The life style study programmes comprise of the  Loka Parampara, which revolves around a community, and the Ksetra Sampada, which revolves round a region. Its objectives is to explore all fields of cultural knowledge minutely with a view to understanding of functioning of various communities in their totality.  So far societies have been studied in linear, unidimensional form, by such disciplines as anthropology, sociology, economics, politics, science, history, art-history or development planning, etc.

The Centre is evolving a model of lifestyle studies based on the premise that life is not fragmented into separate dimensions. At the heart of the construction of this model is the intention to visualize a multi-layered and multi-dimensional system operating in demarcated or defined social space.  Another imaginative component is the recognition that time is physical, biological, mythical and metaphysical. Neither the evolutionary model of culture nor the linear time dimension of history is sufficient.

The main thrust of the lifestyle study programmes is on the interrelationship of nature, ecology, daily life, social structure, worldview, cosmology, lifecycle, daily routine, annual calendar, knowledge, skills, traditional technologies and artistic manifestation. Through specific community studies the interdependence in the arts, mutual influence among regions and interrelationship of the tribal, rural and urban, the literary and oral traditions are investigated. These studies often culminate in a monograph, audio-visual documentation and / or cartographical presentation of specific aspects of arts and crafts. The field studies also provide information to evolve computerizable modules for conducting further studies. To supplement the research with appropriate computerized documentation procedures, seminars have been held on the computerizing of cultures and expert systems in lifestyle studies.

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