Posted January 2000
by Philippe Van der Stichele
Communication for Development Group
Extension, Education and Communication Service
FAO Research, Extension and Training Division
An article by Philippe Van der Stichele, Communication for Development Officer, FAO, who attended the Malawi workshop as an observer. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Professor Christopher Kamlongera, Charles E. Namondwe and Dr. James L. Ng'ombe whose workshop reports and annexes form the basis of this article.
Folk and traditional media for rural development
In the mid-eighties, FAO's Communication for Development Group (of SDRE) explored ways of using traditional and popular media. The late Ms. Anamaria Decock and Robert Van Poelje put together a package called "A Participatory Methodology to produce Traditional and Popular Media" based on population communication experiences in Africa. Prior to this publication and related to this work, was a case study, "Applying DSC methodologies to population issues: A case study in Malawi" done by Ms Agnes Kavinya, Dr Sultana Alam and Ms Anamaria Decock. These were the result of fieldwork started in Burundi and fine-tuned in Malawi. These two exercises emphasised "tapping" the talents of local folk media performers, in various degrees of sophistication. The artist groups were brought together in a workshop environment to share and discuss thematic development issues of concern to the organisers. The artists would then conceptualize appropriate development messages and interpret them using their individual performing arts (dance groups, comedians, singers, drummers, skiffle bands, actors). After rehearsal and fine-tuning, the show would then be put on the road and performed in the neighbouring communities. It served as welcome entertainment, attracted young and old, stimulated discussion and provided food for thought. It was a door opener for development agents to follow up on when visiting the villages which had enjoyed the show.
Unfortunately, insufficient funding did not allow for the monitoring and evaluation of the real impact of the performances. Furthermore, there was no systematic post-performance operational plan in which the concerned development agents would visit the villages and organize further participatory group discussions on the issues presented by the artists. Did the folk media performances have any impact on the community groups, either positive or negative? Were the thematic issues well understood and credible? Were the performances culturally acceptable? Did they encourage reviewing perceived values and did they encourage behavioural changes?
FAO's Communication for Development Group considers that there is a definite potential in applying Folk Media for rural development work but realises that more research must be conducted in order to understand how to apply it correctly. The Group considers that, in this modern age of new information/communication technologies and mass media, the cultural values of traditional media channels must not be disregarded. If we are to properly communicate with rural communities, we must learn more about and better understand how to channel our development work through those communities' traditional communication channels as well. The Group, therefore, requested the assistance of Professor Chris Kamlongera, Director of the SADC Regional Centre of Communication for Development (CCD) based in Harare, Zimbabwe, to conduct a first workshop in Malawi to look at how to apply folk media under a different context.
Malawi was chosen as the setting for the first workshop; the CCD's familiarity with local Chewa folk media was a strong factor in the selection of the site. Moreover, Prof. Chris. Kamlongera (Malawian), CCD Director, had previous experience in folk media and was able to obtain the assistance of Prof. Charles Namondwe, Malawian social and visual anthropologist, Director of the Department of Arts and Crafts, University of Malawi and, Dr. James L. Ng'ombe, Executive Director, Malawi Institute of Journalism. Professors Namondwe and Ng'ombe contributed to the workshop as resource persons.
Rather than "tapping" into the talents of local artist groups (professionals and neo-professionals) to produce development messages through their performances, the concept of this workshop was to teach extension workers how villagers apply their own local media and ceremonial traditions to pass on messages the way that they understand their implications within their community.
Twenty extension workers were drawn from throughout the Agricultural Development Divisions of the Ministry spread out in the three regions of Malawi. These were partnered with nineteen Chewa farmers from Njombwa village of Kasungu District in Central Malawi.
Since the early 1960's extension workers in Malawi have based their approach on the diffusion and adoption of innovation models. They have disseminated messages aimed at (a) encouraging farmers' support for 'modern' methods of agriculture and; (b) informing and persuading farmers to adopt modern technologies. They have also employed interpersonal communications in support of these efforts.
Real sustainable success from this extension work still has to be registered. Even as widely publicised as the work of FAO's Extension, Education & Communication Service (SDRE) might be, some people would still argue that:
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Malawi is an important issue for Malawian society. The devastating effects of the disease and its spread cannot be minimized. However, the disease is, in great part, a venereal one. We might wish to answer some basic questions once this categorisation has taken place. Do people recognise this fact? Are people aware of the prevalence of STDs in their communities? A song sung by the Maseko Ngoni of Malawi says:
He had sex with the one with syphillis
He had sex with the one with syphillis
There he is gone (dead)
Aye hoya
There he is gone (dead)
These people have always been aware of the existence and the dangers of socially transmitted diseases like syphillis. They have lived and survived this danger through their own local socialisation processes. This particular song, for instance, is ordinarily sung and danced to during beer parties in full sight and hearing of everyone in the vicinity. Mothers and fathers dance to the song as they drink their beer. Children present watch their parents dancing and hear the song's lyrics. Through this busy and multi-layered interaction, society gets to know the song's content. As much as they enjoy and relish the singing and dancing, everybody picks up the song's clear message. No specific person might be named, but the horrendous experience of contracting syphilis and eventually dying of it is not missed by anyone.
Our experience with the song was different. Growing up in a Christian family, we could not and dared not sing it at home. At school, no sane teacher would use it at all. This was a song for drunks, not Christians or educated people. As playwrights, we could not even include it in a play; the local censorship board deemed it unacceptable. This was debased culture. Including it in a play or showing it on stage was tantamount to promoting immorality in Malawian Society.
Despite the fact that the song addressed a pertinent issue in our society, the song was condemned. No attempt was made to understand it or its context; its contribution to the socialisation process amongst the people was never examined.
Even today, this type of condemnation tends to be the rule. This is evident in the way efforts to develop our people are being carried out. Governments and their agents notice a problem. They plan a solution and rush to the people to apply it. Since they are mostly ill-equipped to even understand the context in which they work, they waste resources and time. Worse still, they snub the people they mean to serve.
Attempts to deal with the disease of HIV/AIDS for instance, are made as if a venereal disease is unknown to the people as if the people have never experienced its spread. Most intervention work appears to be constantly re-inventing the wheel. Treatment for HIV/AIDS may be far away and perhaps only available in laboratories with electron microscopes but methods of preventing its spread or of bringing about awareness of its deadly nature need not come from that same world. A study of local indigenous communication networks or systems should provide interesting lessons for such efforts. Starting directly with the people could also yield results. As seen in the example cited earlier, folk media should be studied closely in order to provide an effective tool for dealing with development problems.
References to HIV/AIDS intervention efforts cited above do not exclude other areas of development. Agricultural extension services throughout the world are replete with examples of how well meaning efforts have been frustrated by a lack of appreciation of indigenous communication systems. At times, extension efforts undertaken without first considering indigenous customs appear ludicrous and entirely nonsensical. As an example, one might cite use of puppetry amongst a people whose culture connects all such work to the world of animals and the irrational. To such a society, the extension agent who engages in this work is irrational. [ refer to box #1 ]. By extension, a system that supports his/her work is seen in the same light. One can only imagine how effective the extension activities are.
The challenge for the workshop was thus to explore how folk media is utilised by the people in their village setting. Lessons from such an exploration should help the communications efforts of those wishing to facilitate the process of development amongst villagers. This workshop on Folk Media was an attempt to chart a way in which one might use Folk Media in development efforts (be it agriculture, health, community services etc.)
The workshop used Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA) techniques in order to understand the community environment. (For further information on PRCA, please see the article: Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA): A new approach for research and the design of communication for development strategies and programmes ). Through this approach, the workshop was to:
The participants in the workshop then charted out the entire process and isolated lessons for using Folk Media in their group work.
A major outcome of the workshop was the reversal of roles between farmers and extension workers that took place. Whereas traditionally farmers are always being "taught" by extension workers, during this workshop farmers had the opportunity to teach extension workers, providing them with the information they needed in order to operate successfully in a village. The farmers taught extension workers about their culture and how they create media for disseminating as well as for sharing information, lessons and warnings in their village communities.
The workshop attempted to reach a group consensus on what development is about and the major players involved. Participants also explored impediments to understanding between farmers and extension workers. In answering these questions, the workshop agreed that it would be finding some methods extension workers could use in working with farmers.
During the workshop, it was agreed that some problems extension workers face in their work stem from their:
The participants (farmers) enumerated the ways that messages are communicated in their village, namely:
After exploring various ways in which Folk Media is used, the workshop (led by the farmers) agreed to develop simulations of two Chewa ceremonies as a vehicle for creating some sample folk media.
These ceremonies were selected because they provide a natural opportunity for embedding messages within them unobtrusively as they are already used that way in their traditional setting. Songs, dances and special speeches that grace such ceremonies carry messages.
The creation of a song is dependent on what is going on around the life of the composer. Sometimes it is his/her experiences or observations that provide the fodder for compositions. Such compositions are meant to: warn, entertain or simply to inform.
By the end of the workshop, the participants jointly created some 12 songs. These were fitted into the simulated ceremonies. They were rehearsed and presented to the general public from within and around the venue of the workshop.
At the end of the workshop - after the farmers had gone back to their village, the extension workers made the following resolution.
For a workshop of this concept where the resource persons were aiming at achieving a real partnership between a group of small-scale village farmers and a group of extension workers, it was essential that all activities be conducted in the local Chichewa language and not partly in English. This would help to allow the villagers to feel comfortable in all the group discussions and not in the least belittled by the presence of their bilingual colleagues. The author of this article, who participated in the workshop, welcomed this decision and, in fact, made his presence as inconspicuous as possible during the activities he attended in order not to distract the participants.
The author's observations were clearly that, throughout the workshop, the habitual top-down relationship between extension worker and villager (information provider - >> information receiver) had completely disappeared. Group work was undertaken on equal terms and equal status. In fact, the classic situation had been reversed and the extension workers were listening and learning from the villagers, with respect and newly-established friendship. This was happening in a very convivial atmosphere and, more often than not, it was difficult for the author to distinguish between the extensionist and the farmer.
It is recommended that the concept followed and experimented during this workshop be followed-up by further thematic workshops next year. Rather than "tapping" the talents of local artist groups (professional or semi-professional) to produce development messages through their performances, this workshop has taught extension workers how villagers use their own local and ceremonial media traditions to pass on messages in ways in which their implication for the communities can best be understood.
It is recommended that The Communication for Development Group of FAO, with the assistance of the CCD and other partners continues to investigate in which capacity development programmes can benefit from culturally accepted folk media sources and how these can be integrated into local development plans.
FOLK MEDIA IN COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT: A note
By Chris Kamlongera
Dialogue is the essence of any work in communication for development. Folk media has quickly been recognised as one way of ensuring such a dialogue. However, further work on how to actually employ this folk media in development is needed. Too much emphasis is placed on folk media as a channel for communication at the expenses of understanding the context in which these media operate.
Any examination of this context should first start with the language of the people (in its broadest sense), followed by the social-cultural matrix in which the media operate. This must be done in order to make sure that efforts aimed at improving the lot of people in developing countries do not go to waste. Let us look at a case in point from Malawi.
The case of beekeepers in Malawi
Some extension workers in the Central region of Malawi tried to encourage small holder farmers to go into bee keeping. While the farmers saw the viability of such an off-farming income generating activity, they were quick to point out that they feared bees. They did not want to be stung. The extension workers assured the villagers that they would provide them protective gear specially imported from the US where farmers are making money from bee keeping. The extension workers demonstrated how to wear the bee-keeping gear. The villagers accepted that indeed bee-keeping would be very simple and pleasurable with such a kit. On this note, the two parties agreed to start bee keeping in the village during the fallow period, when the harvesting of maize was completed. The extension workers were to backstop this new venture from time to time.
Six months down the line the extension workers found, to their dismay, that not even a single farmer in the village had gone into bee keeping. They called the farmers to a meeting to find out why none of them were going into bee keeping. During the meeting the villagers just looked at each other and giggled, much to the puzzlement of the extension workers. None of the people gathered at the meeting disagreed with the idea of bee keeping. It was only in informal settings, outside the meeting, that some of the villagers revealed the reason for them not to go into bee keeping. They said that they could not wear the bee-keeping protective gear provided to them by the extension workers since they resembled masks they see during their own village masquerades.
The moral of the story
The people in the story belong to the Chewa tribe. These people are found in Malawi, Zambia and parts of Mozambique. Migrant pockets of these people also exist in Zimbabwe. The Chewa people have a dance called Nyau.
It is more commonly referred to as the Gule wankulu (The big dance). In reality, the Nyau is more than a dance. It is a way of life. It has rules that go beyond dancing to cover how people belonging to the Chewa tribe relate to it, to each other and to life around them. In performance, dancers wear masks or make-up. These dancers are referred to as Zinyau. Strictly speaking, it is offensive to call the dancers Zinyau. Rather, they are referred to as Zirombo (Animals). This has great significance in the way anybody wearing the mask or make-up is regarded by onlookers.
For the Chewa, animals belong to the world of the irrational and spirits. As we have said earlier, the dance is done through, and very often in, animal masks. When a dancer wears such a mask, he becomes the irrational animal his mask depicts. In this state, much as the songs the dancer sings might have significant messages for those who come to witness the dance-drama, the songs and antics of the dancer are understood by all as coming from an animal within its irrational world. In other words, all present on the occasion "suspend disbelief" only during the performance of the dance. Chewa society does not accept such behaviour as sane. If displayed outside the dance occasion, he who displays Nyau behaviour outside the dance occasion is either mad or plain stupid.
As shown in the story above, the extension workers did not mean to imitate the Nyau dance. Nevertheless, the farmers saw the similarity between the Bee-keeping gear and a typical Nyau mask. Once they established this similarity, the whole world of the extension worker and what it stands for was interpreted within the Gule wankulu context. No wonder the villagers were giggling.
While, we might see the above story as an incident, we know some extension systems that have actually attempted to borrow aspects of the Gule wankulu without understanding this underlying principle. They have created information - educational materials within the Nyau mode and taken them to Chewa people without understanding the Chewa world view and its communication systems. As a result of this, there has been very little or no adoption of recommended ways of looking at life as advocated by the extension worker. The extension worker who uses the Nyau dance to explain rational behaviour is a bundle of contradictions, if not a mad person. In the eyes of the villager, the entire system that supports such extension workers is also stupid and mad.
The extension worker in the case just cited fails to carry on "real" communication. He quickly acknowledges the impact of the Nyau dance among the Chewa and proceeds to use it in his work without understanding how the people who create it look at it. In other words, the extension worker does not engage in real "exchange of information" with the people. He does not understand the communication efforts aimed at encouraging adoption of new technologies in the developing world.
If we want to use folk media, should we not perhaps leave the choices to the owners of this media to teach us how to go about doing so? Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA) being championed by the SADC Centre of Communication for Development in Harare is certainly one way of setting up a learning situation without losing focus of our development goals. One of the many results from PRCA is identification of indigenous communication systems and how they operate as well as how the owners would like to use them if need be.
BOX 2
THE COMMUNICATION MODEL AND FOLK MEDIA IN DEVELOPMENT
By Dr. James L. Ng'ombe, Ph.D
Executive Director, Malawi Institute of Journalism
By folk, we mean the common people, also referred to as villagers. But for purposes of this paper we shall in addition, refer to them as the farming or rural community, simply farmers. Media will be taken to mean the vehicle through which messages are carried from one end (variously or specifically called source, speaker, writer, artist, musician, or dancer), or another (receiver, target, listener, reader, or viewer). Folk media will therefore refer to the vehicle the common people or rural farmers employ for the delivery of their message. In line with these definitions arise such concepts as folk sculpture, folk music, folk dance, or folk paintings. Specifically, what is being expressed here through this terminology is the activity among the common people, although mindful of the implications of crudeness, as a telling connotation behind the term folk ii
These definitions lead to the reality, which places the common people in a different context. If they have been able to create folk art, folk music or folk dances, it makes it imperative for us to conclude that folk media incorporated forms of sharing information already in existence at village level. Folk dance, folk music, folklore, should therefore of necessity be immense value as communication tools, collectively called folk media, to anyone involved in the dissemination of information to the rural community.
At this juncture, it is appropriate to relate this communication aspect of folk media to the field or extension workers, whose activities in the villages mostly involve persuasion of farmers into the adoption of new or different ways of life, often believed to be better than the one they currently lead.
The purpose of the above workshop, therefore, is to bring the extension workers into contact with the village community on an equal footing so as to create an exchange process through which the extension workers can learn first hand from the farmers how the latter use folk dance and folk song to transmit messages. It was expected that at the end of the experiment both groups will have been involved in the creation of songs and dances, which transmit messages on health, agriculture and other such developmental issues.
For this process to succeed, it is necessary to assume that the participants will play their roles in the traditional source-receiver communication model. Secondly, it is necessary to accept that the rural people already have a communication system, which works according to the said communication model. Thirdly, it has to be accepted that the agricultural communication experts will be willing to accept the farmers as a source of information and knowledge. Therefore, it has to be accepted that the model can be adapted as follows:
Source (Extension worker) |
Message |
Source (Farmer) |
Receiver (Extension worker) |
Message |
Source (Farmer) |
The above S-R model has to be accepted within the context of folklore narrative, which is participatory. The rural community in Malawi engages in a two-way narrative as they exchange riddles, challenges each other's knowledge on parables or proverbs, or as they simply tell a story. They have always believed in the two-way communication process even before the academic or sociologist wrote about the relevance of implementing such a model if communication was to be effective. The narrator in this context ensures the availability of feedback by injecting mechanisms in the narration that call for responses. This is how the narrator is assured of continued alertness, especially if it is in the night when visibility can be poor. The following are examples:
| Example 1: Narrator | Listeners/Respondents |
| 1. Ndaji (I call) |
Jize ( We/I hear) |
| 2. Ndamanga nyumba yopanda khomo (I have built a house without any door or opening) |
Dzira ( Egg) |
| Example 2: Narrator | Listeners/Respondents |
| 1. Padangokhala (Once upon a time) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 2. Panali amfumu anali ndimwana (There was a king who had a very beautiful daughter) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 3. Koma mwanayu akafunsiridwa amakana (but the girl turned down marriage proposals from many suitors) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 4. Kenaka analola kamnyamata kachilendo Kovala bwino kochokera kudziko lakutari (Eventually she agreed to marry a smart and well-dressed young man from a distant country) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 5. Usiku pogona nyamata uja anavula zovala kuti agone (Then came bedtime when the groom had to undress to join his bride in bed) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 6. Anthu anangomva chinfuu chachikuru (A deafening cry tore through the night) |
Tiri tonse ( We are together) |
| 7. Anthu pobwera kunyumba yaakwati aja Anapeza kuti pabedi panagona fisi (When the villagers came to the house of the newly-weds, the bride pointed at the hyena that lay next to her in bed.) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
| 8. Anthu anangobwerera ndinkhope za manyazi, napita kukauza amfumu. (They all hid their faces in their hands as they proceeded back in shame to report to the King) |
Tiri tonse ( We are with you) |
The first example merely shows the participatory and yet teasing nature of riddles which tests knowledge as well as interpretation of certain cultural values. The closest interpretation would read as follows:
I started the smoke/fire. Now I can't see.
To understand the moral behind the story in the second example, one could easily quote Shakespeare:
All that glitters is not gold.
But the greater moral is for the communication expert who must learn to manipulate folk media to achieve maximum impact through symbols and a system with which the rural community is already familiar. Governments, academics and non-governmental organisations must realise that the people themselves could be the best deliverers of seemingly sophisticated messages. All the farmers need is a clear understanding of what the message is all about.
Once that level of understanding has been achieved, the villagers themselves will participate in devising the most effective medium from a wide range of folk media:
It could be a dance or a riddle. It could be at an initiation ceremony, at a funeral, or at a wedding.
Communication experts must understand these by working with the rural community. In that way, when they come to modernise or nationalise the message for purposes of dissemination nation-wide, they will concentrate on using symbols and images that make sense to the folk in the villages. Local trees, animals, landscape and weather will begin to play a major part in the way messages are echoed and delivered. The point has been ably elaborated by Kamlongera and Mwanza:
For instance, when a child is born to a young mother there are customs that the mother must know. These are imparted to her through talks, riddles and dance to name but some of the media used. When women are pounding maize in mortars at home they sing songs that speak about various experiences from their world. They sing about people and these happenings just as much as they laugh at the foolishness of mankind.
When village elders come together to listen to complaints made by someone from the village, they use proverbs and riddles to express themselves. Sometimes they will even tell a folktale, which reinforces the point they want to make. In this way, wisdom is shared and passed on from generation to generation.iii
The essence of the exercise in the use of folk media is enshrined in the passing on of it, be it from generation to generation, or from rural or urban communities.
In this respect, the workshop at the Natural Resources College (NRC) is an experiment to test the practicality of the premise that the agricultural extension workers had as much to learn from their clientele as have the farmers from the extension workers. Therefore the nineteen farmers bought from Njolwa village in Kasungu are here to work together with the twenty extension workers in agriculture with the former given the task of teaching their advisors ways of using folk music and folk dance in development. It is hope that at this workshop the farmers, together with the agricultural advisors, will find a way of infusing developmental messages into their song and dances.
References:
BOX 3
UNDERSTANDING THE VILLAGE
By Charles E. Namondwe, MA
Social and Visual Anthropologist
Director and Head of Department, Department of Arts and Crafts, Lilongwe - Malawi
A paper presented at the Folk Media Workshop organized by
SADC Centre of Communication for Development, Harare - Zimbabwe
In collaboration with the Malawi Institute of Journalism
At the Natural Resources College, Lilongwe - Malawi
23 August - 3 September, 1999
The extension worker's main objective is to communicate developmental agriculture messages. It is therefore important for the extension worker to bear in mind that the village in which he is to work is a village full of people, individual people and collective people. The village will have pre-set priorities and experiences that order its existence and help it function. In this regard, the extension worker must endeavour to pay attention to hundreds of details of daily life, seasonal events and unusual happenings. He/She must observe individual and collective behaviours in various settings. This knowledge will help him understand why things happen the way they do. In so doing the village will never seem quite strange as it seems to be during the first days. The extension worker eventually gets acquainted with the village and accepts as normal the cultural patterns that may initially be alien. These patterns which seem basic and almost trivial, are patterns that necessitate village life and typical behaviour. These features of culture are so fundamental that villagers take them for granted. They are even too basic to talk about, but the unaccustomed eyes of a fleeing extension worker perceive them. Thereafter, they fade to the periphery of consciousness. The initial impressions and the extension worker's entry behaviour and approach to how he will communicate with his potential farmers is very crucial to the success of the extension worker vis-à-vis the farmers. First and foremost, the extension worker should be an accurate observer and be able to make sense of what he sees in the village.
The extension worker's major pre-occupation is the farmers for whom he is delegated to serve. While his expected outcome is the improvement of their farm produce such as pigeons, chickens and cattle, pigs and cash crops, it is not ethically possible for the worker to think that the farmers, who are custodians of these things, can be controlled in the same way as the animals on the farm can be controlled. What the extension worker must keep in mind is that the farmer has speech capabilities. It is not in keeping with accepted procedure to manipulate them, control their environment or experimentally induce certain behaviours.
The extension worker must strive to be part of the village. This means that he would have to be a participant/ observer. This means that, as a participant/observer, he will be able to take part in community life as he strives to communicate important agricultural messages. As a human being living among other people, temptation may be very high for him to be a detached observer. He must take part in many of the events and processes as an observer. He must take part in many of the events and processes he is observing and trying to comprehend. Sometimes participating in village activities means that he may have to get material assistance. This is a good thing to do, as it materially establishes the worker in the village spirit of sharing.
Participating in village life means that the extension worker constantly talks with people. As it is obviously possible that the extension worker is sent to an area where a different tribal language is spoken from his own. It is imperative that he learn the language. This has an added advantage to what the extension worker aims to achieve. What may seem a simple conversation may have a great impact on the communication ability of the extension worker. Once the extension begins to understand simple conversation between two villagers and as his language expertise proceeds far enough, he eventually becomes able to comprehend rapid-fire public discussions and group discussions. The special oratory of political events and ceremonial or ritual occasions often contains liturgies, set formal sequences of words and actions that later will help him analyse certain actions with local experts.
This is a very helpful technique for an extension development worker. Considering that the society in which he is working is relatively a small-scale community network, analysis helps him to focus on particular people in the community, neighbourhood or organisation. It is important for an extension worker to know the ties that each person has with the others.
Each person has a particular set of relationships (economic, social, political, religious, ritual) with certain others, which form his network. Some people have large networks with more diverse types of links than do others. Network size and extent can help the extension worker identify community leaders, who tend to have numerous and diverse links. In fact, the ability of the extension worker to distinguish networks will help him distinguish two things:
Networking analysis is a personal, socially based fieldwork method that can be used anywhere. Focusing on specific people, it considers when, why and how they associate with others. Eventually an extension worker who has sound knowledge of personal networks can compare and generations can be made about the kinds of networks that are important in particular social settings.
As a way of concluding this discourse, I believe that, above all else, the extension worker must aim to establish a rapport with the villagers (farmers) among whom he works. He must really get to know them. This can only be achieved if the extension worker takes it upon himself to participate in all village activities. A humble approach to village life will go a long way in establishing a sound basis for the extension worker. Rapport building is very fascinating indeed.
extract from Artists as Experts, a participatory methodology to produce traditional and popular media. FAO. 1996. Rome
The Macmillan Family Encyclopedia, vol. 8 (F), 1992, has defined folk art as "art of the common people - typically peasants, fishers, rural artisans - as contrasted with fine art, the art produced by professionally trained artists" .P.195.
Christopher F. Kamlongera and Wales B. Mwanza, An Anthology of Malawian Literature for Junior Secondary, Dzuka Publishing Company, Blantyre, 1993, p10.
References:
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Philippe Van der Stichele, SDRE
Philippe.Vanderstichele@fao.org
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