To design is to improvise: How everyday skills shaped Kosovo’s civil resistance in the 1990’s
Session
Integrated Design
Description
The conventional view of the collective civil resistance movement, which occurred in Kosovo from 1989 through 1997, is that it was designed beforehand by intellectuals and handed down to ordinary people for implementation. Drawing on published material from the period, as well as on informal conversations with participants from the movement, this paper aims to show that the movement owes less to the intellectual abilities of its leaders and more to the improvisatory skills of its ordinary participants. Taking this particular case as an example, the paper attempts to bring an anthropological perspective to issues of human creativity, design and improvisation. In so doing, it attempts to introduce the core concepts behind the emerging field of “design anthropology.”
Keywords:
improvisation, everyday life, aesthetic resistance, skills, design anthropology
Session Chair
Aferdita Statovci
Session Co-Chair
Ajhan Bajmaku
Proceedings Editor
Edmond Hajrizi
ISBN
978-9951-437-69-1
Location
Pristina, Kosovo
Start Date
27-10-2018 10:45 AM
End Date
27-10-2018 12:15 PM
DOI
10.33107/ubt-ic.2018.228
Recommended Citation
Jashari, Arber, "To design is to improvise: How everyday skills shaped Kosovo’s civil resistance in the 1990’s" (2018). UBT International Conference. 228.
https://knowledgecenter.ubt-uni.net/conference/2018/all-events/228
To design is to improvise: How everyday skills shaped Kosovo’s civil resistance in the 1990’s
Pristina, Kosovo
The conventional view of the collective civil resistance movement, which occurred in Kosovo from 1989 through 1997, is that it was designed beforehand by intellectuals and handed down to ordinary people for implementation. Drawing on published material from the period, as well as on informal conversations with participants from the movement, this paper aims to show that the movement owes less to the intellectual abilities of its leaders and more to the improvisatory skills of its ordinary participants. Taking this particular case as an example, the paper attempts to bring an anthropological perspective to issues of human creativity, design and improvisation. In so doing, it attempts to introduce the core concepts behind the emerging field of “design anthropology.”