Towards Preserving Indigenous Oral Stories Using Tangible Objects

Smith, Andrew; Reitsma, Lizette; Hoven, Elise van den; Kotzé, Paula; Coetzee, Louis

doi:10.1109/culture-computing.2011.24

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Relegating bodily abilities to ergonomics deprives design of many constituents of orality. For instance, in Africa, gestures or mnemotechnical devices that attach verbal utterances to places or objects [1,10] can inspire new ways to support oral practices such as tangible designs that link stories and beadwork [38]. Responding to extralinguistic and meta-communicative phenomena, such as the mutual tuning of people's voices and bodies even when they talk using phones and cannot see one another [26], may enhance interactions.…”

Section: Body and Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

Situating Asynchronous Voice in Rural Africa

Bidwell

Siya²

2013

Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013

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Abstract. Designing for oral users in economically poor places has intensified efforts to develop platforms for asynchronous voice. Often these aim to assist users in rural areas where literacy is lowest, but there are few empirical studies and design tends to be oriented by theory that contrasts the mental functions of oral and literate users, rather than by local practices in social situations. We describe designing an Audio Repository (AR) based on practices, priorities and phone-use in rural Africa. The AR enables users to record, store and share voice files on a shared tablet and via their own cell-phones. We deployed the AR for 10 months in rural Africa and illiterate elders, who have few ways to use free or low-cost phone services, used it to record meetings. Use of, and interactions with, the AR informed the design of a new prototype. They also sensitized us to qualities of collective sense-making that can inspire new interactions but that guidelines for oral users overlook; such as the fusion of meaning and sound and the tuning of speech and bodily movement. Thus, we claim that situating design in local ways of saying enriches the potential for asynchronous voice.Keywords: Oral users, Rural Africa, Asynchronous voice, Social media. IntroductionMost of the world's 800 million illiterate adults live in economically poor regions; in fact, interpolating Worldbank indicators, in Africa fewer people can read and write than there are cell-phone subscriptions [23]. Cell-phones offer many new opportunities to people in technology-sparse regions but they may also amplify gaps between oral and literate users and this has motivated recent efforts to develop asynchronous voice platforms for rural settings where literacy is lowest. Such efforts include interactive voice applications and services for cell-phones to record and access content produced locally, or by authorities or NGOs [19,27,31,39] or participate in citizen journalism or online social networks [25,29]. However, there are few empirical studies [29] and design tends to be oriented by theory that contrasts the mental functions of oral and literate people, not by practices in social situations. In this paper we describe a system we deployed in rural South Africa to enable users to record, store and share voice files for free. We aim to show that situating design in local ways of saying can inspire new interactions for asynchronous voice; thus, we start by claiming that theory currently orienting design for oral users omits factors that can prompt ideation.

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Section: Body and Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

Situating Asynchronous Voice in Rural Africa

Bidwell

Siya²

2013

Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013

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“…Yet they also agree that videos are finite and fixed as opposed to traditional storytelling being, as stated earlier, dynamic, interactive, and versatile. More sophisticated and culturally adapted (often more technical) approaches for capturing count StoryBeads [22]. The two examples also show the challenges in recontextualizing the captured data for a desituated audience.…”

Section: Digital Storytelling In An Indigenous Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

Indigenous Storytelling in Namibia: Sketching Concepts for Digitization

Rodil

Winschiers‐Theophilus

2015

2015 International Conference on Culture and Computing (Culture Computing)

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Oral storytelling predates the written word and computer code by millennia which has been part of all pasts of contemporary communities. While narratives and plots can take place in the metaphysical world, be presented with humor and seem like fairytales to outsiders with little relevance to the physical world, they are very functional and foundational for communities where storytelling is enacted. This paper debates concepts related to indigenous storytelling and its relevance to knowledge and learning for indigenous youths. In an attempt to understand indigenous youths' own conception of storytelling the paper presents empirical data from a study with indigenous Khoisan children in Namibia. This is followed by a discussion of an effort of digitizing indigenous intangible cultural heritage in relation to technologies' embodied bias and perspectives.

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“…One of the best ways to preserve a culture is through oral narratives. Using beads and other tangible objects, BaNtwane people of South Africa communicated through oral stories the meaning of handcrafted beadwork in their culture (Smith, Reitsma, Hoven, Kotze, 2011). Datta (2018) proved that traditional storytelling is a culturally appropriate method for indigenous research.…”

Section: Oral Narratives and Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

More than words: A documentation and a morphological analysis of an indigenous language in the Philippines

Abiog¹,

David²

2020

Dil Ve Dilbilimi Çalışmaları Dergisi

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More than words are stories to be told. Stories tell a lot about people's thoughts, experiences, and practices which in turn speak about people's language, identity, and cultural heritage. The present study deals with the documentation and analysis of Mag-Antsi, the native language of Ayta Mag-Antsi indigenous people in the Philippines. With the aging population as its remaining speakers, Mag-Antsi is far from being sustainable. Using in-depth interviews, Ayta beliefs, practices, and traditions were documented and a word list of 376 Mag-Antsi words with varied lexical categories was constructed. A morphological analysis of Mag-Antsi was done to capture the grammatical structure of Mag-Antsi words in the oral narratives. Ten cultural short stories were also developed from the oral narratives to document and preserve the distinct culture of Ayta Mag-Antsi. This study found that the morphological structure of Mag-Antsi language has some similarities with Filipino which is marked by inflections and a unique orthography. This study also shows practical implications to the use of mother tongue in the academic setting and to language preservation.

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Towards Preserving Indigenous Oral Stories Using Tangible Objects

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Situating Asynchronous Voice in Rural Africa

Situating Asynchronous Voice in Rural Africa

Indigenous Storytelling in Namibia: Sketching Concepts for Digitization

More than words: A documentation and a morphological analysis of an indigenous language in the Philippines

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