In this seminar, Abismrita will present key findings from her doctoral work, a multi-sited ethnography with handloom weavers in India that examines how artisan communities sustain and transmit craft traditions while also adapting their knowledge practices to the shifting challenges of contemporary times. Craft apprenticeships emerge as complex social fields where identities, livelihoods, and everyday life are intricately interwoven. Highly specialised skills are passed down across generations through informal, and embodied modes of learning. Women weavers relate to their craft and articulate aspirations within and beyond their practice. The study traces women’s varied engagements with skill programmes, uncovering sites of negotiation, resistance, and tension as they navigate notions of authenticity, tradition, modernity, and empowerment. By weaving together ethnographic insights into how communities learn, labour, and strategise from within their social worlds, the study offers a grounded perspective on apprenticeships, agency, and the politics of development.

Abismrita is a DPhil candidate at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research explores themes of informal learning, alternative pedagogies, and development, with a focus on diverse epistemologies and situated ways of knowing.