A Participatory Approach to Design Education for the Crafts Sector James Fathers

University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Wales, UK

Current: 12-month research residency at: Srishti School of Art Design & Technology, Bangalore, India James Fathers graduated in Industrial Design in 1989. For the next 10 years he worked as a design engineer in the plastics moulding industry, and as a consultant to a European funded initiative ‘Design Wales’, providing design advice and support to Small to Medium Enterprises (SME’s). In 1998 he joined the staff of the School of Product & Engineering Design at UWIC and became the course director of the BSc Product Design & Manufacture. The primary focus of his teaching is user centred design. In November 2000 he took the opportunity to undertake a doctoral research programme alongside a full time teaching position. His area of Research interest is Design in Developing countries. Since September 2004 he has been a resident researcher at the Srishti School of Art Design & Technology in Bangalore. A recent research project initiated by the LTSN provided the opportunity to expand this theme, and the recently published book, The Travelling Case published by LTSN, documents this project. Email: [email protected]

This paper reports on recent findings from a doctoral investigation into appropriate design education methodologies and practices for crafts persons. The study has concentrated particularly on Indian craftsmen and has been conducted in collaboration with a number of Indian Higher Education Institutions. The paper argues that a participatory approach to design education in the crafts sector is a more sustainable approach in the long term. This assertion is based on a comprehensive literature review of the subject since 1950 as well as interviews with key persons in the field and first hand experience of a number of crafts education initiatives across South Asia. A participatory approach to design practice has been the subject of discussion for many years. In 1983 Victor Papanek commented that participatory techniques had been used to good effect in many disciplines such as medicine, law, planning and architecture, but he concluded that the design profession had “responded slowly if at all” (Papanek, 1983). The paper, however, recognizes that participatory techniques cannot simply be applied to any context as a panacea. To inform this argument it draws on the continuing debate in Development Studies around these issues. If it is not as simple as applying borrowed techniques from Development Studies, the question is then posed: Is there a productive way forward to conduct design education in a manner which responds to the needs of the crafts sector, as apposed the needs perceived by so-called expert designers and educators? These issues are discussed in the context of examples taken from exercises conducted during fieldwork with craftsmen and artisans. The paper concludes with an overview of initial research findings and an initial framework of principles defining appropriate and sustainable design education interventions in the context of Indian craft workers. Keywords: design, development, participation, crafts, training 1

Introduction

The theory of participatory approaches to design is not new, although the gap between theory and practice in the case of design is significant. This paper discusses the application of participatory techniques and approaches to the education of artisans in the craft sector in India. The primary argument of this paper is that a participatory approach to design training is more sustainable in the long term. Participatory design training is needed as it can begin to re-address the power relations between the trainer and those involved in the training. It recognizes that trainees

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have an active contribution to make to the learning experience, as they are the experts in the reality of their life and work. As Balaram so succinctly put it “Most artisans are poor as well as illiterate. Nevertheless, they are highly skilled and well ‘educated’ in terms of the long and rich experience… It is aptly said that in oral cultures where an artisan dies, 100 libraries are burnt down” (Balaram, 1998b). Participatory design training gives an opportunity for the trainees to creatively express their ideas, opinions and priorities. To some degree it at least allows the opportunity for participants to set the agenda and therefore is a more sustainable process, and there is likely to be increased ownership in the learning process. In addition it allows for more peer level training and sharing of existing knowledge and experience. Before these issues are discussed, it may be helpful to address the question: Why is it helpful to offer training to artisans? One simplistic way to address this question would be to cite the large number of organisations involved in this activity from government initiatives through to small NGO groups. If such a large number of groups and governments across the developing world think it is a good use of time and resources to train artisans in order to promote sustainable livelihoods then it must have some perceived value. However to address the question more rationally, I turn to a number of authors in the design field. David Poston, in his doctoral thesis (Poston, 1991), and a later book on the same subject, concludes that training in design and analytical decision-making could play a significant part in the activities of a small workshop and make an essential contribution to its development. He coins the term contextual training, which he describes as a method which allows for “...the continuing development of skills by both direct transfer and empirical development, and facilitates the acquisition of vocational skills by illustrating continually the relevance of the context, and encourages the trainees to judge the validity of what is being transferred, particularly where the training capacity of the community itself has been developed” (Poston, 1994). Balaram expands this argument commenting on appropriate design education methods in developing countries: “Instead of ‘parroting’ borrowed design processes and education…it must be an appropriate process which fits the people, their cultural minds, their economic conditions, their own skills and their available resources.” He proposes an alternative approach which he terms ‘barefoot designers’: “What is now required …is not a skilled designer…but a broad based, socially well integrated, humane designer with a broad global vision” (Balaram, 1998c). In India, with its population of over a billion and an estimated 650 million of these living in 500,000 villages, Balaram’s proposal for ‘barefoot designers’ seems all the more relevant and appropriate (Balaram, 1986). However with an estimated 30-40% of the population being craftsmen of some form (Aziz, 1994) the task of making design training available to this group of people is vast. Even if every one of the approximately 2000+ designers which have graduated from India’s design institutions since their inception were interested and motivated to spend all their time addressing the needs of the crafts sector this would not even scratch the surface. So… Is the solution to the problem to train craftsmen to be designers? This in turn poses the question, what is a designer? In his paper provocatively titled “The Best Designers in the World?” Victor Papanek states that “If we define design as finding working solutions that are immediately applicable to problems in the real world, the answer, or my answer at least, is readily apparent: Inuit are the best designers. They are forced

into

excellence

by

climate

environment

and

their

space

c o n c e p t s .”

In highlighting untrained designers as the ‘best’ Papanek is sending a clear message questioning the monopoly of institutionally trained designers. (Papanek, 1995)

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Phillip Pacey, in his paper ‘Anyone designing anything?’ continues this argument looking at nonprofessional designers in the history of design. He argues that the concept of design being a process that all human beings engage in is in danger of being marginalized to the point of extinction by an over-emphasis on design as a professional activity. He highlights a wide variety of examples, which illustrate the case for the recognition of non-professional design. He concludes by saying; “To declare that we are all designers is no longer (if it ever was) to state a ‘truism’ of such obviousness as to merit no attention whatsoever. It is to draw attention to a category of design which in becoming marginalized, has a radical, subversive role to fulfil, and which deserves to be encouraged, alongside and in dialogue with professional design” (Pacey, 1992). He further suggests that design should “…enlarge its role, even beyond reaching down to help people who are presumed to be helpless, to include empowering the designer in everyone” (Pacey, 1992). Luiz Guimãres in his PhD study focussed on artisans in Brazil. As the result of his research he defines design as “…a process, which is not the sole domain of formally trained categories such as engineers, architects and industrial designers.” (Guimarães, 1995) In a later paper he expands the point by saying that: “Those that consider professional design as the only alternative for product development will limit the potential of design interventions for the poor. Rather industrial design must be understood as a tool for development, one that is part of the wider strategy to bring together all who are involved in enterprise development. Enhancing a small firms design capacity and technical expertise would give the most innovative an advantageous position in the market, thus supplementing a firm’s potential for survival and growth.” (Guimaraes, 2000) And finally Balaram from an Indian perspective states: “Innovative men from all walks of life — the poorest street vendor, the social worker, the engineer, the craftsman and the teacher are designers without being called so” (Balaram, 1998a). It would, therefore, seem that there are some grounds to encourage, facilitate and empower artisans to undertake design activities as part of their crafts practice as a means of improving their products and in turn contributing towards a more sustainable livelihood. In order to provide a context for this paper the following story of a local potters village is related.

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A Potter’s Story

Ramkrishnapa is a potter who works in a village of potters North of Bangalore. His family are potters and he started to help in the family workshop at the age of seven. At fifteen he set up a small workshop in his own right and has been working in a similar small scale for the past 28yrs. In 1988 he got married and chose to move to his wife’s village. An unconventional decision, but one prompted by a number of influences, the main one being the village was close to the city and therefore had a greater chance of selling products for a higher price. Soon after he was married, he was invited to attend a training course at the local governmenttraining centre. During the course he learned that if he made other items apart from the traditional ware, such as Chula and water pots, he might be able to charge a higher price. At the end of the course he experimented with making other items such as lamps, flower vases and storage pots as well as Ganesha and other religious items. Many of these were the result of exercises run during his training. After the course the training centre would send him referrals for clients and orders. A couple of years later he was invited to do another course at a local centre for design training. This time the content was more design based and he was paid a stipend during the three-month course. Afterwards he returned to his village to further develop a range of non-traditional designed items.

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He also arranged to rent a small stall in one of the suburbs of Bangalore to sell his products, which is now run by one of his sons. Slowly his interest in making non-traditional products rubbed off on the other villagers. His brother in law started to make other items and others also experimented. The older potters in the village looked on and said, “we’ll see.” About four years ago the Taluk Panchayat asked him to train the other potters in the village, in the skills he had developed. These could loosely be termed as design and innovation skills. Today the potters in the village make a range of items. The older craftsmen have continued to make traditional items but the majority of them at some points in the year, especially in preparation for the major festivals, make a wider range of craft based products, which have some elements of design. This village may be atypical in that there are probably many other villages that have had less design training input, both as direct external input as well as from local trainers. However, what can be taken from this village scenario, are the strategies for interaction and methods of discovering needs. In this vein, the key issue of interest is that this group of potters have never been asked what do they want to learn. Nor have they been asked what would be most useful to them since all of the prescribed training materials were put together by experts in the field of design, without consultation. In a recent discussion about possible further training, Ramkrishnapa expressed frustration saying, “We don’t need another course on firing methods or marketing. What we really need is help to design products which will sell.” Some may suggest that artisans are not in a position to know what they really need and even if they do have some idea, they don’t have the ability to communicate it effectively. Others may make the point that in the majority of training and education contexts, the content and programme is designed by experts and has no input from the trainees, and of course this would be right. However, it has been well established by prominent experts in the field of development, that unless training is related to the needs and context of the trainees, it has little chance of any sustainable impact on their continuing practice (Poston, 1994, Grierson, 1997, Frost, 1991).

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Participation

Participatory techniques grew during the 70’s and early 80’s out of agricultural development initiatives in Southeast Asia. At that time, it was called Rapid Rural Appraisal RRA. In recent years, the term Participatory Rural Appraisal PRA has become popular. The rural element of this term has remained but the techniques have been used in many non-rural situations. They have been extensively used over the last decade to attempt to access the real needs of communities in order to reflect these priorities in any development plan (Chambers, 1983). One of the problems with participation in development projects is that it can be merely lip service to a required methodology. True participation in development needs local people to participate in more than the planning stage of a project, or merely identifying their own ‘real needs.’ Local people need to be actively involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of projects. They need to be equal partners in the process, recognizing that project workers and local people have different roles to play and different expertise in the various stages of the project, and most importantly, the primary concern must be to facilitate sustainable continuation of the initiative once external project workers have withdrawn. One of the critiques of the participatory process is Majid Rahnema. As mentioned earlier, he is a leading voice in what has been termed the ‘post development school.’ In his article entitled ‘The Last Temptation of Saint Development,’ he suggests that participatory action is simply putting a human face on the existing patriarchal system. He questions whether the changes are as different as they seem. “…What the ‘change agents’ actually do is quite a disturbing question. Are they

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really embarking on a learning journey into the unknown, where everything has to be discovered? Or are they concerned more about finding the most appropriate participatory ways to convince the ‘uneducated’ of the merits of their own educated convictions?” He goes on to comment on the dangers of empowerment: “When A considers it is essential for B to be empowered, A assumes not only that B has no power but that A has the secret formulae of a power to which B has to be initiated.” He concludes by saying that in his view participation fails because by definition it is designed to affect a change in the short term. True participation, he suggests, is undertaken on much longer timescales, building relationships and becoming involved in communities and above all being “…critically self aware and yet passionately compassionate, by fully participating in the world, such a person becomes not only ones own change agent but one who by the same token changes the world.” (Rahnema, 1990). Rahnema, when considering intervention, asks the question, “Who are we, who am I to intervene in other people’s lives when we know so little of about any life, including our own?” and goes on to suggest that intervention should be considered very carefully when an outside body proposes an intervention, “Hence the need… to be aware that he or she is launched on an adventure fraught with considerable danger. Such awareness makes it necessary for interveners to start examining the why’s and wherefore of their actions. Exceptional personal qualities are needed to prevent ‘well intentioned’ interventions producing results contrary to those planned - as has been the case in most ‘developmental’ and many ‘humanitarian’ instances” (Rahnema, 1990). It would, therefore, seem wise to conclude that although there are many benefits to be accrued by following a participatory framework, there are also a number of potential negative impacts, which need to be kept in mind. These, as Rahnema suggests, can be summed up by being self-aware and asking the question repeatedly and honestly, ‘Whose agenda am I following?’ Or to put it in another way as Chambers did in the title of his book in 1997, ‘Who’s Reality Counts?’(Chambers, 1997).

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Participation & Design

Participatory designers… Is this a contradiction in terms? What do we mean by participatory practice? For a concise definition I will turn to Robert Chambers, a recognised expert and occasionally a controversial figure in the field of participation. He defines it as: “…A family of approaches, methods and behaviours that enable people to express and analyse the realities of their lives and conditions, to plan themselves what action to take, and to monitor and evaluate the results (Chambers and James, 1996). One of the key issues that need to be addressed is the existing lack of participatory practice amongst the design community. If we take the above working definition and look at the current design practice, we find that over the 20 years in which these issues have been discussed, there is little evidence to suggest that the design community has engaged in any tangible manner, or paid anything but lip service to the concepts of a participatory approach to design activity. This is particularly evident in design education. Victor Papanek was one of the first to suggest the use of participatory approaches to design projects. He suggests that the design profession has “responded slowly if at all.” He attributes this lack of response to the fact that consumers have not forced the profession to behave in a participatory manner and attributes this in turn to the invisibility of the profession. In the intervening years one might suggest that the profession has ‘come out of the closet’ but the accessibility of the design process has improved little if at all. Papanek gives examples of many projects that encourage user participation. He concludes by stating: “Participation in design is based on trust. Although most people are inexperienced in design and are not used to working with designers, the design profession must reach out and ease the way for dialogue. The task is difficult, but it is absolutely essential if design is not to bankrupt itself morally. Only in this way will the designer become a tool in the hands of the people” (Papanek, 1983).

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As part of her PhD study Southwell conducted a number of interviews with practising designers. She concluded that the level of engagement with users and potential customers was surprisingly low. Her findings point strongly towards a majority in the profession that has little interest in engaging the views of the customer, rather preferring to prescribe their perception of the consumers wants and needs. One design manager, when questioned on how his team of male designers had designed a product for a female market, stated, “We have a bunch of hermaphrodites upstairs.” When asked how this team engaged with user issues faced by females, he said, “You have to cast yourself in other peoples shoes… do a mind bender” (Southwell, 1999). There are of course exceptions to this rule in the work of consultancies such as IDEO, Design Continuum and Sonic Rim, but on the whole these practices are seen as being an unaffordable and unnecessary luxury, both in terms of time as well as money. In a recent workshop for industrial designers in India, Uday Dandavate of Sonic Rim proposed the concept of ‘co-creation,’ suggesting that “Co-creation treats these stakeholders not as passive respondents but as active constructors.” He went on to say that “The seeds of user relevant design can be found in the dreams and ideas of everyday people“ (Dandavate, 2004). In the broader field of design, participatory techniques are not new. They have been used in architecture for a number of years, and have had a mixed reception. Lawrence looks at a number of examples of participatory design in architecture, and suggests that a clear methodology for participation should be established to combat the accusation of ‘design puppetry’ (Lawrence, 1982). One example where such techniques have been used to great effect in recent years is the Pen yr Englyn School in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales. The building has had a very positive effect, involving the whole community in the design of the project as well as the subsequent life of the school, concentrating particularly on giving space for marginalized groups. In addition the architect was nominated for the prestigious ‘Sterling Prize’ and was described as the best example of ‘joined up thinking’ in architecture in many years (Woods, 2000) (Young, 2000).

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Design in a Development Context

If we look at design practice in a development sphere, we need to take in to account two threads: one of a potential devaluing of participatory practice in the field of development; and a general lack of participatory practice in the field of design. J Corlett, in a conference paper in 1997, proposes that designers have a critical set of skills, which are of decisive importance to a nation’s development. ‘By part of their training and something of a natural inclination, designers are able to perceive and act upon potential problems and opportunities’ (Corlett, 1997). She notes that these skills point to another important reason to introduce design education in Developing Countries: ‘There are skills that designers possess in analysis and synthesis, which could be used for other purposes than the creation of objects. This ‘discovery’ appears to be encouraging designers to view their skills in a much more general context than has hitherto been offered. Surely this is the central key to understanding why design education is vitally important in development situations’ (Corlett, 1997). In India in particular, these issues were raised in possibly the most significant initiative for design in the subcontinent: the Eames Report, which stressed the need for design education and its impact at a grass roots level (Eames, 1991). However over 30 years after the Eames report, Chattergee, an Indian design theorist, concluded: “Design has emerged as a high profile activity, indispensable to quality in sophisticated sectors of manufacture and communication. Yet the original inspiration for bringing design to this land – to lift the quality of life for millions living at the margins of existence in villages and urban slums – remains virtually untouched” (Chattergee, 1990).

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Pacey, commenting on design activity in a development context, reinforces this point saying: “When design professions have emerged within developing countries they have generally done so in response to Western influence, and professional designers have found themselves designing Western-style products for an affluent elite rather than serving the more urgent needs of people at large; needs which might best be served by reviving and developing indigenous craft and another practices which were undermined by colonialism, and by regarding people themselves, their culture and their identity as a resource” (Pacey, 1992). There is, of course, clear evidence to counter Chattergee’s criticism, especially in the work of India’s design Institutions, but the challenge still remains. And as with many things in the subcontinent the job is one of vast proportions. The emphasis on the grassroots impact of design is precisely the aim of participatory design training. In recent years a number of authors have suggested its importance in design practice. Masera worked with artisans to produce accessible training in sustainable product development. He suggests that the training should be “as practical and participatory as possible based on the artisans’ own experience and existing knowledge” (Masera, 1999). Kogi, in a paper dealing with ergonomics in Small & Medium Enterprises (SME’s) particularly in the context of industrially developing countries, points to an increase in the role of participatory approaches both in Western industry as well as in a development context. He states that these methods “…are characterised by their enabling methods that facilitate the local change process.” (Kogi, 1997) Southwell, in a conference paper, suggests that participatory methods could be used to redress the imbalance in the relationship between designers and users particularly in a development context (Southwell, 1997). However, in the course of this research since 1998, the author has found little evidence of sustained initiatives that have made a positive impact on the livelihood of artisans. Southwell supports this conclusion saying, “The opportunities for participatory design are currently only available in theory… and although there is revealing criticism of participatory processes in the literature… there is potential for good practice” (Southwell, 1999).

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Fieldwork Examples

Since 1998 the author has been involved in design work in developing countries particularly in South Asia. In November 2000 this work was consolidated into a research proposal for a PhD programme. The programme to date has consisted of a critical review including a literature review and interviews with key figures in the field (Fathers, 2003). The research has been extended with a number of field research exercises in Sri Lanka and India. The most recent of these is a 12-month residency in Bangalore, Karnataka. The primary purpose of this extended field research is to observe, record and analyse appropriate strategies and methodologies for design training for the crafts sector. The initial work will centre on the small village near to Bangalore described in the earlier story. The following section will describe in some detail two recent field research initiatives and will then outline initial research conclusions. The River Exercise: One of the most successful techniques tested to date is a participatory analysis tool, ‘The River’. This tool was a development of a technique described in Robert Chambers’ book ‘Participatory Workshops.’ In it he briefly describes an icebreaking technique called ‘The River of life,’ the aim of which is to describe significant events and choices in one’s life via the visual image of a river (Chambers, 2002).

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This concept was used as the core of an analysis tool to facilitate the life cycle of product development. It was envisaged that it could be used either in a group context as the basis of discussion and reflection, or as a diagnostic tool for individual artisans to map the methods they use to develop a product. The technique was initially run as intended, as the basis of a discussion on product development, visually charting the influences and decisions taken along the route from idea to market. The river metaphor was well accepted once the participants had understood the reason for visual mapping using an abstract metaphor. The participants quickly added to the metaphor, discussing the seasonal flow of rivers and product sales. The concept of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection was also discussed prompted by the concept of the removal of water from the river. During the discussion one of the facilitators suggested, “The River is not frightened that people are taking water because she is strong and she knows that her water will always flow.” This sparked a conversation on constant innovation being a guard against IPR theft. This analogy was then further developed by describing the hydrological (rain water) cycle of sea to clouds and then to rainfall at the head of the river. This was used to illustrate the need for connection with the market, which had been previously identified as the sea, emphasising that this connection and subsequent information will stimulate the flow of ideas to keep the river running. The river illustration was developed via discussion with the participants. The facilitators were the main sources of illustration, drawing connections and asking prompting questions, but by the end of the process, the whole group had bought into the process. Once the various stages had been mapped, they were revisited to discuss in more depth adding further connections and influences. This technique was also used later in the workshop to emphasis some of their own priorities such as the importance of drawing and the need for variety in the market place. One of the most important concepts highlighted was that of user-centred design and how the needs and requirements of the user influenced the design process. The resultant visual map was left on the wall for the whole workshop and was often referred to, illustrating a point or reinforcing an issue. User-centred Design: Another key theme that has emerged from field research is the importance of the user in the development of products. A number of exercises have been tested to emphasise this issue, the purpose being to encourage the artisans to interact with the users of their products and so discover how they can make improvements to better meet their needs. ‘It’s for everyone’ In general the initial response of the artisans, when asked who a particular product was aimed at, would be to suggest that it could be aimed at anyone and everyone. The idea that a product should be aimed at a particular target market seemed to be an alien and limiting concept. However, once they had engaged in discussions with potential users, they began to understand that in order to meet user-needs a product had to be targeted at a particular population with particular needs, aspirations and desires. In one particular exercise the participants were initially introduced to the idea of specific user requirements via a question and answer game involving a selection of products. A range of bags was then displayed and the question was asked, ‘Whom does this bag belong to?’ The game then progressed asking which bag would belong to a specific person in the group and when would they use it? The game illustrated that these issues had generally not been considered before and that judgements were based on preconceptions.

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Figure 1. A development of this concept as illustrated expands on the input of user information.

Figure 2. In this second model the analysis and assimilation of users needs are explored. The model illustrates the development path followed by those artisans who included user information in the development of new designs.

A second phase of this exercise was to design and make an oil lamp for one of the facilitators. Again, this underlined the fact that asking questions of a user was an alien concept, so products were produced based on what they thought the user would like, without asking any questions. This process was then extended by asking the participants to question an existing product using the 5 ‘W’s & an ‘H’ as a framework, e.g. ‘Who is it for?’ ‘How is it used?’ These then became a framework of questions to ask potential users. Both of these field trials yielded valuable information, both immediately in the form of observations, images and recorded conversations, and later in comparisons with previous field experience, providing insights and connections. These collected initial conclusions are outlined below.

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Initial Research Conclusions

The River The river exercise has proved to be a versatile method of engaging a group of artisans in discussions about their practice. The success of this initial trial could well point towards a range of diagnostic visual mapping and illustration techniques for use in focusing training to specific local needs. The use of illustration as a problem exploration/solving technique is well established in the field of creativity training. However the innovation here seems to be the corporate nature of the activity, which in turn facilitates discussion and provides a visual narrative onto which further discussions can be mapped. The technique needs to be refined and from this initial trial there are a number of small modifications that will be tested. These are:

• • •

Using the technique at the end of the workshop as an evaluation tool Using the techniques as individuals and then later as a group Using a simplified version of the technique as an ice breaker and then following the established metaphor with the technique as piloted in Srishti

An Iterative Cycle During the period of reflection since the workshop, a cyclical pattern has been identified based on the observations of the artisan’s product development process. In general terms, the process begins with the idea phase, and progresses via the making and selling phases. In the river exercise, this was expanded to reflect the hydrological cycle as seen below. The point that was made during this

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exercise was that unless information from the market is fed back into the ideas phase in the form of trends and user needs, then the flow will dry up. The use of the term ‘exposure’ in this model denotes an embryonic or transition mode. As the artisan becomes more comfortable with the practice, this phase would be better described as research. Having expressed the development cycle in this manner, the similarities between the standard western development models are evident. This is not surprising as the priorities of user need balanced with sales are equally important to both groups. Rapid Iterative Exercises One strong conclusion from recent field research has been the benefit of rapid iteration exercises in three dimensions. This is a technique that has been well used in Western design education in exercises with card and foam, and can easily be imitated in this context using materials such as clay, and even for other crafts sectors using other materials. The insights gained by rapid iteration can be drawn out and reinforced, particularly as the artisans are comfortable with their materials and skills, and therefore, can make a series of fast ideas in three dimensions to explore a form or potential solution far faster and easier than trying to use sketching, which is far more common in traditional design education.

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Conclusions

The author concludes that the design profession is still struggling with its identity. Over three decades after Western designers began to question the human and social role of design, there is little evidence that the design community is making any progress in setting goals, standards and strategies, which derive from or respond to the needs of society. Or as Ekuan puts it, “Design seems to be in a state of stagnation in terms of both ideology and activities. One gets the impression that design has drawn apart to simply keep watch while the world grapples with numerous problems” (Ekuan, 1997). Designers have a clear role to play in the crafts and artisan sector as facilitators and enablers, to empower design activity at a grassroots level and promote self-propagating indigenous training and mentoring initiatives. These will extend the influence of design far wider than one design course or institution ever could. As Guimarães states, “The role of the designer may be that of an ‘enabler’ or a ‘catalyst’ cooperating with the small entrepreneurs to develop their own capacity and their own ideas, introducing new techniques, exchanging experiences and learning with the local innovators” (Guimarães, 1995). Participatory approaches to training offer the opportunity to facilitate this type of activity in a manner that both reflects and responds to the priorities of the recipient crafts community, rather than that of an institution or funding body. A further benefit which has the potential of going a long way to address the magnitude of the challenge, particularly in India, is the that of artisans being trained, who in turn train others. This potential of exponential growth is greatly needed if design is to make any meaningful, sustainable impact in this context. Another key issue is that of time. As Rahnema stressed in the paper quoted earlier, time to build relationships and spending time to be involved in a community, will go along way to ensuring a sustainable result in any intervention. To the trainer, the difference between empowering and dis-empowering practice can be very small, although the effects on the artisan and craftsman can be far reaching. In a paper on empowerment Labonte illustrates this difference by quoting a challenge to professionals made by Lilly Walker, an Australian aboriginal woman:

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National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, India

“If you are here to help me then you are wasting your time. But if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us begin.” Lilly Walker (Labonte, 1994).

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