Recently when asked to define the term Global South, my response included harsh declarations about the North’s afflictions of Individualism and Compulsive Consumption and the South’s history of subsidizing these unsustainable paradigms at the cost of their own development. The inquirer and I were equally surprised by the bitterness of my response. I believe it is an indication of the frustration I feel regarding the injustices of our global economy and worse, my own complicity in it. As you read my papers or view my research creation, you may have concerns about a middle class, privileged woman of the global North speaking about issues in the global South. Be assured, I too am wary of this contradiction. If you are compelled to call out these doubts, I welcome an opportunity for reflection and growth.
Yet, it seems my whole life has led to conducting research into Open Source Appropriate Technology. I spent my youth dropping in and out of Canadian art schools during the late 80s and early 90s while intermittently working in Craft sectors of developing economies in Asia. I was searching for an explanation that might reconcile my perceptions of global socio/political injustice. I never did find them but eventually graduated with a BFA. I worked as a studio potter, instructor and technician for over a decade but became discouraged when finely crafted, well-designed, imported pottery undercut my prices and outsold me in the shops adjacent to my studio. I also became aware of the environmental damage caused by strip-mining clay; a so-called natural material. Disheartened, I refrained from making for a while and began working with an intentional community for adults with developmental delays while I pursued an interest in psychotherapy, ultimately training as an arts therapist. Moving into the realm of mental health I came to value the role of community to individual health and sought social justice work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Around the turn of this century I began volunteering with an organization called Potters for Peace (PFP) and spent the next few years as an intern, alternating between living in the field with indigenous potters of Nicaragua and advocating for PFPs projects back home in Canada. This was also when I became familiar with the concepts of Open-Source and Appropriate Technology. At that time PFP was developing a branch program that involved point-of-use, ceramic water filters which encouraged partnerships with indigenous potters and international NGOs. They helped pottery collectives across the globe access micro-enterprise funding while volunteers from PFP worked directly with the potters to pass on the Open-Source Appropriate Technology required to build the water filter factories and the filters themselves. I became deeply invested in the cause. What could be more important than helping people create clean water in their own communities? By 2004, I’d joined PFP’s board of directors and after spending time in the field developing filter factories in Asia and the Americas I eventually co-founded the filter committee. Our tasks were to create a Best Practices manual and assess the viability of projects requesting support with implementing water filter micro-enterprises in their own communities. It was here that I learned about good intentions and their oft travelled roads to hell. I repeatedly witnessed well-meaning NGO’s whose aid came in forms that superimposed their own values or priorities on their recipients. To be clear, I am not guiltless; I naively waded into these territories myself and remain reflective of my practice, learning from my own errors.
During this time I continued to offer technical support for potters in, what was then called, the Developing World. Taking leave from my private psychotherapy practice, I volunteered with various NGOs and a variety of artisans across the globe. The goal of any of these assignments was to offer technical support to indigenous craftspeople, discovering together what (if any) changes to their techniques could increase their livelihood or well-being. Modernization was never the goal and I was mindful of disrupting historical design influences and cultural priorities or rituals as well as social norms and mores bound up in craft tradition. I persistently reaffirmed the value of vernacular design elements with youth longing to break free of the constraints of tradition, enamored with a Hollywood image of “America.” Such confusing times they were, as I was cautioned about corrupting impressionable participants with unsustainable images of an industrialized lifestyle while simultaneously being instructed that it was not my place suppress the evolution of culture so that visitors from industrialized regions could visit their so-called “quaint” lifestyle. It was a fine line to walk, fostering creativity, innovation and curiosity without overvaluing western methods or novel technologies. But I felt honored by the opportunities to work with makers and together we implemented techniques to augment the sustainability and profitability of their craft practices while remaining mindful that increased prosperity should not come at the expense of the environment or tradition. I always considered these trips a privilege and over the course of nearly two decades, I too prospered from these assignments. I got to work amongst folks in open air studios, while we discussed our lives and families to the best of our language abilities. I saw reciprocal benefits; I offered technical or ergonomic adjustments as I learned vernacular pottery techniques and absorbed some of those potters’ ingenuity with the materials and tools at hand. I brought that spirit of resourcefulness, inventiveness and thrift home and applied it to my own pursuits; a most valuable skill that ran quite contrary to my art school training.
As a first generation Canadian, I am only one generation removed from the experience of hunger and religious persecution and am all too aware of the injustices and arbitrariness of socio/economic freedom. Still, I believe that by being born in the global North I am the recipient of unearned advantages and opportunities and it is my duty to redistribute those benefits to others from whom they were taken. My own culture strongly values the role of “tzedakah.” Though often mistranslated to mean “charity” I relate most to the biblical scholar Maimonides’ interpretation that the highest form of tzedakah is to give or partner with another in such a way that will result in their own self-sufficiency. Thus, I continue to volunteer for craft consultancies both in the global North and South. Yet my pedagogy continues to evolve and readers of my MDes thesis will come to know my own struggle with the very idea of individual self-sufficiency vs. reliance on community. I remain unsure of how they may be reconciled.
I am committed to an economic paradigm shift, requiring modifications on both sides of the global divide. What had been my informal style of train-the-trainer has become a formalized strategy of reciprocal information sharing and co-capacity building. I hope to leverage the democratization of manufacturing to foster international knowledge exchanges between community members, elders, educators and makers, where participants are charged with disseminating the information to their own people, according to their own pedagogy, beliefs and value systems. Who am I to address these complex issues? I am, no doubt, not the best person to address these issue and I’m someone who is attempting to be the change. I have a little experience and a genuine desire to promote community health by fostering conversation. If you choose to read my publications, I hope you do so with the knowledge that I too am aware of the problematic nature of charity, development work and transplanting information and even grapple with the inherent conflicts within the principles of tzedakah. Please feel free to engage me in conversation. Sam at 3DPClay.ca