安尼尔·库玛·古普达 Anil K Gupta
印度管理学院教授
研究方向:社会设计
Empowering communities as well as designers through strengthening individual or group autonomy is not enough. One must also activate their agency to use that autonomy for reciprocal and responsible designs for inclusive and empathetic social development. The Autonomy is the freedom to act. The Agency is the willingness to use that freedom. Inclusive development implies technological, institutional and cultural solutions that are accessible and available to those social segments which are otherwise often left out from the developmental gains. The social exclusion may take place because of the people being put at a disadvantage due to difficult terrain or other spatial, social, sectoral, seasonal/temporal, skill and structural conditions around them (Gupta, 2006, 2012, 2016). This leads to marginalization of the particular section of society from the mainstream development. Innovative design solutions can overcome these barriers or bottlenecks by blending empathy, engagement, frugality, flexibility and fellowship or mutuality. For the creation of such social innovations, there is a dire need for the designers to reflect and show willingness to act or intervene in social situations. The designers are a special group of professionals, but actually speaking, everybody is a designer of sorts. Anybody, may it be engineer, architect, scientist, public policy maker, innovator or an entrepreneur trying to find a solution to an existing social problem has to immerse in the real life situation to internalize the pain or difficulties faced by the potential users. The solution to the unmet social needs of the society may also require collaboration among professionals but also with the user communities. Corporations and communities have to devise a new social contract (Gupta et al, 2017). Adding one more choice or option to those who already have many certainly may add to higher profits or gainful employment of designers. But is that enough? Can design thinking and doing (DTD) not be used for a larger social transformation?
Lately, a social disconnect can be observed in the dominant process of design thinking. Conventional design thinking has many times suffered from too little time being spent on understanding the unmet and unarticulated needs of the economically poor or otherwise disadvantaged people like elderly, or special need people. This tendency of saving on the cost of defining needs is evident in several other disciplines of social development too. So called rapid rural appraisal or (RRA) or assessment has led to numerous costly errors in delivering improved solutions. The pace of development would not have been so slow otherwise. Rapid estimation of definition of people’s needs also reinforces the tendency to take short-cut approach to life, or what Indians call Jugaad, a temporary solution to get over the problem rather than getting around it. Such an approach can never help a society make longer term durable changes in the mindset as well as design repertoire.
Even when the little time is spent on identifying unmet needs, anthropomorphic needs take priority over the needs for sustaining nature. Else, so many water wasting technologies would not have been designed for so long. Design Improvement to recycle water in washing machines, or using much less water for flushing toilets, or bathroom, nozzle design to create mist instead of water stream for sanitation would not have so much inertia even today!
Thus the lack of responsiveness towards the natural resources is another weakness of design thinking as practiced today. Sustainability in design does not intersect with frugality and inclusivity most of the times. A small plastic pouch with shampoo or tea bag might be extremely frugal, affordable thus inclusive but is it sustainable? If one calculates the cost of collecting these plastic pieces from millions of villages and towns around the world, it is a very costly solution.
Design thinking is also widely criticized for serving only commercial goals. Not that market is not important for mediating exchange between producers and consumers but there are many public and social services which are not traded in market. Design thinking champions have neglected creation of public goods. The client –consultant relationship is very legitimate but if advocates can provide pro bono service to the poor, if public intellectuals can offer community courses free of cost to children or other community members or mentor start-ups without charges, why could design community not behave likewise. In fact, there could be a concept of Design Angels where designers provide service free, or at a nominal cost or on deferred payment basis to deserving grassroots innovators, children, aged, rural women micro-entrepreneurs, young innovators, public service providers etc. If the enterprise succeeds, they may recover their proper fees, else, it is written off.
Identifying unmet social/community needs (felt or even unfelt) vis a vis unarticulated aspirations needs immersion, engagement, patient feeling, listening and also learning walks (Shodhyatra). It is not always true that people know what they really need. No small farmer had ever demanded the dwarf wheat plants which led to the green revolution. They wanted increase in the yields but through which kind of plant or crop design, they were not sure about. It was a supply side intervention which led to change in local perceptions and preferences. The eco or social designers have a special responsibility to expand and enrich the repertoire of local communities, children and young innovators. Grassroots innovators may also not always know numerous other pathways of addressing local needs. How can design paradigm be transformed so that the designers and also local community or individual innovators or affected people including children can mutually learn and explore together the solutions that convert autonomy into agency. People as well as providers (designers) don’t stop at being just aware of what is to be done but also extend their responsibility by becoming actively involved in co-creating these solutions.
Various design institutes/engineering colleges etc., can play a crucial role here by producing a generation of socially, environmentally and culturally empathetic design platforms/schools/collegium/networks. Curricula integrating community engagements, co-operative/ participatory ‘design and doing’ projects, cross-sectoral learnings etc., are some of the ways of fruitful, reciprocal and responsible engagement (Gupta et al, 2016).
One of the key ways to bring about shift in design paradigm is to treat children not as sink of advice and assistance but as a source of ideas (ss.sristi.org). One of the key arguments here is about reverse mentoring. Can reciprocal learning imply adult designers learning what/how to design from the young children? Can children or disadvantaged communities mentor designers in cutting through the clutter and understanding the pain points through their simple and sincere empathetic eyes?
Creativity workshops and contest in every Shodhyatra-week long learning walks-have revealed a rich under-appreciated potential of learning through the eyes of children.
Democratic dividend is not being harnessed enough by designers. The younger people are assertive, aspirant and also articulate. Recently, out of 380,000 plus ideas received by NIF under INSPIRE-MANAK program of DST, GOI, more than seventy-seven per cent were from children belonging to under-privileged categories. Which design-thinking group ever talked to such children? When have we made designing products (leave Honey Bee Network institutions aside) based on such ideas a part of curriculum or developmental priority.
It is important, therefore, that we redefine the framework of design thinking gaining popularity among engineering and other technical higher educational institutions. We stop replicating the weaknesses of the concept. Spending pennies on finding needs and millions on meeting them will not address the developmental needs of various developing and developed societies. We will have to learn to walk through the communities, schools and workshops to learn, listen, and leverage the ideas from the children, common people enriching the ground.
中国设计学青年论坛总策划:邬烈炎
中国设计学青年论坛组委会:吴海卓 蒋杰 李永清 张卫军 熊嫕 周庆 曹景德
第8届中国设计学青年论坛
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