Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism Notes

LO TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism

  • Lo-TEK Definition: A design movement focused on rebuilding understanding of indigenous philosophy and vernacular architecture to create sustainable, climate-resilient infrastructures.

Introduction: The Mythology of Technology

  • Core Idea: In an era overwhelmed by information and facing climate extremes, Lo-TEK utilizes Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to offer sustainable solutions.
  • TEK represents a cumulative body of multigenerational knowledge, practices, and beliefs, showing sophistication in design and sustainability.
  • Wade Davis Quote: "Every culture is by definition a vital branch of our family tree, a repository of knowledge and experience, and, if given the opportunity, a source of inspiration and promise for the future."
  • Drowning in Information: While overwhelmed with information, humanity is "starving for wisdom", which Lo-TEK aims to provide.
  • Mythology of Technology:
    • European Enlightenment intellectuals constructed a mythology of technology that disregarded local wisdom and indigenous innovation.
    • This mythology favored resource extraction and distanced itself from natural systems, fueling the Age of Industrialization.
    • The consequences of this mythology haunt us in the Anthropocene epoch.
  • Anthropocene: Our current geological period defined by the undeniable impact of humans on the environment.
  • Biodiversity Loss: 60% of the world's biodiversity has vanished in the past forty years.
  • Alternative Mythology: An unacknowledged mythology exists in remote indigenous cultures that work with nature rather than trying to conquer it.
  • Value and Preservation: While modern societies value architectural artifacts of dead cultures, like the Pyramids of Giza, those of living cultures often get displaced.
  • Lo-TEK Movement:
    • Investigates lesser-known local technologies, TEK, indigenous cultural practices, and mythologies.
    • Reframes indigeneity as an evolutionary extension of life in symbiosis with nature.
    • Connects to vernacular architecture as popularized by Bernard Rudofsky.
  • Radical Indigenism:
    • Coined by Eva Marie Garoutte, advocating for rebuilding knowledge and exploring indigenous philosophies.
    • Aims to generate new dialogues for sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructures.
    • Takes its name from the Latin word 'radix' meaning root.
  • Potential of Lo-TEK: Hybridized and scaled indigenous technologies can significantly reduce humankind's ecological footprint.
  • Four Ecosystems: Explores indigenous innovations from mountains, forests, deserts, and wetlands.
    • Mountains: Inca of Peru, Khasis of Northern India, Ifugao of the Philippines, and Subak of Bali.
    • Forests: Maya of Mexico, Chagga of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Malayali of India, Enawenê-nawê and Kayapó of the Amazon Basin in Brazil.
    • Deserts: Zuni of New Mexico, Maasai of Kenya, Persians of Iran, and Ngisonyaka Turkana of Kenya.
    • Wetlands: Uros of Peru, Ma'dan of the Southern Wetlands of Iraq, Bengalese of the Eastern Kolkata Wetlands of India, Tofinu of Benin, and Javanese of Indonesia.
  • TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge): Cumulative body of multigenerational knowledge, practices, and beliefs.
  • Symbiosis: Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.
  • Vernacular: A local style of architecture concerned with domestic and functional rather than monumental buildings.
  • Malayali: An Indian ethnic group originating from the present-day state of Kerala, located in South India.
  • Uros: An indigenous people of Peru and Bolivia.

The Knowledge-Practice-Belief Complex of TEK

  • TEK is conveyed through mythology and explains the complexity of the natural world.
  • It is translated into a western scientific framework called the Knowledge-Practice-Belief Complex, consisting of four interrelated levels:
    • Individual: Local knowledge of land and animals.
    • Land and Resource Management Systems: Knowledge, practices, tools, and techniques for environmental management.
    • Social Institutions: Community and social organization, including coordination, cooperation, and governance.
    • Worldview: Religion, ethics, and general belief systems.

Lo-TEK Lexicon

  • Green Technologies: Innovations intended to mitigate or reverse the effects of human activity on the environment.
  • Knowledge-Practice-Belief Complex: A scientific framework that articulates the four interrelated levels of traditional ecological knowledge.
  • Watershed: An area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas.
  • Subsistence Farming: A self-sufficient farming system in which the farmer focuses on growing enough food to feed their family.
  • Mass Extinction: A widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth.
  • Lo-Tech vs. High-Tech:
    • Lo-tech: Simple, unsophisticated, uncomplicated, and primitive technology. Pre-dates the industrial revolution.
    • High-tech: Relatively new technology incorporating advanced features, often seen as better but can be problematic, inefficient, and expensive.
  • TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge):
    • A cumulative body of multigenerational knowledge, practices, and beliefs.
    • Forms the foundation of indigenous technologies.
    • Engineered to sustain rather than exploit resources, fostering symbiosis between species by making biodiversity the building block used to construct green technologies.
  • Lo-TEK Characteristics:
    • Sustainable, adaptable, and resilient technologies born out of necessity.
    • Local, inexpensive, handmade soft systems, embedded with TEK.
    • Sophisticated designs that work with complex ecosystems.
    • Amplify mutually beneficial interactions between multiple species (species symbiosis).
    • Embedded in culture and climate.
    • Responses to both everyday needs and environmental extremes.
  • Shadow Conservation Network:
    • A connected global system of informally protected sacred lands harboring the majority of the planet's cultural and biological diversity.
    • These areas coincide with the world's language and biodiversity hotspots.
  • Conservation Refugee: A person forcibly removed from their lands by conservation legislation.
  • Indigenous Displacement:
    • Mass extinction of diversity closely follows the displacement of indigenous peoples.
    • Indigenous lands cover one-fifth of the earth's surface and shelter four-fifths of its number of species.
    • Over one million indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed from their lands in the last hundred years by conservation legislation alone.
  • Ancient Mythologies of Technology:
    • Farming by fire is practiced across the globe.
    • Example: The Anishinaabe nation's sacred myths involving the Thunderbird and spring fires.
    • Regenerates nature through ecological processes like succession.
  • Three Sisters Planting Method:
    • An ancient mythology of technology relying on species symbiosis, practiced by various nations.
    • Crops of maize, beans, and squash have been the principal diet of the Mayan civilization for millennia.
    • Cultivation of maize is a spiritual act.
    • Ceremonies accompany the annual milpa cycle.
  • Simultaneous Innovation:
    • Scientific discoveries made independently, often occur simultaneously.
    • Example: The codiscovery of evolution by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin.
    • Indigenous innovations in isolated communities facing similar environmental constraints.
  • Cultural Keystone Species:
    • An exceptionally salient species to a people, identified by its significance in their diets, materials, medicines, languages, traditions, histories, and spiritual practices.
    • Leverages symbiosis and uses biodiversity as a building block.

Jingkieng Dieng Jri: Living Root Bridges of the Khasis, India

  • Location: Meghalaya, India
  • People: Khasis
  • Technology: Jingkieng Dieng Jri Living Root Bridges and Living Root Ladders
  • Elevation: 1425-1965 m
  • Origin: 100 BCE
  • Monsoon: A seasonal prevailing wind bringing rain or dry conditions.
  • Living Root Bridges:
    • Innovative indigenous infrastructure developed by the Khasi tribe of Northern India.
    • Located in Meghalaya, a region with the highest levels of precipitation on earth.
    • Bridges withstand monsoonal rains, connecting villages during floods.
    • Documented in 1841 by Henry Yule.
  • Khasi Origins and Mythology:
    • Arrived in the first century BCE from Laos.
    • Call themselves Hynniewtrep, referring to the seven families who remained on earth after descending from a living root ladder.
    • See themselves as one with their natural systems.
  • Environmental and Geographic Context:
    • Remote villages in mountainous terrain between major valleys.
    • Geographic isolation has preserved the unique tradition of living bridge and ladder building.
  • Cultural Keystone Species:
    • The rubber fig tree (Ficus elastica) is a sacred cultural keystone species.
    • Used for infrastructural, ecological, technological, economical, and cultural purposes.
  • Bridge Construction:
    • The Khasis plan their living root bridges a decade in advance, planting rubber fig trees at critical crossings along rivers.
    • After thirty years of training the roots across the rivers a bridge can carry a load of up to fifty people.
    • The secondary root system is directed to grow through hollowed-out trunks of the betel nut tree and trained to cross the stream corridor.
    • {Jingkieng\space dieng \space jri} translates to 'rubber tree bridge.'
  • Bridge Lifespan and Maintenance:
    • Under ideal conditions the lifespan of a living root bridge is several hundred years.
    • Self-repairing and grow stronger as the structural roots grow thicker.
  • Living Root Ladders:
    • Used to climb the face of the plateau escarpment to access farmland.
    • Rubber fig trees are woven into ladders and suspended walkways.
  • Multiple Performative Capacities: The Khasis have minimized material use, cost, maintenance, and environmental impact, while maximizing load bearing capacity over time
  • Khasi Architect Prabhat D Sawyan: Explains, "During the monsoon season, life slows as people stay indoors. This has given birth to a culture which is woven around the spinning of yarns and folklore."
  • Law Kyntang: Khasi folklore protects growth along stream corridors by demarcating up to a certain elevation along the riverbank as sacred.

Interview with Prabhat Dey Sawyan

  • Prabhat D Sawyan is an architect and entrepreneur from Meghalaya.
  • He studied architecture at The School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.
  • He was awarded the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage-South Asian Tourism Trade Exposition award in 2007 in recognition of his design and construction work on the boutique resort Ri Kynjai (Serene Land) located on the outskirts of Shillong.
  • Features of the Khasi landscape include:
    • Rolling hills, sparkling clean rivulets
  • The traditional Khasi roof form looks like an upturned boat and hugs the ground.
  • Tip Briew Tip Blei meaning Divinity within-Divinity without.
  • The peak where the Golden ladder was located remains as witness to the origin story and is called Lum Sohpet Bneng or Navel of Heaven.