Industrial and Product Design Commons^™

Cultural Production In Qatar: Design, Dialog And The New Authentic, Asma Derouiche

Theses and Dissertations

Qatar, as a rapidly modernizing Arab country with a highly heterogeneous emergent community, is working to achieve a balance between accelerated development and cultural identity. Qatar’s cross-cultural environment and diverse attributes offer unprecedented opportunity to produce forward-looking, “100% Qatari Products,” that express a New Authentic.

This thesis explores social dynamics governing cultural production in Qatar, and it challenges unproductive manifestations of social hierarchy—particularly related to norms surrounding the default working relationship between designers and artisans. The research highlights and celebrates the inherent diversity of the Qatari artifact, creating a platform and methods wherein designers and artisans collaborate equally and meaningfully. …