title: Shemakes Vision
title: Shemakes.eu 101006203 Deliverable n. 1.1
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Cabrera, Adriana
name: Kerstin, Junge
name: Czeschik, Anna
name: Snow, Martha
name: Scott, Juliet
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021

description: This Deliverable presents the gender vision and innovation methodology underpinning the shemakes.eu opportunity ecosystem. Throughout history, women have made significant contributions to economic, political and social change using their spinning, weaving, sewing and other textiles skills - from producing the sails that adorned King Canute’s fleet in the 11th century to innovating with cutting edge technologies today; from using textiles skills to challenge the societies in which they lived to creating or joining movements today where women can use textiles skills and interest to work towards social and industry change – pushing the creative and technological boundaries of the textiles and clothing sector. And yet, not only is the importance of women’s historic textiles skills not generally recognised, work organisation in the mainstream textiles and clothing sector is one where roles that require these traditional skills tend to be held by women and attract very low financial and reputational rewards whereas roles with power and prestige and corresponding remuneration are more likely to be held by men.

In contrast, the shemakes.eu vision for its opportunity ecosystem is one where women’s equality in the textiles and clothing sector is promoted by empowering women and girls to take up different kinds of roles. By valuing the traditional textiles skills women have historically held, and the creativity and innovation that comes from honing these skills, and adding to this knowledge and experience that of cutting edge technologies, women are ready to shape a new and more equal place for themselves in the textiles and clothing sector, transforming the roles they hold and the gender projections on them. The Shemakes ecosystem itself is an embodiment of this vision, designing a work system aimed at women and girls where the construction of tasks that Shemakes participants work on (e.g. collaborative learning / experimentation among women) and how they relate to these tasks and the ecosystem itself are in synch (e.g. through networking the women who participate in shemakes.eu and creating safe spaces for experimentation and innovation). This is based on a clear understanding that gender differences are the result of social learning and patriarchal structures. Therefore, aligning task and sentient systems in the Shemakes ecosystem in this manner creates the conditions for greater gender equality in the textile and clothing sector more widely. Five corresponding values underpin all of this: equal, collaborative, welcoming difference, empowering, inspiring. 

This vision then sits behind the shemakes.eu innovation methodology. The innovation process in the project is oriented towards understanding the current state of women and gender equality in the textile and clothing industry, how this issue is addressed and in which directions, and how aware they are of these inequalities. Against this background,we present Shemakes as a complex and non-linear ecosystem which has been coconstructed through various iterations. Inspired by the approach of Granstrand & Holgersson, 2020 and Pascual, 2021) the complex and non-linear ecosystem has been mapped out as a set of concepts, values, and interrelationships between and within ecosystem actors, artefacts, and activities. In doing so, we show the unique characteristics of Shemakes as an ecosystem focused on women in the textile and clothing sector, most notably its value creation through networks of co-creative collaboration. Because complex systems are characterised (among others) by selforganisation and constantly evolve, we argue that the shemakes.eu innovation methodology needs to mirror these dynamics. Therefore, Pascual’s innovation ecosystem canvas, supplemented by two additional categories to address the complexities of the shemakes.eu ecosystem offers a useful framework to understand and develop the Shemakes innovation methodology as a process which evolves as the ecosystem itself changes and takes shape. 

It is envisaged that both the gender vision and the innovation methodology presented in this deliverable will be useful artifacts to facilitate an engagement with the complex shemakes.eu change process - shaping it and being shaped by it.