July 13th- 26th
I first decided to look at my project from a micro-lens and decided that I should focus on one stereotype surrounding menstruation. This, I chose to be “Menstrual blood is impure”.
I believe that this is the underlying belief in a few cultures for taboos to emerge.
I started narrowing down my target audience as well and decided to use strategies from Emily’s workshop of identifying shifts.
Literature review
I started with my literature review which focused on the following topics —
Belief formation through participation/performance
Future of Indian cultural experiences
Art as activism
Leverage points in the system
I came across a new term, ‘craftivism’. "Craftivism is a form of activism through craft. It can be referred to as a way of looking at one’s life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger, your compassion deeper, and one’s quest for justice more infinite". (TICP, 2020)
Sarah Corbett talks about how craftivism can be compared to gentle protest and the weapons of protests being craft. (Corbett, 2017)
I related this concept to the history of Mahatma Gandhi in India using a spinning wheel for making his own clothes in protest of British rule, which is a perfect example of craftivism in a cultural and political context.
I also learned a very interesting concept: Biocultural heritage. It is defined as an understanding of cultural landscapes as the result of long term biological and social relationships, shaping biological and material features of the landscape. Memory, experience, and knowledge play a vital role as well.
Feedback
John asked me to look at belief change theories instead of behavior change theories. I got a lot of theoretical reading suggestions from my cohort which included-
Structuration Theory — Pierre Bourdieu
De Certeau — The Practice of Everyday Life
Nudge theory
Henri Lefebvre — critique of everyday life
Out of these, I thought the nudge theory could be really helpful in my project.
Takeaways
As this was the first time that I was working alone in the entire year of the course, it was hard to read a lot of resources in lesser time. I learned how to prioritise the readings. Also due to the lockdown in India, it was difficult yet interesting to change your physical space to optimise productivity.
References
Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–15
Buehl, M., & Beck, J. (2015). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and teachers’ practices. In H. Fives & M. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp. 66–84). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 947–967.
Corbett, S., 2017. How to be a Craftivist. Unbound Publishing.
Daskalogianni, K., & Simpson, A. (2000). Towards a definition of attitude: The relationship between the affective and the cognitive in pre-university students. In T. Nakahara & M.
Koyama (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 217–224). Hiroshima, Japan: PME.
Kolb, D.A., Fry, R.E. (1974). Toward an Applied Theory of Experiential Learning
TICP, (2020) The India Craft project.
Wyer, R. S., and Albarracín, D. (2005) Belief formation, organization, and change: Cognitive and motivational influences. The handbook of attitudes, 273, 322.
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