Celebrating the Uncelebrated

In her article on the International Day for Sharing Life Stories (May 16 2008), Siobhan Warrington describes the value of using the expertise of individuals on testifying to the conditions of their own lives. She addresses the question: "how do we access the stories and voices of the most marginalised people in a respectful and empowering way?"


First, the reasoning for accessing the stories of the economically poor and marginalised, described here as the "real experts in development", include the follow: "only people who are chronically poor know the daily pressures and challenges of living in poverty; only the displaced can truly describe the impact of internal displacement; and only those who are HIV positive can articulate the experience of stigma associated with their status." The Panos London goal of collecting life stories from these population groups intends to address this lack of voice as one of the central aspects of economic poverty.


The 37-story collection projects build self-esteem by providing a listener/recorder who offers the opportunity to present a story in a local dialect without the need for literacy skills to someone who values and acknowledges the wisdom and experience of the narrator. It is also empowering for communities to represent themselves as they see themselves.


The strategy of this participatory research that differs from other methods is that it collects stories through a one-to-one approach by training interviewers from local cultures to collect stories in local dialects. The approach is not seeking information for a particular sector of development, and, by being open-ended, has the opportunity to capture a broader local landscape and refocus development goals. As stated here, "[o]ral testimonies challenge our assumptions about development and help identify new areas for development programming." For example, "[r]ecent testimonies with rural and urban poor communities in Pakistan, Zambia and Kenya show the importance of human relationships, both supportive and oppressive, in breaking or maintaining the cycle of poverty. And that many people are just too poor, or too preoccupied with daily survival to participate in community development activities."


The author concludes that though oral testimony collection has its tensions and challenges that are ethical, political, and practical, the economically poor and marginalised want the space to speak their experience. It falls to the development practitioners to develop ways to increase the value of oral testimony to rewrite development as it enriches the experience of the narrators, interviewers, and audience.