism, hobby clubs etc. as supporting trends, I doubt I would have made these are connections if not for the Horizon approach.
4. Recognise efforts that are already a part of the system.  
5. Keeping the past and the present as anchors note practices that need to be amplified for the system to move ahead when planning for change. 

6 - CONCLUSION

By engaging in these multiple Systemic Approaches I have been able to identify crucial values, influences, and historical movements of the Artisanal System. I am also able to view the system as an interconnected sequence of progression, decline, and resurgence. This process has also opened for me the complexity and dynamism of social systems and their relational nature. I wonder if there can ever be one path to fix any societal system, this seems like a large and messy web :)