Epistemologies of craft: The role of material innovation in making colour expertise

• Applicants: Annapurna Mamidipudi, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Friedrich Steinle
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435681850

The project aims at reconstructing colour making practices in India and Europe and hereby pur-sues a double goal: it will massively enrich our knowledge of craft colour making practices in 19th and 20th centuries, and will also contribute new insights to the growing discussion of how to grasp and understand craft knowledge in its historical, epistemological and social dimensions. The project starts from the observation that embodied expertise remains essential and thriving both in craft knowledge in the global south, with serious production for a global market, and also has contributed to chemical manufacturing processes in laboratories and modern production sites. In combining history of science/ technology and STS approaches, the project aims at bringing that global view strongly into the discussions about the nature of craft knowledge and hence also in the debate of a general history of knowledge. Through focusing on the specific craft of colour making in India, it will make original contributions to standard chemical dye histo-ries, both by adding a cross-regional perspective and, at the same time, by highlighting the role of practitioners. The project will reach its goals through three specific studies: (1) a detailed study of mordant dyeing, as its practices were transmitted through texts and samples from India to Europe in the 19th century, (2) an analysis of craft user innovation in India at the arrival of European chemical dyes, through the intervention of dancer, designer, and producer Rukmini Devi Arundale, and (3) an active extension of recent and older discourses and analytical re-sources on how to grasp and understand craft knowledge and its epistemological dynamics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants