Abstract
Academia and corporate capitalism show increasing interest in grassroots practices as useful to product development for low-income markets and relevant to sustainable innovation models. Captured in this interest is jugaad, an Indian problem-solving practice rooted in everyday life, which emphasises practicality, resource efficiency and an elastic approach to rules. Interest from the Global North in grassroots practices risks their decontextualisation, decentering and dilution in a power-knowledge play that principally serves the needs of hegemonic Euro-USA design. Drawing on Arturo Escobar’s idea of pluriversal design, which holds that everyone designs, creating a multiplicity of sociocultural formations, we examine jugaad as a distinct and situated practice counter to the affinity effects necessary for the appropriation of the practices of others. Our paper explores the logic of jugaad through its expression in Delhi’s markets at a time when resource-intensive, socially divisive modern retail formats are threatening India’s culture of markets.
Keywords
ugaad; pluriversal design; hegemonic euro-usa design; india’s informal retail sector
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.691
Citation
Gahlot, P., and Barnes, C. (2024) Lost in translation: Decontextualising, decentering and diluting India's jugaad practices, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.691
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Research Paper
Included in
Lost in translation: Decontextualising, decentering and diluting India's jugaad practices
Academia and corporate capitalism show increasing interest in grassroots practices as useful to product development for low-income markets and relevant to sustainable innovation models. Captured in this interest is jugaad, an Indian problem-solving practice rooted in everyday life, which emphasises practicality, resource efficiency and an elastic approach to rules. Interest from the Global North in grassroots practices risks their decontextualisation, decentering and dilution in a power-knowledge play that principally serves the needs of hegemonic Euro-USA design. Drawing on Arturo Escobar’s idea of pluriversal design, which holds that everyone designs, creating a multiplicity of sociocultural formations, we examine jugaad as a distinct and situated practice counter to the affinity effects necessary for the appropriation of the practices of others. Our paper explores the logic of jugaad through its expression in Delhi’s markets at a time when resource-intensive, socially divisive modern retail formats are threatening India’s culture of markets.