Empowerment or Disempowerment: The (Dis)empowering Processes and Outcomes of Co-Designing with Rural Craftspeople

Abstract

Despite the significance of human development for sustainability, the actual effects of craft-design collaboration on craftspeople have scarcely been discussed. Moreover, despite its wide usage, the meaning of empowerment in design discourse is unclear and its discussions are barely linked to mature ones in other disciplines. In addition, disempowerment has been mentioned far less often than empowerment. From the perspective of empowerment, this article examines the elements in the processes of craft-design collaborations that can exert positive or negative influence on craftspeople, and analyzes both the empowering and disempowering effects on them as co-design outcomes. This research builds on two empirical cases based on Tiao Hua, a cross-stitching handwork. We identify five stages of co-design processes for empowerment analysis. The data was mainly collected from the designers (D1–D16) and craftswomen (C1–C8) through observations, interviews, and reflective sessions. We sorted and codified the qualitative data as sticky note statements. Higher-level themes and sub-themes emerged from the codified statements through affinity analysis. Finally, we presented an analytical framework of craftspeople (dis)empowerment process and outcome. The (dis)empowering process covers four dimensions: organization, instrumentation, participation, and interaction, while the outcome involves emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and relational components. We contend craftspeople (dis)empowerment should be discussed dialectically in four aspects.