Sustainable applications behind geographically indigenous product cultures : a study of village communities in central high valley, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

While going through the existing creative knowledge applications of the present day world, it is a fact that all of them are not applicable to all the contexts that one might come across. Hence there is a need of finding new paradigms in order to develop sustainable knowledge in a way that it would adopt to address any of the creative needs that would arise in different contexts. There are plenty of fossilized knowledge that can be found in the deeper layers of the community, mainly in the indigenous communities which could be extracted to address the present day issues. This research attempts to explore how these geographically indigenous communities respond to their day today needs and sustainable potentials of their product culture. It will analyse the means of knowledge maintenance and transmission, with a particular focus on the day today products as well as at alternative strategies implemented by them. The study was undertaken in selected four geographically indigenous villages in Central high valley, Sri Lanka; Udugaldebokka, Galamuduna, Narangamuwa and Rambukkoluwa. This research used qualitative and quantitative methods to gather factual data through dialogic interviews and video recordings of the same discussion and local literature sources. The whole research process was carried out through hand on experience and observations done on real time product applications within the community. It was guided by the principles of community-based participatory research and was theoretically grounded by the methods of visual ethnography. Followed by an analysis on product application methodologies. Thus based on its findings, research will conclude that geographically indigenous communities of the region are great knowledge holders and serves as an important resource to decode their knowledge to present sustainable design applications by the means of connecting sources and needs, plotting resources, ethical frameworks, exploring alternatives, sharing abilities and framing intentions..