Cultural Futures: Mapping Emerging Trends in India

Culture often occupies the space between innovation, design, art, technology, business, development and countless other human pursuits. It gives each of these expressions context, meaning and an identity that is inextricably tied to a particular time, place and its people.

A little while back we did a cultural mapping exercise — to identify trends, movements and initiatives that are defining the context of our work in India. These are not necessarily areas in which we have worked — nor are they signifiers of the biggest economic, social or political trends. But pick any of these and you’d realise that the nature of conversations in these domains is changing dramatically, bringing in new perspectives, actors and challenges.

We launched this as a work-in-progress publication that you can read at leisure. Here’s a sneak peak into some of the themes that have pushed and challenged our work at Quicksand & UnBox.

Click through the images and titles below to read a little more about each particular theme:

Makers In India — India’s massive informal economy & artisan traditions present a challenging innovation context for the emerging maker movement on one hand & the government led ‘Make in India’ campaign on the other.

Connected Communities — Social media & technology driven start-ups are creating new communities, thereby defining codes of conduct & rules of engagement in a social context that didn’t exist until now.

We, the People — A growing wave of social initiatives are informing & empowering citizens to have a larger say in planning, policy & political issues, strengthening the engagement between people and governance.

Cultural Ethnography — A unique Indian identity begins to take shape as young urban Indians create & share cultural archives, using a variety of new media to do so.

Have ideas or comments for this publication?

We want to hear your thoughts! If any of these pique your interest, write to us, and start a conversation. You could also fill in this form to add to our growing list of (global and local) inspirations.

Originally published at quicksand.co.in on June 8, 2015.