Human Information Sources of Clay-based Handicrafts of West Bengal, India: A Quantitative Analysis Towards Identifying the Factors Responsible for the Product Development

Abstract

: Searching down the memory lane, clay-based handicrafts of West Bengal in India was found to be one of the earliest inventions in the field of crafts-by-humans. The clay-based handicrafts include clay dolls, clay models, ceramics, terracotta, clay idols and clay images of some purposively selected clusters of West Bengal, India. In case of clay-based handicrafts, mainly common artisans have been considered as human information sources in the present study. Because most of the artisans get the skill or information traditionally from their parents. Each artisan is basically a trainer or an expert of the art work with respect to their minors. Though there are the provisions of organizing training programmes through the subject experts, but in real life situation it is found that most of the artisans mainly depend on the tacit knowledge of their parents for preparing and developing the products. At present these age-old art works are facing some problems and some factors are responsible for these. The present study is an attempt to find out the factors through surveying of artisans i.e. human information sources, which are responsible or not for the development of the clay-based handicrafts of West Bengal. The factors financial assistance, Market/selling, Training, Raw material, Infrastructure, Information, Packaging & Transportation and Working Space have been selected on the basis of pilot study, literature search and consultation with subject experts. In the present study, some recommendations are given on the basis of findings.