Perspectives on Work, Home, and Identity From Artisans in Telangana

Providing an ethnographic account of the everyday life of a household of artisans in the Telangana state of southern India, Chandan Bose engages with craft practice beyond the material (in this case, the region's characteristic murals, narrative cloth scrolls, and ritual masks and figurines). In situating the voice of the artisans themselves as the central focus of study, simultaneous and juxtaposing histories of craft practice emerge, through which artisans assemble narratives about work, home, and identity through multiple lenses. These perspectives include: the language artisans use to articulate their experience of materials, materiality, and the physical process of making; the shared and collective memory of practitioners through which they recount the genealogy of the practice; the everyday life of the household and its kinship practices, given the integration of the studio-space and the home-space; the negotiations between practitioners and the nation-state over matters of patronage; and the capacities of artisans to both conform to and affect the practices of the neo-liberal market.

Chandan Bose is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India. He researches and publishes on material practices and knowledge systems amongst artisanal communities in India.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Seed

The Subject

Moving Through Ifs andButs

The Danalakota Studio(s)

A. Cheriyal

B. Boduppal

'What Is It Exactly That You Have Come to Do Here?'

What Was I Supposed to Do?

Guruji and the Ahsram

Craft Through Conversations

Chapter 2: Craft: Doing, Telling, Writing - Part 1

Materials and Technologies

A. Cloth and Preparation of the Canvas

B. Treating the Cloth

C. Colour

D. Preparing the Colour

E. Mixing Colours

F. Colours Within the Narative

G. Brushes

Chapter 3: Craft: Doing, Telling, Writing - Part 2

Training the Body: How to Hold the Brush? How to Sit?

Painting, Writing, Story-telling

A. The Outlines: Story-tellers and Artists

B.Naqqal or the Under-drawing

C. Making The Image: The Skin, The Garment, The Crown

i. the red background

ii. characters in profile

iii. adornments

D. The image is Alive:Sairatta andOdupu

E. Finishing

i. borders

ii. signing off

Only a Version of It...

Chapter 4: 'Goddess' and 'King,' 'Migration' and 'Boon': Artists and Their Histories

Origin(s)

A. Outlining a History from Above

Artisans As/And Historians

There Is A Funny Story Behind It...

Chapter 5: Craft-Through-Relatedness; Relatedness-Through-Craft

The Danalakota Household

A. Continuity With Kin

Practice Within the Danalakota Household: Making and Relating

A. Studio-Within-Home-Within-Studio

B. Women's Participation

C. Vanaja and Padma

i. Vanaja

ii. Padma

Pauti Tatvam

A.Pauti Tatbamas Intellectual Transformation

B.Pauti Tatvam as Political Transformation

Chapter 6. Showing, Making and Selling for the Market

'Discovery' of the Craft

'Traditional' and 'Professional'

...I Am Helpless

...The Time When I Experiment

Finding the 'Right Customer'

A. Ethnographer as 'Right Customer'

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Desire for the Nation-State

Discrete Crafts: Cheriyal Paintings and Nirmal Paintings

Discrete Craftspersons: Master Craftsman Award

Discrete Places: Geographical Indication of Goods Act

A. Geographical Indication: A Context

B. Benefits of Legal Protection

i. ...this is our right

C. Geographical Determination

i. It Doesn't Matter Where We Live

ii. We Are Afterall Artists From Telangana

D. Identifying Producers

i. ...mostly women

ii. ...you become a naqqash

Chapter 8: Conclusion