Paper short abstract:

Using the case of handloom weavers in South India, this paper addresses obduracy and taciticity in embodied craft practices to conceptualize innovation that is applicable in contexts where obduracy and negotiation are more valued than change and disruption.

Paper long abstract:

Handloom weaving is the second most important livelihood in rural India after farming. Yet it is not always clear to policy makers and interventionists how to develop this sector. Standard notions of upgrading, scaling and improving productivity have proven counter-productive to the embodied nature of craft practices, destabilizing already vulnerable craft livelihoods. Craftspeople generally try to resist such change, and this is perceived as obduracy that comes in the way of their development. Instead, by analyzing handloom weaving as a socio-technology, it becomes possible to show how weaving communities are constantly innovating their technologies, designs, markets and social organization—even as their innovation remains tacit.

In this paper, I seek to address two related issues, obduracy and taciticity. While on the one hand we value technological change, on the other hand craft and craft practices are as old as mankind and have persisted right through industrialisation. This obduracy to change can be seen as positive -as stabilising livelihoods, maintaining social cohesion and sustaining the environment. Craftspeople also continuously engage their senses and bodily skills to transform material to standardized products. This engagement with a constantly varying material world makes craftspeople into problem solvers and innovators. Yet, this innovation expertise is tacit. Explicating this expertise requires us to conceptualise innovation that is normally seen as creative mental activity also as an embodied process. To this end, I elaborate on a concept of innovation in craft that is applicable in contexts where obduracy and negotiation are more valued than change and disruption.