Crafting Sustainability and Equitability: Reconstructing Pasts and Futures in the Indian creative economy

India is one of the leading exporters of creative goods and services among developing economies. This research concentrates on an essential part of India's creative economy: Traditional handicrafts sector. As the second-largest employer after agriculture, this sector draws on cultural heritage and tradition to provide incomes for many disadvantaged groups. This project will examine sustainability and sustainable practices related to environment and labour in traditional handicrafts and textiles with an aim to address inequalities of gender, religion, and caste from an intersectional perspective and to evaluate how and to what extent traditional practices can be embedded into the creative economy, in order to ensure long-term environmentally and culturally sustainable and socially equitable development.

The project will focus on crafts and textiles works and workers in three Indian cities - Delhi, Kohima and Mumbai. These three cities represent a broad geographic area of the country and are known for diverse forms of handicraft products and production processes from micro and cottage industries to mass commercial production. These cities have long contributed to the country's creative goods and services exports in the global economy and have direct and indirect trade relations with the UK. Thus, another purpose of this study is to explore the current status of the UK-India trade relations through the investigation of the UK-India trade relations and partnerships, particularly with Delhi, Mumbai, and Kohima, in the creative industries of fashion, textiles, and crafts among Indian diaspora in Birmingham and Glasgow. By doing so, the project will discuss further opportunities for tackling environmental and societal issues in transnational creative industries and for reconsidering business practices, such as business models and supply chains, for long-term economically, environmentally, socially, and culturally sustainable trade relations and partnerships between two...