Design Is a Euro-American Concept: Could jugaad Inform Indian Design Education?

Indian design education acknowledges traditional craft practices, but Euro-American pedagogical and practice models dominate learning and teaching in India’s design academies. Outside the design/craft binary, India is home to jugaad, a socially specific approach to problem-solving combining pragmatism with an economy of means that demonstrates the agency of everyday Indians in addressing their needs. The difficulty in categorising grassroots practices from the Global South like jugaad highlights conceptual shortcomings in efforts to decolonise design and design education. In seeking to dismantle colonial influences on design to foster cultural diversity, local knowledges, inclusivity and equitable representation, the aim to decolonise design still conceptually elevates design over other practices. In exploring the scope to develop a pluriversal deign curriculum and associated learning approaches within Indian tertiary education, our paper uses practice theory to examine jugaad as its own practice, not an ‘other’ or adjunct to Euro-American conceptions of design. Jugaad challenges the value system of Euro-American professional design, suggesting how India’s diverse culture of practices for material production and problem-solving might inform the education of future practitioners to equip them to address the raft of challenges in an age of environmental collapse and resource scarcity while mobilising the agency of everyday Indians. Informing this discussion is an examination of the expression of jugaad in Delhi’s informal retail sector where vendors daily practice jugaad as a distinct set of ways for responding to obstacles and opportunities.