10th — 16th August
I initially wanted to visit 2 art villages (which survive on the income of art) but I could not do so due to the pandemic. I decided to situate my project in a small village just outside Pune city (in Maharashtra, India) called Loni- Kalbhor. I had an advantage in this village as I had spent 4 years there. I also spoke the same language (Marathi). This made it easier for me to conduct interviews and observe the culture.
I decided to look at my project from a narrow lens and chose Loni to be my primary village for research. I would try to test my concepts in Loni as well.
Culture of Loni
Behavior mapping
On the first day, I decided to observe menstruating women. This was a hard task as it is inconspicuous. I, fortunately, knew a few women from past projects in the village and they told me that they would go into a cowshed for 5 days from the first day of getting their period.
I decided to map the cowshed and made a visual map of the area. I also figured out that not all women would go into the shed during their period. Some slept on the floor instead of the bed. I noticed that most of the women who used the cow shed belonged to a lower caste.
Insight- Socio economic and education play a huge role in upholding taboos.
Insights
Interactions are only with other menstruators (who are on their period at that time)
It is very ironic that the temple is so close to the shed. (as women are not allowed to enter temples while menstruating)
These behavioral expectations are enforced by others AND enforced by self
Men do not even come close to the shed.
One of the menstruators( not menstruating at the time) fetches water and drops it off the shed.
Parameters for behavior mapping-
I made an abstract behavior model after the mapping of 7 women. The parameters I chose were antecedents, experiences, and impacts. I mapped down where these parameters come into play, and how the antecedents, even though smaller in space, leave a much bigger impact. To symbolize this, I have used transparent sheets, so the antecedent layer gets hidden after the other layers are added.
The behavior map gave me an insight into how leverage points can be effective in addressing a larger problem.
AEIOU
One very interesting thing which came up while doing the AEIOU was the Banyan tree in the communal area of the village. This space was called a “PAAR”. This was a place where all men came together after work and told mythology stories.
Photo credits — google
This would be a great place to situate my project.
Takeaway's
As we officially were in the midst of the vacation, I could not get feedback from my tutors or my cohort. Making things tangible helped me get back to my roots of MA UX. It also helped me visualize my project in a physical space.
Comments