The Value of Culture in Conflict - Investigating the Sustainable Livelihood Generation for Craftswomen in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan)

Over July 2015, the Laajverd Summer School based in Upper Neelum valley, a workshop was conducted by the Principal Investigator along with the named research assistant that allowed participants from the local villages to understand basic concepts of design and apply skills in developing a handmade and design range that was understood to be relevant to a globalized craft market. The workshop provided skills and knowledge about design through conversations and visual communication, allowing participants to engage with the creative process and understand what it means to make things. Here designing with the craftsperson was seen as key to understanding action research as opposed to designing for the craftsperson. The workshop was successful and a growing need for training within craft was identified by participants from the villages in Neelum Valley. This conflict-ridden area, which is inside the Indian border, but now belongs to Pakistan sees intensive periods of fluctuating conflict.

The women of this region work within the crafts sector and produce an intermittent collection of goods that don't always provide them with sustainable livelihood. This project aims to provide these women with training within crafts, to enhance their ability to generate incomes. Working with a regional partner, with a track record of working within crafts, allows this project to build upon existing knowledge and skills. The project builds upon previous experience of training within crafts in the Srinagar Valley, in India for doctoral research conducted by the PI. Here craftswomen were trained in design and logistics of trade to enhance their income generation abilities. This project therefore has larger ambitions of conducting a cross border comparative case study of India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiri women who are rebuilding their lives through creative, culturally relevant, production of goods.

The Value of Culture in Conflict seeks to establish a framework that will advance the way in which we talk about the value of culturally valued creative activities within regions of intense conflict. This project specifically looks at the Neelum Valley region of Azad Kashmir (Pakistan). The first part of the framework will be an examination of the cultural experience of craft production in itself and its impact on individuals and its benefit to the society and local economy.

The second part of the framework will develop interconnected networks in the region with the partner organisation that has worked in promoting cultural production with craftswomen's groups and develop training for them that would filter out to their partner members who are the main beneficiaries of the project. This project relies on local knowledge, tacit understandings and the will to develop programs that enhance income generation capacities of the women who face the lived realities of the ongoing conflict.

The project will take as its starting point the different forms of cultural experience, such as, for instance, the aesthetic and cognitive dimensions of our cultural encounters. This might be seen as analysing the phenomenology of cultural experiences in order to understand better the benefits uniquely associated with cultural activity. This significant approach will be conducted alongside exploration of the many other economic and social benefits conventionally associated with cultural activity.

This work would be potentially of use to those organizations that work within development at the grass roots level. It would also be of use to women's self help groups, and NGOs who promote craft working for income purposes. This work would also be useful to political scientists who study the shifting understandings of conflict and post conflict. However, in the main, it is useful to crafts women, who seek to enhance their knowledge and skills in order to boost their income generation abilities.

The strategy is designed to integrate and foreground Impacts arising from the research project through interactions with the partners of the project. The dissemination strategy and research evaluation will seek to ensure maximum impact, take up, and raise awareness of design innovation and economic impact potential through this research based intervention. In particular the project will be managed to engage users and beneficiaries and increase the likelihood of impacts by using a participatory, co-design approach to training.
Local communities of crafts women, teams from partner NGO - SABAH, academics from National College of Arts, Lahore will be consulted, trained, interviewed and form the ongoing collaboration from the start of the project. The core subject of this project is Kashmiri craftswomen, who are at the centre of this project. They form the participant base, the stakeholders in success, and beneficiaries of the activities proposed. The project engages with them from the start, planning the training for the creation of craft made products. The end of this project will see a complete set of training documents, which would be useful to the project but also to wider audiences outside of Pakistan, in conflict areas which have craft producer groups. This work raises the profile of the partner NGO creating a body of work for them that they could take to other businesses as representative of their abilities and potential.
Wider impact to communities: According to the ILO report 'Searching for the Invisible Workers' (Akhtar,2011) nearly 85% (2008-09) of HBW (Home based workers) are classified in the general category of 'Other craft and related trades' and the second highest (7.6%) of the HBWs are 'Precision, handicraft, printing and other related trade workers'. Nearly 92 percent (2008-09) of female HBWs are classified as 'Other Craft and related trades' as compared to 56 percent male HBWs. This indicates the size of the wider local community of makers who could benefit from such training and networks in the future. The community of makers is well connected and training one section of this will bring benefits for the larger group.
Bringing trade and business opportunities to a post conflict area has been seen as a pathway to peace and reconstruction (Date-Bah, 2003). Brun's (2005) work in Sri Lanka indicated that women in conflict zones in Sri Lanka bear the brunt of the conflict and often act as the head of the household due to death and disappearances of men, while Thiruchandran (2001) mentions that women in Eastern Sri Lanka are de-facto heads of households in a post conflict scenario. Conflicts result in an increase in the number of female-headed households. This is further indicative of the wider impact to the communities in Kashmir but also further in areas of conflict outside of South Asia. This is also indicative of the academic impact of this work in area and discipline study.
Third sector: This project highlights the significance of design and crafts to the development of income for disenfranchised women. Hence it has transferability inherent within its design. This transferability is of value to organizations in the third sector who work within poverty alleviation, women's development, gender support networks, craft groups, micro enterprise development, self-help group organizations. The project is therefore of relevance to those within the development sector who engage with grass roots activities and also those who develop and think about policy that aids development, including international donor and aid bodies that engage with such practices. Publication of this work should potentially provide a rationale/platform for groups and organizations to rethink investment for training and networking within the crafts sector to enhance productivity, generate sustainable incomes, whilst promoting traditional skills and processes