Weaving shared values

Multi-modal

April 2023

The conversation begins with a cosmovision of the Tagbanua, the Tina weaving community: How is their concept of ecology woven into their community? What ecological and community principles and values are central to their future? What stories inform their making? What stories can be carried on in the future through their craft?

I was invited as a guest towards the end of a two-year project to consider the ethics of interaction through weekly virtual meetups to weave my understanding of this complex value chain. In observing [with the UAL team] and the Tina weaving community creative processes, gaining insights into the cultural and historical context of their weaving practices and seeing the between spaces of interculturality, I reflected upon three things: (1) what does it mean to radically listen to the remote community and understand their needs within the exchange, (2) how do we truly dispel the [unequal] tensions through democratic dialogue, how do you genuinely embrace different ontological aesthetic-moral assumptions (3) how to create an ethics and politics which are both generous and receptive, as well as move beyond current socio-political and economic systems based on extraction and inequalities to create viable alternatives. Daniel Wahl (2018) describes the alternatives as life-sustaining societies that aim to stop further damage and seek to look with new eyes. In my own work, I describe transpositions or a position change (Boyer, 2022). The ethical position change here would be to create value in a regenerative supply chain where suppliers become more like business partners. Is the collaboration ready for that level of responsibility? It requires a commitment to increase awareness of unfair trading exchanges within communities so they may push back against the repressive global 'free markets' of today and, at the same time, reduce dependence.

Some ponderings:

Active, exploratory listening must always be allowed to challenge everyone's worldview within intercultural collaborations. With an emphasis on radical listening, one must reflect on what worldviews do we bring? Listening to local people and learning from their perspectives is always an essential part, and equally, mere dialogue is not enough - it tends to privilege those already privileged. Ideas need to emerge; they cannot be imposed, and yet there is an urgency expressed by the community for a need to create income and trade. Yet, it takes time and effort to build genuine, equal relationships and to understand ways to bring new alternative trading exchanges to life. Our privileged design school positions need to be kept in check, and a genuine commitment to hard work in understanding and respecting norms and expectations for fairness in decision-making, who benefits from the project, and crucially, how to create community resilience and intercultural understanding for different experiences of justice is not a quick fix. I sometimes wondered at what point does a multi-voice approach meet its limit? In these instances, being a Designer is a position of privilege and an opening for weaving shared values by supporting indigenous communities that can supply into the luxury goods industry but don't have a voice or visibility in the global narrative on sustainability. Instead, designers bring their 'expertise' as translators of regeneration through visiting and weaving as life's immune response to the converging planetary crises. A visitor weaves new relations and translates, through the voice of the materials, ways to create community health, wholeness, and well-being alongside reciprocal economic tapestries that work for all (Wahl, 2018).

References:

Boyer, B. (2022). Many worlds meeting. Unsettling design practice at the intersection of mobility and possibility. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.26174/thesis.lboro.21089275.v1

Wahl, D. C. (2019b, July 6). What does it mean to be a ‘Weaver’? - Medium.

Medium.https://designforsustainability.medium.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-weaver-ba418b4311fe

Karubwaten It Tina: ‘Re-story-ation’ Weaving Creators, Communities and Connections