Rural artisans
are often an invisible lot. The products of their labour may reach many
markets, but hardly anyone but the middlemen in the supply chain knows
the producers. These producers of intricate crafts have no face, no voice,
and no window to the world that absorbs their craft. With no facilities
to link them to that world, the artisans remain in a world insulated from
change.
Advances in communication
technology and affordability of the means of communication have helped
spur the world towards market globalization. As the reach of communication
spreads, once insulated worlds are steadily being opened up. Markets have
moved closer to products, and thereby to producers. This proximity has
goaded the desire for variety. Tastes change fast and designs even faster.
Turnaround times for products are now much shorter and the room for errors
has never been narrower.
In the midst of
all these sweeping changes stands now the rural artisan, still governed
largely by what has been. As the wall of distance falls around him to
the onslaught of information and communication technologies, as his miniscule
world is suddenly enlarged by the forces of market globalization, he is
vulnerable. The world has changed, the rules have changed and he needs
to change.
“Snapshots
of Change”, a web page dedicated to bamboo and rattan artisans,
is an attempt that factors in these recent winds of change to equip the
rural artisans with the wherewithal necessary to face and survive these
winds. This tool – developed jointly by the Centre for Indian Bamboo
Resource and Technology (CIBART) and the International Network for Bamboo
and Rattan (INBAR) through their Documentation Centre – provides
a window to the rural bamboo and rattan artisans to project themselves
as well as to observe and absorb the changes in the markets for their
products. Beyond its teething period, the page would become a full-fledged
website hosted on information systems that are accessible to the rural
artisans, such as the facilities offered in the Northeast by the National
Informatics Center’s Community Information Centers, the Ministry
of Communications’ proposed Common Service Centers, as well as state-level
e-service utilities.
Knowledge within
rural, particularly marginalized, communities is often inaccessible to
outsiders. Similarly, information from outside the community, including
market information, often needs to be adapted for it to be of use to the
community. As part of community communications, the website would strive
to be the medium that improves content and accessibility of communication.
It would also put the artisans in touch with their brethren in other parts
of the world to exchange experiences and with experts who could solve
specific design/production problems. Such cross-fertilization of cultures,
traditions, techniques and ideas is expected to synergize the bamboo craft
sector, and INBAR’s worldwide network will be leveraged to the full
to achieve this.
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