Intergenerational Knowledge Transmission through Household Apprenticeship in Etikoppaka Lacquer Craft, Anakapalli District
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This study examines intergenerational knowledge transmission through household apprenticeship in Etikoppaka wooden lacquer craft, Anakapalli District, Andhra Pradesh. It draws exclusively on qualitative field material generated between October 2021 and June 2023. The focused corpus comprises participant observation, semi-structured interviews with 15 craft participants, workshop and process documentation, field photographs, and material records. The findings show that learning is embedded in household production and develops through observation, peripheral assistance, guided component work, supervised production, independent practice, and eventual mentoring. Master artisans exercise instructional leadership by sequencing tasks, modelling procedures, regulating access to hazardous tools, correcting performance, and assessing competence through product quality. Women specialists transmit significant knowledge of colouring, sanding, polishing, assembly, and finishing, although their instructional authority is often weakly recognised. The transmitted knowledge includes wood selection, tool control, turning, hollowing, friction-based lac application, polishing, aesthetic judgement, and quality control. Continuity is constrained by irregular income, production pressure, gendered access, youth movement towards alternative employment, and episodic institutional support. The article argues that household workshops function as community-governed vocational learning organisations and proposes paid mentoring, artisan-led documentation of demonstrated competence, and sustained school-artisan and cluster partnerships.
Institution: Andhra University
Language: English
Topic: Crafts, Textile, and Design
Subfield: Museology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7217706366