Traditional Occupations in a Modern World

 

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Traditional occupations in a modern world: implications for career guidance and livelihood planning

Anita Ratnam

Received: 18 January 2011/Accepted: 28 February 2011

 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This article is an attempt to examine the place and significance of traditional occupations as careers in today’s world. The areas of tension and compatibility between ideas and values that signify modernity and the practice of traditional occupations are reviewed. The meaning of ‘‘traditional occupations’’ is unravelled, the potential that traditional occupations in agriculture and crafts offer for building inclusive and sustainable societies is explored, and attention is drawn to the implications of such potential for career guidance practice.

A. Ratnam (&)

Samvada Youth Resource Centres and Baduku College, Bengalooru, India e-mail: ratnam.anita@gmail.com

Keywords       Career  Livelihood  Traditional occupations

The meaning of traditional occupations

Traditional occupations have been described as occupations practised by successive generations, rooted in customs and practices and focused on subsistence economies, pre-dating colonisation and the industrial revolution. Often these refer to occupations within agriculture and crafts, with crafts encompassing a range from weaving to the construction of buildings. Does that mean that all old occupations are to be considered traditional? Although occupations like medicine, teaching, winemaking, politics, and the making of music, have been practised for centuries, they are considered modern because of the newness of the institutional frameworks and technologies that are being deployed today. Super-speciality medicine and computer-aided textile design evoke and suggest a modernity of the occupation itself, though these are old occupations with modern support structures and scaffoldings. Traditional occupations are often conflated with traditional modes of practising occupations. While ‘‘old’’ and ‘‘new’’ refer to a chronological timeline, modernity and tradition are more complex concepts that refer to embedded values and ideologies, production technologies, knowledge systems, levels of mechanisation, and integration with capitalist modes of production and marketing.

This article focuses on agriculture and crafts for three reasons. First, the wide spectrum of occupations and livelihood systems within agriculture and crafts caused by changes in knowledge, trade systems and markets, social structures and institutional frameworks, international agreements, national policies, and the emergence of transnational corporations, offer many insights relevant to career guidance practice. Second, the dynamism and willingness to adapt to contemporary realities demonstrated by those who practise traditional modes of agriculture and crafts calls for a coherent examination of their role and significance today as they co-exist alongside the modern. Third, the increasing demand for organic foods and for traditionally produced goods and services suggests that they could belong to the future as well as the past. Their scope for constant innovations, the potential for entrepreneurship, and the unique dilemmas of the artisan/peasant, demand an enquiry into the place of traditional agriculture and crafts in the world of modern careers and career guidance. While these issues provide a rationale for the focus on agriculture and crafts, they are also a sombre reminder that the task ahead is both complex and layered.

Watts (2001) defines career as ‘‘the individual’s lifelong progression in learning and in work’’ (p. 2). 

The scope for crafts and agriculture to be part of a long-term progression in a person’s life is a key theme in this article. The sustainable livelihoods framework developed by Chambers and Conway (1991) refers to livelihoods as a system comprising people’s capabilities, natural resources, material and social assets people draw upon, the strategies they adopt for subsistence, social and cultural contexts in which they make a living, and risk factors that determine vulnerability. Career guidance involves helping people make choices and plans and within this framework, planning as a component of guidance refers to planning for livelihoods.

Traditional crafts in a modern world

Crafts refer to artisanal production through the highly skilled use of simple tools on raw materials from nature. Prior to the industrial revolution, almost everything that humans used was made this way—ships, textiles, clothes, furniture, jewellery, carts and chariots, artefacts, and tools themselves. Buildings of all types and sizes— homes, palaces, cathedrals and temples—were the combined efforts of different artisans. In fact, some early machines as well as watches and cars were crafted by the skilled use of tools and techniques, and ships and boats even today are referred to as craft.

With the industrial revolution, the artisanal mode of production was considered too slow, sometimes even crude, and relegated to the margins as mechanised mass production took centre stage. Over the last three centuries, mechanisation has forced artisans to abandon their traditional livelihoods and join the pool of agricultural labour in a tumultuous process of de-industrialisation, which continues today. Ironically, it was a combination of capital and technology, along with artisanal skills and knowledge, which made the industrial revolution possible (Green, 2002).

Despite this marginalisation, in many parts of the developing world traditional crafts have struggled and survived. Using increasingly scarce materials like cotton, jute, clay, copper, brass, bell metal, bamboo, palm leaves, wood, reeds, shells, tree barks, stones, vegetable extracts, cow dung, leaves, mud, sand, feathers, gems, silver, copper, brass, and gold, artisans work their magic with nimble hands, complex techniques and simple tools, to produce a delightful array of textiles, crockery, furniture and furnishing, accessories and jewellery etc. Handmade goods jostle for space in craft fairs, designer boutiques and fashionable malls where they have carved a market niche. Indian craft alone has an estimated 8.6 million artisans, with annual output valued in US dollars at $6.1 billion in 2000–2001, with an export market of $3.3 billion (Liebel & Roy, 2003). Global crafts exports were at $30 billion in 1986, having grown four times faster than overall world trade, with developing countries supplying 40% of world demand for crafts (Kathuria, 1988).

In fact, the social and ecological costs of mass production and consumption, the alienation experienced by industrial workers and the increasing gaps between rich and poor, have prompted a cultural and economic critique of the industrial modernisation paradigm. More recently, with globalisation, the issues of de-industrialisation and unemployment in the first world, workers’ wages and rights in sweat shops in the third world, mobility of capital, and the over-emphasis on financial services/capital markets in the North—which some claim led to the subprime crisis—are all coming to the fore. Within developing countries this paradigm is also taking its toll. The United Nations estimates that in the last 30 years, the number of artisans in India alone has dropped by 30% (Bouchart, 1993). Artisans who persevere with their crafts are faced with new problems due to the failure of cooperatives and state patronage of crafts (but not of the artisan). The exits and suicides of artisans as researched by the 2008 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour is no surprise and is the tip of the iceberg, as elaborated by Galab and Revathi (2009).

Can traditional crafts be careers in today’s world?

In the wake of the critique of industrialisation, there is a renewed interest in the cultural and social dimensions of development. Therefore, crafts and indigenous knowledge systems are now being discussed more deeply as sustainable livelihoods, as sources of employment for women and as sources of supplementary income for those engaged in crafts on a part-time basis. Crafts’ families have been found to have incomes above the national average in India (Pye, 1988). Movements like the Green Building Congress, World Crafts Council, and Craftmark, reveal that crafts are being recognised for their scope to address problems of unemployment, migration, sustainability and cultural diversity [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1995]. UNESCO (2006) has a 10-year plan for Cultural and Creative Industries and in India the 11th five-year plan document (Planning Commission of India, 2007, p. 108) views village industries as engines of sustainable and inclusive growth, calling handlooms ‘‘hope-looms’’. The existence of skills, the demand for craft products, the foreign exchange earning potential and the need for decentralised, non-capital-intensive rural off-farm employment, have forced policy-makers to take a fresh look at traditional crafts.

However, does this mean that traditional crafts can be considered careers in the modern world? For young people to aspire towards careers in crafts, several issues need to be addressed: recognition of the role of multiple modes of production; blurring of lines between art, craft and design; consumer awareness; skill building and apprenticeships by and for artisans; and most importantly, the modernisation of the artisan. These issues are discussed below.

Recognition of the need for multiple modes of production

The critique of industrialism by crafts advocates and practitioners is not antimodernist, nor a nostalgia for pre-industrial modes of production: It is a call for a post- or transmodernity, with multiple modes of production, multiple cultures and creative diversity that celebrates human dexterity and touch, alongside the marvel of machines. Craftspeople and advocates recognise that while crafts can take care of a wide spectrum of products and service needs, they cannot provide for all human needs—mobile phones or life-saving equipment, being but two examples.

This concept of plural modes of production is well demonstrated in the works and lives of pioneering American designers and architects, Charles and Ray Eames. Kirkham (1998) traces the way in which they encouraged an interplay between craft and machine work in their designs of buildings and furniture, validating the preindustrial, the personal and the handmade as well as the industrial, the uniform and the mass-produced, in what they later called ‘‘modernism and humanism’’. Many homes in India today offer a similar hybrid picture, with both manufactured and handcrafted items filling wardrobes, kitchens and living rooms. However, an understanding of complementing and co-existing modes of production requires an understanding that craft is neither static nor ahistorical, but is constantly changing, redefining relationships with the past and the present, and challenging the monolithic, totalising and unidimensional view of development. Crafts straddle both the past and the future while being rooted in the contemporary—what Habermas (1984) calls a contemporariness that ‘‘repeatedly gives birth to new and subjective pasts’’ in a search for the true ‘‘presence’’.

The blurring of lines between art, craft and design

While craft has been excluded from the eclectic worlds of art and design, the need to build a porosity between these is crucial if careers are to be contemplated. Ventures where designers collaborate with artisans to create and execute designs have begun to blur lines between craft and design in a journey fraught with multiple challenges as well as rewards, as reported by Murray (2010). Though the discipline of craft theory is in a nascent stage, with journals like Crafts and the emergence of disciplines like craft history and craft theory, there is movement from the simple notion of craft as antidote to industrialism towards a more complex understanding of skills, expressions, aesthetics in crafts, and territories of ‘‘new crafts’’ that fall between art and craft. Greenhalgh (2002) asserts that the next phase of modernity will be characterised by interdisciplinarity, relational rather than reductive visions, and globality, cultural diversity and pan-technicality blurring lines between arts and science and eclecticism. Describing crafts as ‘‘a set of material discourses’’, he predicts that ‘‘every craft studio will be an effortless me´lange of traditional tools and high technology’’ (p. 2). Yet, there are also notes of caution mixed with hope when Lees-Maffei and Sandino (2004) trace the shifting allegiances, affinities and tensions, between the three and the increasing space and significance for crafts in the arts/design discourse.

Consumer awareness

Consumers purchase crafts for various reasons—patronage, utilitarian consumption, expressing a critique of industrial capitalism, buying ‘‘exotica’’ and culture as commodity, aesthetic sensibility, tourist consumption of crafts as memorabilia, and as Scrase (2003) points out, a desire to possess something that addresses a sense of alienation from people and nature. Yet, consumer awareness of crafts is crucial to avoid cheap exploitation of artisans, and mechanised imitations of handcrafted products as well as invented tradition (Chibnik, 2003). Today, though there is demand for crafts, it is not always backed by an awareness of artisans’ situations or of what crafts represent.

Skill building and apprenticeships

Crafts learning is a long-term process requiring demonstration, verbal instruction, and practice within an intimate mentoring relationship. Mastery through observation and imitation is often insisted upon by elders in the family, before a young person is allowed to innovate/experiment using indigenous oral knowledge in hereditary artisan communities. Women mostly learn at home from family members and techniques are often kept secret within the family/community. The dangers of this practice include a freezing of occupational mobility and a stranglehold of caste and patriarchy. With the European Arts and Crafts movement (from 1880 to 1920), non-kinship based apprenticeships emerged. Donkin (2001) elaborates how the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain, Les Compagnons du Devoir in France and others have involved craftspeople in architectural restoration since the 1960s, thereby moulding new craftspeople equipped with theoretical training, management roles, and technical skills. More recently, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and sometimes governments have been instrumental in arranging such apprenticeships. In Uganda, a project was set up for reviving the role of traditional clans in maintenance of the Kasubi Tombs. In Bhuj, India, Hunnarshala (an NGO) has been training traditional building artisans to design and build eco-friendly buildings for contemporary needs and emerging markets. At Sheffield Hallam University, an attempt has been made to bring women into building trades by providing orientation and training and simultaneously addressing childcare needs (Eaton, Collins, Morton, & Parnham, 2006).

Modernisation of the artisan

Advocates of crafts portraying craftspeople as ‘‘practitioners of tradition’’ and crafts as ‘‘spiritual revelation’’ have unwittingly constructed the craftsperson as a symbol of tradition and of cultural nationalism (Kawlra, 2001; Lipsey, 1977). This attitude pervades not only Government policies and NGO interventions, but has been internalised by many artisans themselves (Crafts Council of India, 2010). However, the purpose of a critique of industrialism is not an appeal to turn the clock back, but is to be understood in a Foucauldian sense, that is, a modernist’s critique of modernity.

In India, the need for artisans to shake off the stigma of caste/ethnicity and see themselves as designers, artists, and skilled/creative workers is the first step in the empowerment and modernisation of the artisan. But even today, a majority of artisans are unable to stand up to people of wealth and power, demand a just price, articulate their wisdom and comprehend markets and people far away. With survival at stake, artisans often accept middlemen’s lowest prices and are unable to confront city-bred designers who steal their designs and techniques to sell in high-priced international markets.

Gender relations within crafts communities must be addressed in the course of such modernisation of the artisan identity. Traditional gendered divisions of labour, and restrictions on women sitting at the loom or potter’s wheel, for example, have been transformed where gender-sensitive interventions have been made, as in a weaving project in Nigeria (Renne, 1997) and the Toe Hold collective in India (Issac, 2005).

At the same time, the dangers of over-commercialisation and mass-production of crafts should be understood. Crafts have the potential to develop the local economy, but over-commercialisation tends to bring in mechanisation, turning artisans into quasi-factory workers and in some cases promoting indentured child labour (Scrase, 2003).

To sum up, the potential for crafts to be considered careers in the modern world is promising mainly because of increasing demand for crafts, the readiness of craftspeople to innovate, and openness to reflect on their predicament and to change. However, there is a long way to go in blurring the lines between art and crafts, expanding non-kinship-based apprenticeships, and developing institutional frameworks, policy changes, and consumer awareness.

Traditional agriculture in today’s world

Over the years, traditional forms of agriculture—on small farms, using dry-land techniques and intercropping, with a dependence on organic inputs, indigenous knowledge and local seed banks—have been portrayed as primitive and inefficient and have therefore been marginalised. Small-scale traditional farming has been replaced by larger farms through land alienation caused by distress sales by small peasants. Plough and irrigation techniques, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the privileging and acceptance of corporate-sponsored research as the knowledge that counts, and dependence on corporations for hybrid or genetically modified seeds are developments collectively referred to as the ‘‘modernisation’’ of agriculture—a process often driven by national governments in a quest for food security and increases in production.

While large-scale modern agriculture increased food production, the human and ecological costs of such modernisation have slowly become evident. In India, for example, 182,936 farmers, unable to pay back crop loans, committed suicide between 1997 and 2007 (Sainath, 2009). In addition, the plight of more than 30 million people displaced by irrigation dams, soil and water pollution, and pesticide related deaths, deformities and disease, has raised serious questions about the violence of this paradigm of agricultural modernisation. There are now reports across both developed and developing countries of peasants shifting away from inter-cropping and production of coarse grains (the staple source of food and protein for the poor), towards mono-cropping of cash crops and non-food crops, leading to nutrition deficiency, food insecurity, and indebtedness. Yet, sustainable and organic agriculture is practised today in various cultural, ecological, and socio-economic eco-systems across the developing world, as farmers have either maintained their faith in traditional knowledge or were unable to afford and access chemicals and commercial seeds.

Can traditional agriculture be considered a career option?

Traditional forms of agriculture are increasingly recognised as containing solutions to problems ranging from toxicity in foods, water and soil pollution, climate change and the pauperisation of small and medium farmers, to the risks of corporate control over agricultural production and marketing. The erstwhile ‘‘modernisation’’ of agriculture is thus being challenged and the scope for modernity through traditional forms of agriculture is being explored.

While sustainable organic farming is necessary to save the planet and human life, it can be a career option only if certain key issues are addressed: feudalism in agrarian societies, recognition of indigenous knowledge, land expropriation of small holdings by large landowners, youth migration, state policies, and the emergence of the modern farmer. Each of these is discussed briefly below.

Feudalism in agrarian societies

Small peasants are not only marginalised because of their land-holding size, but often belong to castes, tribes, ethnicities, and communities that have lower social prestige, are considered less credit-worthy, and have almost no political voice or power. Their combined experience of poverty and powerlessness has historically resulted in a replication of inequality and systemic destitution for those who are pushed to the margins. Modernity in agriculture requires a transformation of agrarian relations from feudal to entrepreneurial. Whether it is the relationship between small farmers and landlords, or between small farmers and their workers, creditors, distributors and family members, the ability to negotiate on an equal basis and arrive at arrangements that are not exploitative is the need of the hour. This process has already begun as a result of education and exposure of young people from farming families, the feminisation of agriculture, and an enabling environment created by social movements of farmers, marginalised castes and communities.

Youth migrations and exits from agriculture

As lifestyle aspirations and farming risks increase, farming families across the developing world are seeking to supplement their incomes through a diversification of their income base with off-farm work and seasonal or permanent migration. Extensive research throughout India by the International Water Management Institute, indicates that while youth from affluent rural families are abandoning farming in search of professions such as medicine, engineering and business, youth from landless and marginal farmers’ families are migrating to cities in search of precarious wage employment as they find their land holdings too small to be viable (Sharma & Bhaduri, 2009).

As a result, youth from mid-sized farmer families are beginning to lease lands from rich and/or poor farmers who, despite their migrations, are reluctant to sell or part with the land since it is a source of security, food and prestige. For this class of youth, there are possibilities of making a meaningful career through sustainable farming on their own land, as well as leased land. However, despite several experiments that have demonstrated the long-term profitability of traditional agriculture on small holdings, the historic vulnerability of small farmers has made them averse to risks, even in the short run.

Recognising issues of biodiversity, ecological sustainability, financial viability, and cultural diversity, the International Labour Organisation, ILO (2010) and other United Nations bodies have made efforts not only to protect rights and cultures of indigenous peoples, but to protect agriculture itself from a destructive paradigm. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) and the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) also highlighted sustainable agriculture. Through the efforts of NGOs and farmers’ movements, organic farming is being re-introduced in regions where chemical intensive farming has been in practice, and local, national, and international movements of organic farmers, such as the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), active in 116 countries and the International Farming Systems Association (IFSA) have succeeded in drawing the attention of agricultural universities and research institutions.

State policy

For traditional agriculture to be considered a career, state policy is another vital element. The Green Revolution in India was a collaboration between the state and middle- and large-scale farmers who could afford to try out the technologies. In the post-Green Revolution era of liberalisation and globalisation, third-world governments are now focused on collaborating with agribusiness corporations for export oriented agriculture, side lining small and marginal farmers. Instead of being critical of past policies, which created the crisis in agriculture, the Indian government is strident in its critique of the agricultural sector itself, often calling it a ‘‘stagnant sunset sector’’ that needs to make way for industrialisation. In fact, the government is pursuing policies to attract young people towards urban centres, as exemplified by the Finance Minister’s interview to Tehelka (Chaudhury & Shanthanu, 2008) where he spoke of his vision of 85% of Indians living in cities.

Despite this general bias, recent developments internationally include government schemes to promote organic farming practices, organising international organic fairs and rewarding organic farmers: vital steps in creating an environment for traditional agriculture to be considered a meaningful career.

The emergence of the modern farmer

Contrary to the image of a traditional peasant cowering before the might of landlords, moneylenders and agents of the state, the modern farmer needs to emerge as a rational small-scale producer who recognises the merits of sustainable farming by combining traditional knowledge with a modern attitude to farming as a profession. This farmer will need to be functionally literate, informed about markets and the political economy of agriculture, and able to approach farming with a sense of entitlement—as comfortable in his/her cowshed as at a farmers’ movement meeting or in negotiations with agribusiness corporations. Ideally, this farmer will be able to mediate between science and the use of traditional techniques of production, embrace modern institutional frameworks, and question the oppressiveness of feudalism or of forms of capitalism that feed on a legacy of feudal power structures.

Since key obstacles to traditional farming being considered a career are only beginning to be addressed, the chances of it being considered a career option on a significant scale in the near future are slim. 

However, in the light of increasing market demand, state support, recognition of traditional organic farming, consumer awareness, and strong farmers’ movements, traditional farming can become a career in India, especially for youth from middle-class households who consider themselves to have a greater resilience and access to knowledge and resources. Sustainable and organic farming offers prospects for lifelong progression in learning and work through innovation in production methods, crop diversification ranging from coarse grains to niche products, expanding of market avenues to include local and global markets, and value addition to farm produce. In addition, farm tourism and community-supported agriculture are emerging as new avenues to strengthen interaction with consumers, ensure farm viability, household nutritional security, and national food sovereignty.

Modernity through traditional occupations: points to ponder for career guidance

Today, it is being argued that tradition and modernity are not binaries, but hybrids, and in the tensions between political economy and culture studies, a discourse on hybrid worlds, dialectic identities and transmodernity is emerging with a clear emphasis on going beyond dichotomies. In this section, we explore what this means in terms of traditional occupations finding their place in the modern world as careers that offer economic reward and meaning, especially for men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Youth in the 15–24 years’ age-group comprise 18% of the world’s population, amounting to 1.1 billion young people (World Bank, 2006). In the developing world, where 85% of youth live, the need for rural farm and non-farm livelihood opportunities for youth is a stark reality, as they are faced with a growing deficit of decent livelihood options and work opportunities, as well as high levels of economic and social uncertainty (Bennell, 2007; ILO, 2010). A majority of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds are looking not only for employment, but also for security, dignity, meaning, economic mobility, and status. Yet, meaning, challenge, satisfaction, and scope for intellectual growth, the elements of an ideal career, are often compromised in the quest for survival.

Members of crafts communities/agriculture have felt compelled to quit their traditional occupations as they have seen the hardships faced by their parents and peers. They are caught between survival needs, lifestyle aspirations, attachment to the craft/farm, to family and to village, and lack of information about options. Being treated as ‘‘unskilled’’ labour as one approaches middle age or even later, and being pushed to the bottom end of construction retail/farm work often seem the only way out.

In such a scenario, livelihood planning and career guidance are essential and need to be available at school and in the community for people over their life span. Yet, efforts to link individual potential, knowledge and skills, with opportunities in traditional occupations or with formal sector employment, are in their infancy in India. Apart from the pioneering efforts of organisations such as The Promise Foundation (Arulmani, 2009; Arulmani & Nag-Arulmani, 2004), and Samvada, few guidance or livelihood planning services have reached underprivileged people.

While access to career guidance in developing countries is a major need, equally important is the question of its nature and thrust. In the preceding sections, it has been argued that traditional agriculture and crafts have the potential to offer meaningful work, with scope for livelihood, social innovation, individual creativity, growth, and cultural expression, while addressing global, social and ecological concerns of the modern world. How can this perspective inform and shape career guidance and livelihood planning? The challenges are many if one seeks to build an inclusive and sustainable society while addressing individuals’ aspirations and the social mobility of disadvantaged groups. Generally, civil society organisations that work with craftspeople and farmers, focus on the craft or the farming and not on the farmer/artisan’s needs, aspirations and dilemmas. Career guidance and a focus on people’s life paths needs to permeate these organisations. At the same time, the issues surrounding the modern practice of traditional agriculture and craft need to broaden the scope of career guidance services. This shift implies integrating traditional occupations into the range of options and avenues made available within the basic tenets and principles of a career guidance service. Also needed is a guidance service that offers outreach to those in traditional occupations. Furthermore, career guidance can offer a critique of established notions of work and success and help analyse the personal, social, and ecological costs of mainstream corporate careers.

Integration of this perspective does not imply either promoting or preventing exits from traditional occupations, but rather an expansion of options to help people make informed decisions beyond the immediate push/pull compulsions and seeming attractiveness of formal sector jobs or corporate employment. While career guidance practice is generally based upon the notion that occupational mobility is a positive aspect of modern society, we need to help clients explore the nature of their motivation—to distinguish between a personal affinity/desire to do something else and a derision or despair vis-a`-vis crafts and farming. Career guidance and livelihood planning services help individuals analyse options, motivations and possible outcomes so that each individual can make informed decisions best suited to his/her interests, affinities, heritage, realities and aptitudes (UNESCO, 2002).

The individual is important and cannot be merely ‘‘the unknown craftsman’’ (Yanagi & Leach, 1972). Career guidance and livelihood planning need to be based on a recognition of community-polity dynamics, and then go beyond the group to persons and personalities in a way that embraces both structure and individual agency, especially regarding family relationships and autonomy of young people. This would be in tune with the principle of integrating self-awareness with information about occupations (McMahon & Patton, 1995).

Even more important than mere information, is the need for the career guidance encounter to offer a space to reflect on values and notions of success and to broaden aspirations beyond the hegemony of corporatism that permeates career guidance theory and practice. It also implies expanding the scope of career guidance and livelihood planning by helping youth, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, to perceive the potential of indigenous crafts/agriculture as youthful—creative, innovative, rebellious, exploratory and rewarding. In India, such an approach entails helping youth to break traditional taboos/norms around caste/class and gender in craft, so that anyone, irrespective of socioeconomic background, can aspire to learn and practise traditional craft/agriculture. This would mean including a wide spectrum of traditional crafts/farming as modern career options in information systems for career guidance clients. It also means redefining and positioning crafts as part of green jobs and decent jobs options, developing culturally sensitive career guidance modules for youth from crafts/farming/ indigenous communities, and paying special attention to self-awareness, choices and community leadership. An excellent example is the Native Indians’ career guidance system designed in Colorado (Arviso-One Feather & Whiteman, 1985).

The hegemony of Western science and technology, the racism inherent in disdaining the knowledge of tribes, castes and races, the tyranny of the written word, the search for the meta/universal and disregard for the local, all culminate in a skewed political economy of knowledge. Career guidance and livelihood planning practitioners need to engage with these themes. Validating traditional knowledge is paramount in a modern knowledge economy and here, career guidance can play a critical mediation role. The poverty and destitution of craftspeople/traditional farmers, and the extreme wealth of the professional designer, the marketing professional or agri-businessperson, bring us face-to-face with the uncomfortable reality that one set of knowledge is overvalued and another undervalued. The artisans’ and farmers’ knowledge is generated from the experience of many generations, rooted in local culture, passed down orally, repeatedly tested and argued with, empirical rather than theoretical, and based on repeated innovation (Kummera, Aigelspergerb, Milestadc, Chowdhury, & Vogla, 2010). When such systematically and rigorously-generated knowledge is disregarded, it indicates that knowledge itself is a site of domination, as Foucault (1972) has repeatedly elaborated in his critique of modernity.

Some argue that traditional knowledge should be codified and incorporated into the formal education system as accredited courses in traditional crafts/farming, with master craftspeople/farmers as mentors and as repositories of knowledge, skills, wisdoms and worldviews (National Council for Education, Research and Training, 2006; Sethi, 2010). Others fear dilution, co-option or even the usurping of indigenous knowledge, and advocate for formal, modern education as a supplement to traditional knowledge in farming/crafts communities [State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), 2005]. While these debates are evolving, career guidance and livelihood planning services can recognise alternative learning pathways and help in blurring the distinction between art and craft and between traditional, modern and scientific knowledge.

Globalisation has made the situation of artisans more precarious, despite booming markets for crafts (Scrase, 2003). Inhibited by traditional cultural values, the artisan and peasant shy away from trading their products or bargaining for prices. Career guidance and livelihood planning can also be actively engaged in the process of re-inventing the identity of the traditional farmer/artisan into a modern identity, where traditional knowledge is combined with modern institutional frameworks, and artisan/farmer youth emerge as leaders and advocates for the rights of their communities, engaging with state, markets and mechanisms for certifying authenticity and so on, with a sense of entitlement. Career guidance and livelihood planning practitioners can help in reflecting on notions of culture, critiquing cultural practices that are oppressive, undemocratic, or discriminatory, and thus contribute towards the modernising of artisans’ and farmers’ identities and the re-positioning of their occupations as expressions of modernity (Tripathi, 1981).

Such a career information and guidance approach could focus on modernisation of the farmer/artisan with multiple modern career roles and identities: artist, designer, entrepreneur, skilled worker, conservation activist, and repository of culturally unique knowledge, whose intellectual property, business acumen and manual dexterity are valued and validated. The dire and urgent need for new institutional structures to firmly establish traditional crafts/farming as part of the modern economy and polity will be fulfilled once the modernisation of the farmer/ artisan is underway. Further, modernity of the traditional artisan/farming community can be an engine of creative regional growth, as in Australia and Latin America, where rural and indigenous communities have demonstrated a distinct pattern of tapping into culture, identity and creative expression, affirming and drawing market resources into their particular regions (Eversole, 2005).

Conclusion

Ironically, what has been recognised as necessary for humanity and the planet as a whole has not been translated into meaningful careers in the rush towards a modernisation of agricultural and industrial production. Traditional crafts/agriculture have a market demand and a pool of skilled people. They have the potential for promoting decentralised production, sustainable and inclusive development, cultural diversity and worker satisfaction, along with the creation of beauty, health and utility for consumers. They can make the world a more humane and democratic space—if we let them. Career guidance practitioners can play a key role in this direction.

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