Dear Ken & co,
I was in a conference in Cape Town some years ago, the topic of which was
Design Education in Developing Countries. 30 papers were presented in the
conference, of which 3 came from countries "Kati labels non-Western" (and
one was a woman). A Kenyan delegate told me on a coffee break that he does
not bother sending abstracts to conferences any more as they are never
accepted. He also questioned the sense of conventional conference structure,
which he did not think promoted true interaction between the participants.
This made me wonder whether access to what we call Design discourse (or any
other discourse for that matter) is open to all or whether there are
inherent, implicit rules/codes/agreements one should have knowledge of
before attempting to participate in such a discourse. Should one use certain
words and symbols, refer to certain authorities, be aware of certain facts
and trends and isms in design history, know the names of certain designers
etc.etc to be considered as a serious scolar by the "professional guilds"
that have been given the authority to "guard information and knowledge from
outsiders"? And if so, what are the chances of a person, that does not share
this knowledge, to make a true contribution to this discourse.
Are also non material things suchs as ideas and opinions and points of view
contextualised and given value by a certain elite, quite the same way as
artefacts are in James Clifford´s Art-Culture System, an adaptation of
Greimas´s "semiotic square", which Clifford uses to explain why certain
artefacts are considered as, say, curios and others as fine art?
While waiting for your answer I keep seeing Design essentially as what the
Melanesians call "waet man tingting" (white man thinking) - something that
is done in New York but not that much in the jungles of Papua New-Guinea.
best regards,
Kati
Ken Friedman wrote:
It is worth noting, however, that nearly all professional literatures suffer
from the problems I mentioned in my note to Lily. All guilds exist to
maximize income and power for members in exchange for developing
and guaranteeing professional expertise. As a result, professional guilds
guard information and knowledge from outsiders. This often places
professional literature at odds with scholarly and scientific literature.
One
is inherently restricted to the profession and to specific practices and
firms.
The other is inherently open and free. This means that many professionals
deliberately create a literature that is both rich and inaccessible to
others
than those they consider members of their guild or group. This
exacerbates the effects of the other barriers I mentioned.
And:
> In one sense, it is correct in saying that the published design
> discourse of some nations and cultures excludes the design discourse
> of the nations Kati labels as non-Western. In exactly the same sense,
> those nations and cultures exclude us from their design discourse.
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