The image below illustrates the Padlet layout for the ‘Root Techniques’ page, on clicking on each tab you can download an ebook version of the field report with the framework included.
Having worked at Central Saint Martins for 21 years with BA and MA Jewellery design as a technical specialist and being of white European origin I am very aware of the lack of ethnic diversity in the techniques that we teach.
Our methodologies are very Eurocentric in style despite that fact that many of the processes and techniques that we use have external origins from Africa and Asia, all the areas the European empire spread to. Fousting our culture onto the colonized areas but at the same time absorbing technical abilities and cultural flavours as it went.
These processes have been mixed with our own to become what we consider ‘standard’ practice with in the industry whether it be stone setting, patination , weaving or surface finishing and this processes of homogenising has spread across all creative disciplines. What we need to remember it has a long sequence of variations spanning many cultures.
Within the framework of higher education we have a vast and diverse student cohort who come here to be educated in a world renown teaching system in what we deem to be best practice, standard methodology but what we’re actually doing is teaching a blended form of process, many of which originate from countries that were former European colonies.
The Action research project is a opportunity for decolonizing the curriculum, where we can highlight the artistic and craft contribution that the rest of the world has provided and acknowledging the cultural history and inspiring background to these processes.
During my initial research some sample readings caught my eye in particular Ethnographic writing. I’ve long been a fan of Sidetrack magazine, an adventure sports magazine and National Geographic, both of which often have articles written in an ethnographic style where the authors burrow down into the surrounding culture of an object or culture of interest to give a broad panorama for the reader to be informed or generate their own line of enquiry and in doing so foster inclusivity and cultural appreciation.
One article ‘Writing small discoveries, an exploration of fresh observers; observations. Tjora (2006) demonstrated small frameworks and methods to create such reports, describing the pros and cons alongside. This captured exactly what I wanted to create whilst highlighting the need to be aware of our own biases in the process, the styles of ethnographic writing and what might be best placed for a first time field report style for students to undertake as part of DiPS ( Diploma in professional studies ).
Another paper that I found quite inspiring was ‘Analyzing analytic autoethnography’ Ellis & Brochner (2005). The paper being presented as a conversation between a couple that examines different styles of ethnographic writing with each style it demonstrates the possibilities and weakness inherent to the process. It’s with Tjora’s (2006) more evocative style that may be more appealing where we take a painterly approach and encompass fine detail about the situation, direct and indirectly affecting the process. This would give the reader more information to build a curiosity about the process being investigated.
Ethnographic writing may facilitate the richest pickings of information about artisanal techniques and the position they hold in communities and the related industry, I do think these still have to be approached slightly naively to resist our own influence and biases being incorporated.
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Initial research
I opted for a 10 question online questionnaire for which I received 27 replies from jewellery design students alone. Overall I wanted to gauge how represented they feel in what is presented in design and making skills.
When asked if students felt if their culture was represented by higher education as a whole attitudes are very agnostic despite the great efforts that educational institutes make to try and create an encompassing environment. A further look into this would be interesting, and what cultures are being represented and what ones not so. Are these home students whose families come from other cultures or is it the transient students who may not permanently reside here or in Europe.
A curiosity in outcomes came from another two questions where I asked ” Do you feel the university actively promotes cultural diversity in teaching resources?” and a large 44% replied ‘Yes’ opposed to 26% ‘No’. These results are contradicted somewhat when asked to gauge to what level students feel made aware of process that are not common in Europe, showing relatively low levels.
When put to the students simply if they would like to see teaching material demonstrating artisan techniques from around the world a massive 96% said ‘Yes’ and 4% ‘Maybe’, I’m amazed at the 4% had some reservation at all.
When brooching whether a database or hub for international craft & design techniques would be useful the outcome was very positive.
The whole project depends on the contributions of staff and students so there has to be either be some willingness to create these voluntarily or they become a compulsory and active part of the DiPS programme where perhaps they produced just one over the course of the year. Voluntarily 46% said ‘Yes’ and 42% said ‘Maybe’ and 11% ‘No’.
Everybody seemed very enthusiastic about this project when we discussed it’s potential as a learning tool and its transferability between disciplines. Below gives an indication of the diversity in techniques that where interested in, many originating from southeast Asia as does a large part of our student cohort and perhaps the perhaps the 33% that felt their culture to be underrepresented in higher education.
The Framework
The framework is composed of a series of prompts for the budding field reporter to follow and build a panoramic view of the process they’re investigating as well as to create a sense of continuity for the reports themselves.
I found information on the sight ‘insight7.i0’ very useful for helping me formulate ethnographically styled prompts, deciding on what areas needed to be investigated and to what level. This was really great information as I perhaps might not have thought to drill down to a personal level with the environment and it’s at that level, the level where it’s not just the process but fabric of the workshop, the dynamic of those who work there and their roles even the patina that this work forms on the tools and the hands that create rich image of what’s happing.
The ethnographic prompts should included elements such as:
Human behaviour, cultural and social elements, gender, materials, environment, sound & images, patina and smell amongst others.
I was lucky through just discussing my project with students that three approached me willing to take part, one of whom wanted to tell her story of her families Cuban and Jamaican roots and the family tradition of sugar cane weaving. The other two participants, I gave some pre-recorded material that I was granted permission to use by the V&A and The Cultural Affairs dept of the Government of Japan. I discussed what it was I was looking for and provided the framework prompts to each author, it was the first week in December and I was nervous about getting work back in a timely fashion so did have to nudge the students as they had the usual end of term deadlines for other work to complete.
Finished reports
I was very happy with the reports that were sent back, one of them added stills from the video in leu of real life recordings. The framework worked well generally, the students provided just the right amount of written material so as to make it not a chore to read through and the content was engaging.
All of the reports were in the direction I was leaning, where I got more of the fine detail of the environment and just the right amount of process as to explain it but not too much as to get bogged down in the ‘How-to’.
Perhaps I need to create my own version as the template of what I’m looking for, I unfortunately couldn’t fit this in at this point but will definitely do this going forward. I’ll find a process in the next couple of months that I can use to take recordings of sound, images and perhaps video clips and create an ebook that can be downloaded as an example.
I also initially wanted to a have a review group of students to give feed back on the end product but time got the better of me and the end of term proved too difficult to arrange students to sit down and go through the reports due to their work load. This is something still worth doing before I go further with the process and will give me relevant feedback to propose this with Programme Leaders.
Issues with taking in field reports from potentially a whole year group may will be language abilities and how their understanding of the framework is interpreted. The students already have to write essays for cultural studies and should be somewhat practiced but I will have to make clear that some editing will need to take place just to make it flow if either they don’t feel comfortable with written format, English language level or are perhaps are dyslectic.
Data protection
I will also include a permission slip for students to have signed by the those being observed to ensure that there is an understanding about the content of the report being available for others to download and use and that there will be no commercial use of the documents, simply for educational purpose. Also I will seek some guidance on dealing with data gathering and how this is easily incorporated into the framework prompts, ideally I don’t want this framework to be heavy reading and laborious.
The issues that need further investigation through UAL is :
Ownership
- Who owns the reports contents, the student, client or UAL?
- What rights of use does the UAL have in using the information?
- Can the students withdraw their work or is it treated like submitting graded work?
Ethics
- Does the UAL have any ethical or data policies that need to be included as a legal bases?
Anonymity of the data
- Within the framework, inform students to change the names if those being observed if the with to be anonymous and keep the location general for security reasons, this is important in the jewellery industry with small high value goods.
- Avoid using any images that may contain private or confidential information in the background
- Explain that students can remain anonymous id the wish and use as ‘Pen’ name to produce the report.
- How long will the reports be stored for and get student permission for distribution as course material.
Padlet
This platform has proved me wrong, I initially was very sceptical of Padlet but with the help of Nina O’Rielly, a Specialist technician in digital projects at CSM, she allowed me to overcome the issues I describe in my previous blog post ‘Framework Thoughts’ and produce a clear presentation system. This will allow for comments and contributions from other students, open to Jewellery students only for the moment, I can then moderate the interactions and format the reports as they come in.
The reports will be available in PDF and EPUB formats which feel like good packages for them to be delivered, the EPUB format allows for rich design and facilitates font size adjustment for easier reading should it be required, it also allows for multi media like the video and sound files I would love to incorporate in these reports and can be shared with a smaller document size compared to PDF’s with heavy content. These will be usable across platforms, sometimes just with the use of an adobe player or relevant plugin.
Final Word
This really has been a rewarding project, ever since Covid pushed us into delivering inductions from a distance we have geared the studio to deliver induction videos on large screens and have downloadable material for further reverance.
I feel that this represents a meaningful step in decolonising the higher education curriculum in craft and design. It challenges traditional Eurocentric methodology as the ‘Standard’ practice of craft processes and elevates the diverse, and lived experiences of practitioners and sampling the culture they exist in to provide inspiration and education to a diverse student cohort.
These will hopefully become an archive to the diversity of origins that goes into forming many of the techniques that we use commercially in Europe today and give pause to students embarking on a career in arts & crafts to reflect their assumptions on the origins of skills.
Education is a two way street with students having the ability to educate others around them as well as those in the position of power in education, this academic project should hopefully give a sense of empowering diversity in education and give students a greater sense of contribution as it’s good feeling to have shown another person something new as well as something old.
Refrence
‘Analyzing analytic autoethnography’ Ellis & Brochner (2005).