Dear Don and list There is a saying here in Québec that a good salesperson would sell refrigerators to Eskimos (who, by the way, call themselves 'Innuits' instead; the term 'eskimo' being prejudicial...). One of the many possible interpretations of this saying is that any (Western type mass-produced) product would fit in any context around the globe, regardless of local specific conditions and requirements. This seems to be the interpretation you hold in your draft, therefore one may say you are promoting good salesmanship... In this post, I intend to give a different interpretation to the same saying above. In partial agreement with both Jinan and you, I am here attempting to go even beyond your respective views and submit a more comprehensive viewpoint on Culture and (Product) Design. Contrary to your viewpoint and a little away from Jinan's, mine stresses the opinion that it is neither alone the activity related to artifacts functionalities, nor only the aesthetics carried and conveyed by those artifacts that should matter most to designers. Quite beyond preferred aesthetics and activities performed by Innuits, a refrigerator in the northern pole region could be first and foremost, and all together a deadly risk, an item with possible multiple advantages, as well as a potentially cumbersome nuisance. To me, risk, advantages and disadvantages, are the only three features that constitute University level expertise in Design. And all three features concurrently pertain to artifacts, crafts or mass-produced, and they cover both aesthetics and functional preoccupations. Aesthetics are essentially cultural manifestations in/on artifacts. Whereas functionalities constitute, only partially, a socio-cultural factor, in addition to essential being chemical, physical, and biological mechanisms. My argument is here stated in a reverse order of your disagreement points with Jinan's post. 1. In the original post of this thread, I understood the author, Jinan, is talking about traditional indigenous crafts as they are affected by some foreign (Western Europe) influence with tendency to homogenization the world over. Jinan's focus is on aesthetics or, more precisely in his terms, " de-contextualized aesthetic sense". Whereas you, in a salesmanship suit, your detailed development appears to be just like another sales pitch, only focusing at the surface of things, the Western traditional saleable façade of artifacts. The Innuits will buy your refrigerator, not necessarily because it cools down the items it contains...You may even be surprised, the refrigerator bought from you may even contain those items that do not need being cooled down...Other cultural bends may dictate different uses than those prescribed by designers. My point here is that, neither of you did touch the core of the issue, which is comparative daily use of traditional crafts products versus mass-produced products. For us, design researchers, the essential issue still in need of thoughtful enlightenment is neither about crafts per se (their production and use would be the concern mainly of Ethnographers), nor only about the aesthetics (visual aspects) of those crafts (Aestheticians would handle that much better). The issue of our concern should neither be only about the functional performances (Mechanics' and other scinetists' concern), nor only about market territories (the concern of marketers and their commissioners expecting the highest returns on their monetary investments) of 'mass-produced products'. As design researchers, we rather need comparative studies providing respective stakeholders with evidence of the most useful artifacts in any given context. That is material culture, in need of all the above mentioned types of knowledge and more, in a transdisciplinary mode of 'production' of such evidence. This kind of culture does matter for product design. 2. On the "ontologically reversed design education", Jinan clearly makes his point, first, in the link he provided: * http://designeducationasia.blogspot.com/*<http://designeducationasia.blogspot.com/>; and further, in other links indicated within. Jinan's concern is precisely current design education, in India (and elsewhere) that does not deal with the ontology, or the core issue of our (humans) relationships with artifacts that we use to 'perform' our living. To him, this performance, currently hindered by the Western type of education, revolves around the interaction between our senses and the surrounding environment. Jinan's focus is on this sensual appraisal of the environment, the "Experiential Paradigm" ("Non-Codified Knowledge") that, according to him, has been and still is being numbed by three other paradigms, successive in the following order: the "Memory Paradigm", the "Textual Paradigm", and the "Illusional Paradigm" (Codified Knowledge") ( http://www.re-cognition.org/knowing/home.htm). The *reverse* trend that Jinan advocates is that of promoting education the other way around, from the "Illusional" back to the "Experiential". You might have visited Jinan's links indicated above, and read the content by yourself. Nonetheless you confess that you have no idea of all this means, "probably because of serious deficiencies in my education and self-acquired knowledge", i.e. your culture. My point is the following: yes indeed, your place and context of up-bringing, education, professional practice, and socialization, together with the resultant mindset, all these cultural factors do not predispose you to understand Jinan's cultural reality of concern. This is easily 'sensed' only by those who have lived under any kind of colonial rule, and/or by those awakened to/by the effects of current globalized world culture. By all means and from all viewpoints, culture has a lot to do with (product) Design, as you view and practice this profession, and as well as Jinan views and practices the same profession.. 3. On one hand, Jinan affirms that "homogenized design education" is currently "destroying cultural diversity" in India (and elsewhere). On the other hand, you "disagree that we are losing critical cultural diversity" by using Western type only "mass-produced products". My point is that we, three, are here talking about culture but in cross purposes. Jinan is talking about aesthetics, meaning sense appraisal and 'sensemaking' of the local context. Throughout the entire development of your draft, one perceives that for you, 'culture' is nothing else but mere minor formal and idiosyncratic additions to core universal functionalities, that are added (by designers) and found as desired (by users) on every artifacts in all corners of the globe. You are talking about decoration, or style, with no impact of these on product fonctionalities that, in your perspective, are the main reason of products existence. As I am drafting this post, I am distracted by this reportage aired a few days ago by one of REUITERS' reporters: http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/china%E2%80%99s-deserted-fake-disneyland.html My point is that, today, no one knows as yet the exact amount and extend of potential harmful and detrimental effects caused by 'homogenization' of artifacts, neither at the individual level, nor at levels of regions and of the entire planet. Exclusively, only financial benefits and losses are tallied, and to some individuals only. To my present knowledge, no attempt has ever made to study further the accounting of risks, advantages and disadvantages of artifacts, such as Disney land in China and others. Aesthetics and decoration, either of local "craft" productions or of imports or impositions, these are only some of the many aspects that need to be assessed as well, along the same accounting of positive and negative effects. We are here talking about other issues than mere superficial "cultural differences, existing in governing social interaction, the types of foods that are eaten, and stylistic preferences." Through Disney Land and the like now all over the world, through this 'modern' (over) consumptive culture, we, the human species, are indeed loosing fast cultural diversity. And worse, we are not being objectively critical of this catastrophe waiting to happen. Only few among us have, since a 3-4 decades, instinctively sensed the threat (the Environment Movement). But the majority among us are still indulging in over-consumption of the same, and most of the time finite resources! And yet, like in the case of other biological entities on this earth, diversity and versatility of the human species, in its physical and mental features, are both proven the only key mechanisms to survival. Designers, as prime experts in material culture studies and procurement, should primarily focus on this pressing issue: how to ensure diversity and versatility in material culture. 4. You also disagree that "the lack of cultural differentiation in today's products have much to do with design education". Design education that Jinan is concerned with, India being his case study, it is the education in colonies. He is talking about an immaterial artifact, imposed in India during the colonial era, an imposition still pursued in current so-called 'post-colonial' times. The imposed British model of education that Jinan denounces, according to his experiential opinion in India, has been and still is stifling local traditional education, particularly in the cultural aspects related to Indian aesthetics. In your post, you are precisely talking about the type of design education conceived and practiced in Western and westernized metropolis first, and then spread in different other other corners on the earth. This is the education you yourself have gone through and still observing, experiencing, and professing in many ways, as a metropolitan, and not a colonized person. No wonder then that you don't, and you can't notice any 'ontological' difference in artifacts as conceived and used through 'your' educational way, now dominant everywhere. For you, they all are the same all over the world, from the same Western mindset (design education), the same "progress"/"development" Western socio-economical ideology, the same Western industrial production set up! And you are thus convinced they are 'good" thanks to their functionally 'satisficing' attributes, those you perceived first under the influence of your own cultural bias. In your baised opinion, local kind of products are not fit for use, they shouldn't even exist any more...In your post, local craft production is relegated to mere folkloric manifestations. My first point is that, here again, we are faced with the recurrent debate on what is or is not design and designing. Does this concept covers only functionalities? Or only aesthetics, either in the 'ontological' sense and/or in stylistic (decoration, folklore) sense? Only the Western conception? Or else there are many kind of design, in addition to the Western type? The concept of design I adhere to is one encompassing all these connotations above, plus any others that may be related to artifacts, all kinds of artifacts. As I often suggest on this list, the object of concern for all designers should, in my view, be the USE of artifacts: meaning the nexus arising from the interaction of users, artifacts, and respective physical and socio-cultural contexts. Drafting, drawing, or any other form of rendering of various idiosyncratic aesthetics, forms and functions being at a second level, but not at all meaning they are of lesser value!! Design education focused only on rendering artifacts aesthetics, forms and functions, can eventually lead to mild "cultural differentiation" (often for marketing purposes only). If this is your understanding of the concept of design, then to certain extend I can understand the reason of your disagreement. But if you espouse my view that, at least at University level, we should be more concern with USE of artifacts, i.e. with elaborating prescriptions for safe and more advantageous use of artifacts, I do hope you'll then agree that such type of design education would indeed promote cultural differentiation. Indeed, in addition to being objects of monetary exchange, to eventually being holders of aesthetics features, to being containers of functional imperatives, artifacts are also and foremost prone to cause multiple risks to users, to procure to some of these latter certain advantages, and to eventually cause advantages to others. And I do hope you'll agree with me that perception of a risk and assessment of advantages and disadvantages, particularly in relation to artifacts in use, both are highly personal and cultural aptitudes, different and evolving from person to person, and from different world regions. The use process of artifacts is both aesthetics, functional (mechanical, physical, chemical, biological) and highly soci-cultural. Really, culture matters indeed. Yes, culture has a lot to do with (product) design. Neither Design is equal functionalities alone, nor aesthetics (intuition, cognition) alone, nor socio-cultural (exchange and politics) alone. Viewed from a less reductive stand, design is more a complex activity dealing with "deep complex situations"*, situation of USE of artifacts. Francois Montreal * DELORME, Robert (2010). Deep Complexity and the Social Sciences. Experience, Modelling and Operationality. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK - Northampton, MA, USA