Centre for Internet and Society

Bangalore + Sustainability Summit

denisse — 2015-04-17T10:48:52Z

The power of technology to create youth engagement and positive social change were discussed at the Bangalore + Sustainability Summit on September 21, 2013 at the Centre for Internet and Society(CIS) , Bangalore. The event, in conjunction with the Social Good Summit that took place in New York during the same weekend, explored creative and tech-based avenues to solve sustainability challenges and promote social good.

Our interest in understanding the role of digital natives in our society stems from the possibilities technology brings for the social good. This concept, a variation of the notion of the ‘common good’, is nowadays a popular and widely utilized term, both in its secular and religious variations. It conveys values and actions that benefit the well-being of society and in Mill’s utilitarian view: one which promotes the moral, intellectual and active traits of its citizens. Nowadays, its social justice undertones are part of the human rights discourse that characterizes twenty-first century civil society and citizen action, which are at the same time becoming increasingly connected in the context of network societies, leading to the new socialized form of the common good. The buzzword was there at the core of the Social Good Summit that took place in New York from September 22 to 24, as well as of the Bangalore + Sustainability workshop, organized by Ashoka India in partnership with Green Lungi and IDEX on September 21 at CIS office in Bangalore.

Local leaders and change-makers in Bangalore discussed the power of technology and its potential to provide sustainable solutions for the city’s greatest challenges at the event. The workshop was dynamic in structure and inspiring in content, as the participants were divided into make-a-thon sessions to collaboratively design technology-based prototypes that tackle the problems with feasible and impactful solutions. In the opening session Meera Vijayann, consultant for Ashoka India, commented on the nature of sustainability and how technological design must tackle all of its fronts, including environmental, government, public and citizenship engagement, to name a few, establishing a working framework for the day. This was followed by four panelists who gave brief talks highlighting their professional backgrounds and some of the lessons learned in the pursuit of social good.

The first to present was Kuldeep Dantewadia, founder of Reap Benefit, a start-up that provides low-cost solutions to encourage behavioural change around waste, water and biodiversity management. Inspiring attendees to “be fools”, and take chances, based on Ranjan Maliks’s talk: The Fool and his kind of Innovation, he spoke about environmental issues as a man-made disease with behavioural solutions, as opposed to an external crisis requiring intervention. His social approach within a workshop discussing the power of technology was, as the representative of IDEX, Daniel Oxenhandler said, a great entry point to start thinking of the leaps of good-will and risks to be taken in the field of social change. Encouraging the participants to be foolish, he invited them to be bold and inventive with their ideas throughout the day.

He was followed by Raahul Khadaliya, who defines himself as a thinker, observer and explorer of design for sustainability. He delved on the ultimate purpose of design and framed it as a problem-solving tool that ought to bring benefits for the masses. Stressing that design is not only concerned about how tools works, but instead on “how they work in a given environment” he brought up the importance of context and historicity in design, an important discussion point , incidentally also explored by the ‘Making Change’ project by CIS in conjunction with the HIVOS Knowledge Program. Digital technologies and derived platforms do not carry value in themselves when pursuing social change, unless they speak to the locality and respond to the crises lingering in their given ecosystem. Khadaliya ended his presentation with a slide that read “design is a behaviour”, adding to the recurring theme of the day: the need for citizen behavioural change, being it in creation, participation or conservation of resources.

Coming from a different angle, Kalpana Kar, who contributed to the Bangalore Agenda Task Force in an urban governance project, gave an insightful account of the role of public policy and private-public partnerships. Her talk came across as an insightful set of advice tackling considerations around space and how it intersects with collectives and their sense of entitlement and territoriality. Notions of power, pride and hierarchical arrangements are determining accessibility to public spaces, a highly relevant reflection that also applies to digital participation in online platforms, as explored in the Digital Natives framework. She added that creating technological solutions with social impact calls for a change in our behaviour and how we gauge our individual needs against the social good. “Enthusiasm can take you far, but not further”, for which she appealed to participants to “be real, practical and foolish” in their interventions and focus on designs that have impact with scale and economic viability. This vision puts the private sector on a par with sustainability state policies, and sets the ground for mechanisms of social accountability as an important complement of technological design.

The last panelist Sharath Chandra Ram, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society and instructor at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology brought the aforementioned points together and based his talk on alternatives to bridge the distance between the citizen and the state through online-offline interventions. He focused on the enabling of citizen voices and freedoms in governance as a fundamental mandate for tech innovators of our times. “Models must maintain cultural specificities and have a holistic approach” to facilitate engagement in the globalized socio-political arena. He provided three of examples of citizen involvement in information and state governance: citizen journalism, citizen uprisings and citizen governance, coupled with a showcase of low-cost technologies designed at the CIS Metaculture Media Lab that would allow larger online access and offline participation if made pervasive. His pragmatic approach provided tangible and innovative examples, using every day apparatuses, to enable connection and overcome the social and political roadblocks in our networks; an interesting and inspiring segue into team formation and the make-a-thon to come up next.

Following the panel, the 40+ participants divided into working groups moderated by the organizers and delved into discussion on one out the five proposed problem statements: road safety, waste management, gender-inclusive spaces, forestation and public infrastructures. Brainstorm props provided, the groups created mind maps, Lego structures and comic strips to shape, frame and later pitch their idea to the rest of the workshop. While the use of technology was mandatory, the social good impact brought forward by these apps and campaigns took precedence in the presentations. The event all in all embodied an opportunity to bring ideas, skills and experience together from their different walks of life and yield innovation. In fact, as Ira Snissar, Venture Associate for Ashoka mentioned in her closing speech: three or four of the presented ideas had the potential to comprise business plans for future start-ups. The remark concluded the session by highlighting the need to create marketable and economically viable solutions to ensure sustainability of social good tools in market systems, defeating the long-standing tensions between corporate interests and social responsibility.

The four themes brought forward by the panelists: audacious innovation, large-scale design, power negotiations and citizen governance, as well as the group discussions reiterated a fundamental idea throughout the day: the need for behavioral change in the name of social good. While the state, the private sector and of course technologies were present as important actors in the making of change, the citizen was framed as the main engine and beneficiary of these processes. Stronger citizen engagement, improved negotiation between individual and collective needs, and diminished contestation in spaces of power are among the main objectives to attain these long-sought social good objectives. Technological solutions come across as enablers and amplifiers, perhaps necessary in a networked environment, yet not sufficient if not coupled with sustainable behavioural change. In this respect the question that should precede events like this one should focus on the substance behind the summit’s buzzword: what does ‘the social good’ entail? And attempt to understand the alignments of these understandings considering different models of citizenship and activism.

As of now, the implications and nuances of the social good remain under-theorized and lack epistemological consensus, yet the concept still represents an interesting pathway of research within the Digital Natives project. Is it possible to instill the need for behavioural change in the social imaginary? Is it feasible to establish solidarity networks through pervasive technologies? These are some of the avenues to be taken at the aftermath of the Bangalore + Sustainability event. The willingness to work together towards what benefits all was very prominent in the summit, suggesting that the feel-good nature of the concept and its social justice foundations make it a powerful drive to mobilize people and ideas. The challenge remains on how to extrapolate it and as advised by the panelists, have it derive into large scale impact among the masses.

Sources:

“7 Definitions 4 Social Good” Armchair Advocates. Last modified August 21^st, 2012. Accessed September 23^rd, 2013http://armchairadvocates.com/2012/08/21/the-7-definitions-4-social-good-back2school-yourself-series/
“Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy” Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified October 9^th, 2007. Accessed September 23^rd, 2013 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo
Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013
“Social Good Summit 2013” accessed September 23^rd, 2013, http://mashable.com/sgs/#about
“Social Good Summit: Ashoka India”, accessed September 23^rd, 2013, http://www.plussocialgood.org/Post/social-good-summit-ashoka-india/836a3a1e-ea21-4a96-bdbd-bb4fe58a8612

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/bangalore-sustainability-summit

egomonk 2

denisse — 2014-02-12T05:38:13Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/EGOMONK2.jpg

I never asked for it 1

denisse — 2014-02-23T10:51:14Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/Ineveraskedforit.jpg

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:30:15Z

This post compares the method of storytelling with performances. To illustrate this, we explore the narratives of the Blank Noise project and The Ugly Indian, two civic groups from Bangalore making interventions in the public space. Part 2 looks at the role of actors and the stage in performances to explore the role of agency and the public space in storytelling.

This is part 2 of our analysis of Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian, two civic groups thriving in Bangalore by making a strategic use of storytelling to intervene in the public space. In the previous post, we explored the mediums and narratives used by these organizations to craft an identity for themselves. This one will look at the impact of this identity on the agency and actions of their volunteers. We will also draw some final conclusions relating the analysis back to the Making Change project.

How to navigate this post:

Section	Performance	Storytelling
Pre-production	Preparing all elements involved in a performance including locations, props, costumes, special effects and visual effects.	Preparing all elements needed to convey the message of the story including: spoken word, text, images, audio, video or other artifacts.
Screenplay	A written work narrating the movements, actions, expressions and dialogues of the characters.	Building a narrative in storytelling
Actors	Actors performing characters in a production.	The relationship between storytelling actors and agency
Stage	Designated space for the performance of productions	The public space as the stage for storytelling
Action!	Cue signifying the start of a performance	When storytelling leads to action

3.actor
ˈaktə/
1. a person portraying a character in [a dramatic or comic] production
2. a participant in an action or process

The cast of a production learns the script from beginning to end; rehearses the lines and internalizes the characters they have been chosen to represent. In the same way actors sustain the narrative of the production while they are on stage, we too act upon the identities we have chosen for ourselves in our day to day (Giddens, 1991). Oggs & Capps call this: constructing agentive identities: “participants assume agentive stances towards present identities, circumstances and futures” (1996; Hull, 2006). Embracing a set of traits and integrating them to the ‘story of the self’ (Gauntlett, 2002; Giddens 1991). This suggests there is a direct relationship between self-identity and agency, that will influence how we conduct ourselves in the public space.

As seen in the last section, The Ugly Indian’s self-ascribed identity frames their speech and action:

The Ugly Indian

We are a group of Ugly Indians who feel strongly about the state of visible filth in our cities.
Our philosophy can be described simply as: Kaam chalu mooh bandh. Stop Talking, Start Doing.
We believe in direct action, with a common-sense problem-solving approach. 
We do not finger-point or blame the system. We aim to make a change from within - 
one that sustains because everyone wants it and is comfortable with it.

This means the online identity of the organization (on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and their website) must be consistent with the offline actions of volunteers in clean drives and TUI inspired activities.

Indira Nagar Rising	Koramangala Rising

TUI Clean Drives (Click to enlarge)
Photos courtesy of The Ugly Indian Facebook Album.
Visit the rest of the album here.

"[Join us] if you think like us, and want to achieve something meaningful in your immediate surroundings."

The Ugly Indian

Given the anonymity of the voices behind the narrative, the ideas and attitudes endorsed by TUI organizers can only remain at the discursive level, and it is TUI volunteers who collectively translate the set of beliefs into action. In other words, volunteers are the agentive extension of the movement, as they use their agency to execute the plan of action designed by the anonymous TUI organizers. The narrative in this case becomes somewhat of a ‘creed’ for responsible civic action, and while most volunteers choose to “stick to the script”, they are not really given the opportunity to explore their own narrative within.

In the case of Blank Noise, if we take another look at its mandate, it is collaborative by definition.

Blank Noise
Blank Noise is a public and participatory arts collective that seeks to
 explore the range of street interactions and recognize 'eve teasing' as
 street sexual harassment/ violence.

The processes to translate the Action Hero identity into action are far more open-ended than in the case of TUI. There is further room for volunteers to interpret what being an Action Hero means to them (as an identity), how they will respond to it (as agents), and how do they fit in the larger context of the Action Hero narrative (in the collective). The role of volunteers is to participate in the construction of a new narrative for the public space, defined by how women feel, what they think and do when they navigate it. It is not conclusive, and each intervention is an invitation for further dialogue.

"Adding agency to the equation gives the actor a purpose and new -revised- conception of the self and aligns its behavior with who he wants to be. "[2]

Blank Noise volunteers take ownership of who they want to be in the public space. Through their testimonials and actions, they do not only draft an identity for themselves, but they create one -or many- for the streets, for women, for men, for sexy, for safety. Stretching out our 'performance' analogy even further, their type of action is what we would deem improvisational theatre: the improvisation and intuition of BN volunteers takes over the dialogue, action and characters, as these are “created collaboratively by the players as [the play] unfolds in present time”[1]

4. stage
steɪdʒ/
a raised floor or platform, typically in a theatre, on which actors, entertainers, or speakers perform.

Finally, the stage. This is the space where actors display these learned identities in front of (or with) members of the audience. While stories are not necessarily presented on a conventional ‘raised floor or platform’, stories are meant to permeate "the stage" of the 'public space'. In spite of what Sartaj Anand told us in his interview: “stories as increasingly personal and local”, in order for them to trigger imagination and public discussion they must also be public and visible. Hannah Arendt posits in Essays for Understanding, that the task of storytelling is to extend the meaning of the actions, symbols and allegories into the public, making them visible to broader audiences and initiating a process of critical thinking among them (Jackson, 2002; Oni, 2012; Arendt, 1994). Hence, the role of storytelling in the public space has two functions:

a) Visibility:

Enhanced visibility is an extremely powerful asset. Narratives produced by activist-oriented storytellers do not only reflect greater autonomy of production, but also enjoy a wider rate of consumption[3] (Vivienne, 2011). From a tech-optimist perspective, multimedia representations of these stories further this visibility, making it also accessible to broader online audiences.

The Ugly Indian in particular thrives on visibility, due to its beautification mission. Its highly visible presence online is used to ratify the work they are doing to erradicate "visible" filth:

"X was a big fan of the Broken Windows Theory – which suggested that if a street looked ugly or neglected, it attracted more anti-social behaviour, while a well-maintained and beautiful street discouraged vandalism and often earned respect from passers-by. [...] Could the ugly Indian’s civic behaviour be a function of the environment and the signals it gives him? If so, could changing the environment change behaviour?" Chapter 7 - Nudge

In the case of Blank Noise, they use online visibility to re-introduce the testimonials collected through their interventions and installations, back into the public space.

Reporting to Remember (2009)

Triggered by the Mangalore pub attack, the report wants to compile a list of incidents involving attacks on/threats to women under the pretext of culture, tradition and religion.

By who:

Political parties
Religious groups
Individuals

2. Nature of attack:

who they attacked
why they attacked
You can also send articles/links explaining that.

3. When: Date

4. Location: Region.

Make a Sign (2009)
Volunteers were welcome to say anything they wanted.

What Blank Noise wants to say:
We are talking of safer cities not feared cities
We are talking of independent women, not paranoid women.
We are talking about collective responsibility- don't tell me to be even more 'cautious'.
We are talking about eve teasing as street sexual harassment and street sexual violence.
We are talking about autonomous women, not just mothers daughters and sisters amidst fathers brothers and sons.

Tales of Love and Lust

The vocabulary project, stems from a need to build a dictionary of 'eve teasing', Blank Noise asked participants to email in to comments and remarks they had heard addressed to them on the street. BN compiled them into an 'eve teasing' vocabulary.

The vocabulary was represented in the form of charts, school-style, simple lettering and graphics, in an attempt to desexualise and remove obscene reference from the terms that are used leerily at us on the streets.

Find the full list of interventions, campaigns and tactics here.

b) Political:

"[Politics is] the space of appearance that comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating and preceding all formal constitutions of the public realm”

Hannah Arendt (1989) [4]

This visibility also re-conceptualizes how we do politics by creating political spaces. Setting up a ground for public discussion creates the opportunity to flesh out our ability to be political (Rawls 1971 in Sen, 2005). Hence, producing and consuming a story with, for and by the public, should constitute a political experience in itself -especially in the context of civic interventions as is the case of both our productions.

However, this does not seem to be the case for TUI. The identity of The Ugly Indian focuses on action; on collecting manpower to fill voids left by the state in waste management. In the words of Nishant Shah, they are aligning their work with needs and systems that have already identified by the state, as opposed to devising new modes of engagement or participation. Having said that, staying away from politics is an intentional mandate, and their focus today is removing all obstacles that stand between the middle class and their action in the public space; even if that includes extricating the group from its political nature. For now, spreading ‘action’ and its ‘visibility’ in the network is a priority. The bigger their beautification spectacle grows, the better.

Blank Noise has a different view of how to engage the middle class [5]. The group has identified the need to talk about ‘sexual harassment’ in public; a conversation that has not been addressed and is continually dismissed by the state. This void is hence being filled with stories and articulations of the communities involved [6],as a mean of resisting the stronger dominating narrative of silence around the issue. As opposed to TUI, the priority of Blank Noise is to reassert our ability to perform our role as active, visible and political agents in the public space; initiating a larger process of social critique in their network [7]

(We interviewed Jasmeen Patheja earlier in the project and discussed Blank Noise's political nature. Read the article here)

5. action! (and conclusions)
ˈakʃ(ə)n/
something done so as to accomplish a purpose.

As per definition, action must be purpose-driven, and throughout the last two posts, we have unpacked how this sense of purpose can be built using storytelling. We explored this looking at its methods, narrative identities, actors and spaces of action.

In the case of both organizations, storytelling was imbued in their organizational identity, the interaction with their volunteers and; the way in which they disseminate information. Expanding on what we said in the first installment on storytelling: its interactive nature makes it a tool for empowerment. The identities created by both organizations resonated so much with their audiences, that volunteers adapted their own identities and actions in the public space to align with them and participate in their initiatives.

The post also brought attention to the challenges of locating the ‘political’ within the spectacle. Storytelling as a mode of engagement is effective: it captures people’s attention and participation. However, it becomes problematic when the story becomes a creed adopted without question, as is the case of The Ugly Indian. The lack of opportunities to craft new arguments in public discussion leads to an equally passive participation to the one the group intended to eradicate. Citizens get involved without making critical connections with the material realities they are working to reverse. The citizen is trapped in the performance of citizen awakening and they are ceasing to articulate new ideas. In the case of Blank Noise, the political precedes the spectacle, but at the end of the day, it still relies on a visible and manageable network to disseminate its narrative and attract new story-lines and actors into the discourse.

On the issue of visibility: at the outset of the project we asked the question: what is it about the spectacle that makes it so enticing, and what can we borrow from it to strengthen political participation? [8]. This post visited the three elements that, according to Shah, makes an event visible: legibility, intelligibility and accessibility[9]; and started to answer some of these questions.

Performance	Storytelling	Visibility
Pre-production	The mediums chosen to tell the story (images, video, text, digital technologies) are used to give clarity to the message.	Legible
Screenplay	Creating (or borrowing narratives) from history and fiction makes stories easy to relate to, better understood and hence, better received by the audience	Intelligible
Actors	Acting out these identities shows the message was understood and internalized by the audience.	Intelligible
Pre-production	Digital technologies are effective at disseminating the story and making it more accessible in the public online space.	Accessible
Stage	Telling the story in the public (online and offline) space makes participation and interaction more likely.	Accessible

Finally, the main role of technology in storytelling is to provide and enhance visibility for stories (from all three fronts). As much as the thought piece criticizes the spectacle hype and suggests we move beyond it, this research is finding it useful to look further into: why visibility is desirable for advocacy and how it can bring new and different stakeholders into the process. At least, it seems to be working for The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise. Their outreach is for the most part online and digital media continues to be their best friend to scale up their visibility, showcase their actions and/or installations and sustain their narratives.

I will not make a conclusive statement on whether we should use storytelling for social change or not. However, understanding the power of stories and learning how to craft consistent narrative structures is -as Ameen Haque, founder of The Storywallahs told me- as fundamental for storytelling, as it is for activism: At the end of the day, "movements need supporters. Supporters need leaders; and leaders need to be good storytellers".

Footnotes:

[1] Based on the Wikipedia Definition of Improvisational Theatre. "Improvisational Theatre, often called improv or impro, is a form of theater where most or all of what is performed is created at the moment it is performed. In its purest form, the dialogue, the action, the story and the characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script." http://bit.ly/1hnByRp

[2] (Oggs & Capps, 1996; Miller, 1995; Hull, 2006).

[3] Refer to Sonja Vivienne's ethnography: Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility. She puts forward the experience of activists from the LGBT community who used storytelling to reassert, negotiate and in cases, expose their identities.

[4] Find resources to read more on Hannah Arendt's work on narrative and action here: http://stanford.io/1ge7JkX

[5] While the project does seek to collect voices across traditions, cultures, religions, etc; its reliance on digital technologies to crowdsource stories keeps the practice somewhat gentrified and homogenous. Lack of diversity in public discussion is a huge constraint for democracy, but from our conversations with Jasmeen, we understand this is a challenge to be tackled at a later stage of the project

[6] Refer to Nishant Shah's Whose Change is it Anyway?. (Page 29): "only certain kinds of discourses are made possible through technology-mediated citizen action. This discourse is often alienated from specific histories, particular contexts, and the affective articulations of the communities involved. It leads to a gentrification of contemporary politics that discounts anything that does not fit into the quantified and enumerated rubric of citizen action in network societies."

[7] Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and philosopher, was a strong proponent of using dialectics to question social structures around class, and stories come across as a way to link issues around power back to our personal experiences Refer to: Shor and Freire, 1987 and Williams, 2003.

[8] Some of the questions we have been exploring in Methods for Social Change: http://bit.ly/OCKrgy

[9] Refer to Nishant Shah's Whose Change is it Anyway?. (

Sources:

Arendt, Hannah (1994) Essays in Understanding Edited with an Introduction by Jerome Kohn. The literary Trust of Hannah Arendt Bluecher.

Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hull, Glynda A., and M. Katz. (2006) "Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling." Research in the Teaching of English 41, no. 1: 43.

Jackson, Michael. (2002) The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity. Vol. 3. Museum Tusculanum Press,

Oni, Peter (2012). "The Cognitive Power of Storytelling: Re-reading Hannah Arendt in a Postmodernist/Africanist Context."

Sen, Amartya. The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity. Macmillan, 2005.

Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.

Shor, I. and Freire, P. (1987) A pedagogy for liberation:dialogues on transforming education. Bergin & Garvey, New York.

Williams, Lewis, Ronald Labonte, and Mike O’Brien. "Empowering social action through narratives of identity and culture." Health Promotion International 18, no. 1 (2003): 33-40.

Vivienne, Sonja (2011). "Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility” Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review 7, no. 1.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2

Public Art, Technology and Citizenship - Blank Noise Project

denisse — 2015-04-17T10:43:55Z

Jasmeen Patheja speaks about the active citizen in the digital age, its challenges in the public and private spheres and interdisciplinary methods to overcome them.


CHANGE-MAKER: Jasmeen Patheja

PROJECT: Blank Noise Project: A volunteer-led arts collective community

STRATEGY OF CHANGE:
 Fostering an active, participatory and horizontal model of citizenship,
 empowering its volunteers to participate politically and address issues
 of street sexual harassments in the public sphere.

METHOD OF CHANGE: Public space interventions using community art and technology.

To open the interview series for the Making Change project, I interviewed Jasmeen Patheja. She is the founder of Blank Noise, a volunteer-led arts collective community that started in Bangalore and has now spread to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Lucknow. It seeks to address street sexual harassment and violence by triggering dialogue and building testimonials around notions of "teasing" and "harassment" in the public discourse. The collective has garnered attention and momentum since it was founded in 2003, and ever since, it’s fostering a model of active citizenship across India through its volunteer network. The story of Blank Noise and the working of community art with technology highlight the need to create spaces of expression and experience in which civic and political creativity can develop and unfold organically.

One of the main reflections stemming from my conversation with Jasmeen was the question of how technologies can create a sense of ownership and active citizenship. At the moment, we are moving on to a scenario in which technology has a more pervasive and complex presence. It is no longer judged merely on its connective utility, but is also understood as an actor, a space and a context within the ecosystem of social change and political democratic systems. For this reason, it is paramount to get to know the citizen that is being exposed to, influenced and impacted by these technologies and identify the ways in which his self-identity, social membership and political participation (King and Waldron 1988, Turner 1986, 1990) are being molded by them.

In this post, I aim to unpack ‘active citizenship’ drawing from political science literature around citizenship and civic engagement. The analysis will be based on two dichotomies proposed by Turner: the tension between the active-passive citizen, and the contradictions between its private and public presence. I will then refer to Westmeister and Kahnein, Kabeer, Gaventa and Bennett to identify the type of citizen that Jasmeen Patheja hopes to yield through her project and the main challenges of manoeuvering in the public space. Finally, I will look at some of the tactics taken by Blank Noise to reconcile these tensions through community art and technology. This exploration of citizenship is a first stage in the journey of detecting the undertones of citizen action for social change in the digital era.

Unpacking Citizenship

ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE CITIZEN

What is the difference between an active and a passive citizen?

A passive citizen comes to existence as a subject, recipient or client of the state (...) regards its rights as privileges handed down from above (...)complies with norms yet does not act to change circumstances (...)and its security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions

Turner places the citizenship question on two points of contention. The first: the vectorial nature of citizenship and how to recognize an ‘active or passive’ citizen. According to his analysis, a citizen either comes to existence from above as mere subject of the state, or from below as an active bearer of its rights (Mann 1987, Ullmann 1975, Turner 1990). The force and direction from which the citizen emerges has important implications for the self-identity of the individual, its confidence and disposition for political participation (Merrifield, 2001). A passive citizen regards its rights as privileges handed down from above, in such a way that citizenship becomes a strategy for social integration and cooperation (Mann, 1986). Westheimer and Kahne find the manifestation of this model in what they call a “Personally Responsible Citizen”: a dutiful citizen who complies with norms, pays taxes and obeys laws, yet does not act to change the circumstances of other communities (2004). However, defining the citizen as a passive actor constraints its role within its network. If the citizen’ security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions, and the negotiation between institutions and the individual (Weber 1958 - refer to Turner 1990), the individual is a disempowered recipient or client (Cornwall, 2007) as opposed to the proactive agent Blank Noise looks to recruit and shape through heir interventions.

Patheja, as shown by the interview, aims to disrupt the passive citizen model by fostering political participation and putting its counterpart: ’the active citizen’ forward. Blank Noise believes the citizen must ground its claims from the grassroots and grow from below; yet still be visible and present in the public space, redefining problematic concepts looming in society’s social imaginary; what Turner would describe as revolutionary citizenship (1990).

How is your practice building a stronger model of citizenship?
Change cannot happen only at one level. It would involve more people and different groups from different communities. For example, with citizen-led street action; we can’t end it there. It needs to push home the cause and make [the issues] visible with the government. How do we work with the government? Learning to ask and not assume it’s all their responsibility, but learning to assert our citizenship. What does it mean to do this? What does it mean to ask for safer cities in a way that it doesn’t become somebody else’s business entirely but that it’s about being able to see we are a society. We must understand the process of citizenship; what it means to be in a democratic country and what means to be a female citizen in it.

Safe City Pledge - Delhi

Safe City Pledge - Mumbai
Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: http://bit.do/fHMm

The message is: “this is your city, this is your space. Don’t be apologetic for your presence” And over time, Action Heros are reporting change: ”I'm getting my space. I'm not thinking twice about what I have to wear.” [...]So it was not only about a vocabulary shift, but a shift in attitude.

An active citizen comes from below as an active bearer of its rights (...), feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network (...) keeps government and community members in check (...) and evolves with a higher sense of individual purpose favoring solidarity and maintaining networks of community action.

Westheimer and Kahne label this stronger orientation towards a social-change approach as the second degree of civic engagement or as the behaviour of a ‘participatory citizen’; an individual who feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network, skills and action to respond to a community need. This participation impetus is one of Patheja’s main expectations from its Action Hero Network. However, this entails relying on intimate shifts of behaviour and attitude among the volunteers, which are in essence hard to demand, inculcate and entrench by a third party.

Their approach also reflects a vision of citizenship that relies on collective action (Montgomery, 2004) to, not only keep the government in check as suggested by Westheimer and Kahnne, but other community and society members as well. From Bennett’s point of view and taking the role of information technologies into account, he would define the ideal Action Hero as a self-actualizing citizen. In contrast to its counterpart: the dutiful citizen, who sees its obligation to participate in government-centered activities, the AC evolves with higher sense of individual purpose, favouring and maintaining networks of community action, backed up by a growing distrust in media and the government. In this sense the role of technology is also paramount to how Blank Noise spreads its predicament and expands its outreach:

What is the role of technology and media in your project?
Using the web for example, we happened to stumble upon blogging and we realized there was a community there. Once [Action Heroes] started blogging and the press started writing about it, it created a community further. So, going back to the fact that our constant thread of conversation has been the web, there is a large percentage of the English speaking youth who are action hero agents anidd now have the responsibility of taking the conversations and actions forward.

On the other hand, this is not always the case. In Delhi we did an event in collaboration with Action Aid. Many of the Action Aid volunteers weren’t necessarily on Facebook. They were people who were largely Hindi speaking; their stories were about harassment in slums and these were men and women wanting to do something about the issue. So being a loose volunteer is one way, but identifying different communities is also important. Every space is a point of engagement and we use different forms of media to enable that.

Citizen participation, communication and mobilization mechanisms, mediated by the state in the past, are now taken up by the people in the form of social protest, civil disobedience, digital activism, consumerism, etc. (Bennett, 2008). The emphasis on collective action also calls for a broader understanding of the citizen, away from the state-conferred rights and duties, and a definition that includes solidarity and membership to broader communities (Ellison 1997), Heater and Kabeer defines this as a “horizontal view” that stresses the relationship between citizens over that of the state and the individual (Heater 2002, Kabeer 2007) and Berlin has also made the connection between group identity and affiliation as a building block of citizenship (1969).

[on Giving Letters to Strangers] We trigger a conversation and it takes its own journey. Over time, what does it take to lean back and relax? Each person participates establishing their own level of comfort and every person’s narrative is different. [The project is] happening in Delhi while it is happening in Bangalore; allowing it to happen in a very individual, self-confrontational and at the same time, collective experience. They are doing this alone knowing that others are doing the same.

Dear Stranger:
Giving out letters to strangers in the streets of Bangalore. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: http://bit.do/fHJw

In this way, Blank Noise has envisioned and designed a project that fosters an active, participatory, self-actualizing and horizontal model of citizenship. This combination builds a citizen prototype with a positive disposition and attitude to civic action; traits that Gaventa identifies as elements of empowerment and political agency that can derive into higher possibilities for social change. Having citizens identify community’s ailments as their own and their network’s responsibility, results in conversations that act as causal nexus of community action. The main challenge at the moment is the implementation of this model. To what extent will the Action Hero represent this model uniformly and steadily, preventing dissonance between Blank Noise’s discourse and its practice. And secondly, how will Blank Noise volunteers negotiate their political participation between public and private spaces?

PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC SPACE

Where should the active citizen operate?

The second tension on citizenship, as identified by Turner, is its political expression on the public arena versus its manifestation on the individual’s private space. We asked Jasmeen about the crises and spaces in which Blank Noise is operating:

To what crisis is the project responding to?
The project responds to the crises and experiences of street harassment. To the sense of getting defensive, agitated, angry; creating a wall and feeling vulnerable in a city. Blank Noise was initiated at a time were street harassment was disregarded and dismissed as teasing. This ‘eve-teasing’, just going by the pulse of things, included concepts of molestation and sexual violence. There was denial, there was silence.

First point on the public vs. private dilemma lies on the issue at hand. Volunteers are working to re-conceptualize social norms around ‘safety’, ‘agency’ and ‘gender’, that are not only deeply entrenched in society, but that can also be traced back to the private domain of traditions and culture at the household level. By openly discussing ‘sexual harassment’ in the public space and enabling volunteers to express and act on the basis of a new understanding of citizenship and freedom, the collective is possibly also redefining dynamics at the private space of its volunteers. What is more, the motivation and determination to be an Action Hero, as mentioned by Patheja, must be grounded in a "personal shift and challenge".

How does this translate it into citizens taking ownership of the cause and sustained behavioral change in everyday practices?
Anger is a good starting point. It is worrying when there is no anger. And then it has to be a personal shift. We’ve learned from conversations and feedback that volunteers who would say: “we came to address the issue and we are realizing that we are doing something in ourselves”. So what is the spirit of an Action Hero? Allowing something to shift and challenging something in yourself. Last year for example we worked towards having locality specific Action Hero networks and on how this intuitive citizen can become a full citizen, in terms of being an informed citizen as well.

Acton Hero Game. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: http://bit.do/fHKq

The expectation of a personal pledge at the individual, community and public level, signals the project is blurring the lines between the private and public domain and fostering the politicization of the citizen at all fronts. This suggests that in order for the claims and behaviour of Action Heroes to become sustainable, they must also trickle into the common citizen’s routine. In words of Arendt: “the space of appearance comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating all formal constitutions of the public realm” (1989). Establishing the private-public space as a common ground works towards bringing consistency and coherence to the interventions, yet it remains in many ways problematic and threatening to individual freedoms.

Does your project create new spaces for citizen expression and action?
Our role is to build testimonials and translate them back into the public domain. An example of this is the blogathon that happened in 2006, initiated by our Action Hero. She said: let’s invite bloggers to share their experiences of street harassment. 4-5 male and female Action Heroes made the event happen and in a couple of days we had hundreds and hundreds of testimonials and people talking about this for the first time. Maybe it was the first time speaking about it, remembering things that happened ages ago and that they had never shared. Suddenly the web was seen as a space where people could speak. Suddenly people had so much to say about the issue, the person dismissing the issue and their relationship with their body and the city.

Talk To Me:
Creating spaces for conversation and collaboration. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: http://bit.do/fHKq

Turner reflects on the French revolution tradition to shed light on this particular challenge for active citizenship, as what bound Frenchmen together was their citizen identity (Baker 1987). Passing on from state subjects, to actively voicing their political, civic and social aspirations coupled with meaningful mechanisms of participation. However, how do we reconcile this tradition of positive democracy with the American understanding of citizenship that enshrines the autonomous sanctity of the private space. American individualism values personal success and the main way to exercise political participation is through voluntary associations that do not represent a large-scale force -or a threat- with enough power to shape their lives (Bellah et. al 2008, Turner 1990). Translating this to the Bangalorean context: a changing society in which community- based traditions in the household are coexisting with an agitated and growingly individualist youth culture; the issues and interventions must be addressed in an implicational manner. The connections between the issue and individual freedoms must be made, in order for these actors to be willing to politicize their action in both the public and private spheres.

MIDDLE CLASS ACTIVISM

Can everybody be an active citizen?

The second challenge is rooted in the socio-economic group that comprises the body of volunteers of Blank Noise. I asked Jasmeen the extent to which the Action Hero Network was being led by middle class citizens.

Are you only reaching out to the middle class activist that has the resources to be part of the Blank Noise project?
Yes and no. A large percentage of our volunteers are usually web-savvy, English speaking, teenagers or in their early 20s. Others have been around for the last decade. The mainstream media also reports back mainly to the web-savvy groups. But it is also about one action hero inspiring another Action Hero. I find [the project] fascinating in terms of the spaces it leaks into. Some people tell me they were at their religious meeting and they overheard two women talking about the project, who were not necessarily web-savvy. Ultimately the media is not only reporting us but we see them as point of engagement in which more and more citizens take ownership of the issue. Although our network is largely urban middle class, we are at the point where we collaborate largely with other groups that are working with different communities so it completes the entire picture. The question is: how do you take the conversation forward? What can be that medium? and what kind of technology can get to people?

“We use different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. It could be on the street, on the blog, within a workshop; the web has been a constant space. If you are an Action Hero, yes you may be web-savvy, but you also carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space."

Jasmeen Patheja

This demographic is ultimately an interest group leading a movement and has taken on the responsibility of spreading the call to action among its network. Foregoing the assumption that every Indian citizen wants to challenge concepts of sexual harassment in the city, the fact that one group is spreading a specific opinion puts forward a tension between the dynamics of public social protest and the existence of privatized dissent. Turner reflects on Mill’s On Liberty and shows how this could entail a threat of spreading mass opinion to the extent it makes all people alike (Turner, 1990).

Kabeer also highlights this by exploring the tension between universality versus particularity — a debate that questions the extent to which human rights advocacy in the public sphere will be equally received and supported by every group, given diversity of opinion within as well as obstacles to freedom of speech. Nyamu-Musembi attempts to bridge this dichotomy by framing universality as “the experience of resistance to general oppression” and particularity as “how resistance speaks to each relevant social context”. In order to have the issue speak to all citizen groups, Blank Noise is currently also depending on the the ability of its Action Heroes to pass on a message that speaks to the different needs and cultural sensibilities of communities who do not belong to the Anglo-speaking middle class it is currently operating with.

In response to having the protest of a specific social group translate into homogenized dissent, Jasmeen is looking to increase her outreach by approaching and working with other groups.

How can you build effective solidarity networks among middle class activists, their networks and further communities?
It is an attitude we are trying to push forward: have that conversation with your grandma; with your domestic help. We would love to do something with domestic workers for example. We don’t hear enough stories of who empowers or harasses them. That’s definitely a rising concern within the collective. We really need to have the complete spectrum and what kind of technology or strategies can be used to get it. Identifying these groups is a proposed future project and also an ongoing preoccupation. For now, our role is to trigger conversations and have them take their own journey.

METHODS FOR CHANGE

How does the combination of art and technology foster active citizenship?

Some of the strategies Blank Noise has devised to overcome these obstacles relate back to the interdisciplinary design of its interventions. First, they are designed to be highly visible and aimed at triggering dialogue. This enables opinions and thoughts to flow from the private space into the public realm. Also, community art and technology as tools of expression and reflection, work as effective channels for responses to flow back and forth between both spaces.

Why did you take a multi-stakeholder approach and brought together technology and art?
The entire collective is really based on defining strategies and identifying approaches to breaking denial and building conversation. Our role is enabling dialogue across forms of media and using different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. There are also lots of questions of how to create an art practice that can be collaborative and participatory. Where does art exist? How can art exist, be, feel confrontational? Can arte provoke? How can we build testimonials? Could be on the street, on the blog, twitter or within a workshop. The web has been a constant space. We also work with the web in a way that we have a growing community of Action Heroes, and if you are web-savvy, you carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space.

Twitter campaign. Courtesy of: http://bit.do/fHLK

Public art installation to redefine sexual harassment and eve-teasing. Courtesy of Caravan Magazine: http://bit.do/fHLV

Bennett and his work on civic engagement in the digital age, notes that one of the main strategies for positive civic engagement is nurturing creative and expressive actions in this generation.

How does this approach work towards creating sustainable change?
We are creating tool kits for different ideas so the community can take it forward. There are many creative processes that equip them to initiate action in a community space. For instance, the Yelahanka Action Heroes workshop (http://yelahankaactionheroes.wordpress.com/), was a one month initiative that got Sristhi students to arrive to action heroism through games, like the Hahaha Sangha for example. We invited women out of their homes, and we would speak through pure laughter, gibberish and a sense of play. In doing that, people felt they knew each other. Anonymity was broken, people felt comfortable and safety was established. We are working towards creating safe public spaces and going beyond the biases that come from language or through age. But through the Hahaha Sangha we found there is still a need for facilitators to continue the project with the purpose of creating a safe space. Also, one of our interns is in charge of creating an Action Hero College Network and spreading information about different events, calendars, etc. It is still fluid but we are moving in that direction. Action Heroes are the strength of the project.

Hahaha Sangha sessions - Courtesy of Blank Noise blog http://bit.do/fHMb

The ideal of an engaged youth must be sustained by the empowerment of young people; getting them to recognize their personal expression and identities in collective spaces (Bennett, 2008). By setting in place mechanisms and opportunities to critically dissect societal problems and develop a political perspective as put forward by Westheimer and Kahne, as well as the awareness, self-identity and political confidence to act, as noted by Gaventa, the Blank Noise interventions become a context in which active citizenship is more likely.

Conclusion

This analysis, part of the Methods of Social Change research project, aimed to shed light on how change-makers such as Blank Noise still place a heavy consideration on the notion of citizenship when designing, framing and implementing their projects. What is more, it is paramount to identify the working characteristics of an ‘active citizen’ and reflect on whether these are desirable and necessary in the populace to make political and social change more likely. It also contributes to the Making Change project by unpacking the workings of a change actor that is not confined to the ‘category of citizen’ but is still closely linked to processes of citizen action and social change in Bangalore.

As seen throughout this post, the analysis of our citizen is not grounded on its relationship with the state, but instead on its disposition, self-identity and notion of social membership. After identifying our ideal active citizen: an active bearer of his rights, that defines itself horizontally in relation to other citizens and their rights, participates in political processes and is informed about and at odds with power imbalances, the Blank Noise experience demonstrated spatial tensions in implementing this ideal and practice in the public and private realms. Designing strategies and identifying technologies that enable a flow of thought and action between both spaces is a way of restructuring the ecosystem in which volunteers from the Action Hero Network interact with each other, reclaim their citizenship and alter the status quo from within. While Blank Noise is not starting a revolution, it is consolidating a process of steady and growing resistance in the public and private discourse of sexual harassment and eve-teasing in the city.

Shah also notes there are implicit codes allowing only certain people to embrace this model of citizenship. This was evident on the demographic that comprises the activist bases of Blank Noise and the risks of homogenizing the political space with their discourse of change. Jasmeen Patheja brought this point forward herself, but with full confidence on the ability of dialogue and conversation to keep luring other social groups and communities into joining the debate. We discussed opportunities from exploring the foreign women experience in the public space in India to expanding the Blank Noise basis through simultaneous international interventions enabled and coordinated through technology. The network is ever-growing and its mechanisms of change are constantly innovating and adapting through its content. In the meantime, the ‘active citizen’ remains at the core of it all, pushing the project forward; fighting among other battles, that of its identity’s reassertion in the landscape of change.

Sources

Arendt, Hannah (1989) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Baker, Keith Michael. The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture. Vol. 3. Pergamon Press, 1987.
Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth 1 (2008): 1-24.
Berlin, Isaiah. "Two concepts of liberty." Berlin, I (1969): 118-172.
Bellah, Robert Neelly, ed. Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life: with a new preface. University of California Pr, 2008.
Cornwall, Andrea, and Vera Schatten Coelho, eds. Spaces for change?: the politics of citizen participation in new democratic arenas. Vol. 4. Zed Books, 2007.
Ellison, N. (1997) ‘Towards a new social politics: citizenship and reflexivity in late modernity’, Sociology, 31(4): 697–717.
Gaventa, John, and Rajesh Tandon “Citizen engagements in a globalizing world." Globalizing citizens: New dynamics of inclusion and exclusion (2010): 3-30.
Heater, D. (2002) World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and Its Opponents, London: Continuum
Kabeer, Naila, ed. Inclusive citizenship: Meanings and expressions. Vol. 1. Zed Books, 2005.
Kathryn Montgomery et al., Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation. Center for Social Media, 2004. Retrieved February 15, 2007. http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/project.htm.
Mann, Michael. "Ruling class strategies and citizenship". Sociology 21, no.3 (1987): 339-354
Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.
Turner, Bryan. Outline of a Theory of Citizenship. Sociology (May 1990), 24 (2), pg. 189-217
Westheimer, Joel, and Joseph Kahne. "What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy." American educational research journal 41, no. 2 (2004): 237-269

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Multimedia Storytellers: Panel Discussion

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This post brings three storytellers together to find points of intersection between their methods. The format will be that of a panel discussion and it features: Arjun Srivathsa from Pocket Science India, Ameen Haque from the Storywallahs, and Ajay Dasgupta from The Kahani Project. They discuss technology, interpretation and action in storytelling.

CHANGE-MAKERS: Arjun Srivathsa, Ameen Haque and Ajay Dasgupta

ORGANIZATIONS:Pocket Science India, The Storywallahs and The Kahani Project

METHOD OF CHANGE: Storytelling

Over the last couple of weeks, I had the privilege of interviewing three storytellers. What struck me the most, besides from their fascinating ideas about storytelling, was how many of their ideas overlapped. As much as I would love to sit all of them in the same room and enjoy the fireworks, there are a number of logistical constraints that shut my storyteller reunion daydreams down; so for this post, I decided to be a self-appointed liaison between you and them. I will mimic this discussion by putting my conversations with them side by side, in the format of a panel discussion. Their interaction will have to happen in the realm of your imagination.

The questionnaire I used for my interviews was open-ended. I was curious to hear what they wanted to share about their work, as opposed to filtering and steering the conversation in a certain direction; so I let them take their own turn. While I clearly inquired about the relationship between storytelling and making change, it was fascinating to see each storyteller reach the question of ‘social impact' through different channels; testimony of the influence of their education and professional backgrounds in their work.

If I were to bring them together, the topic of the discussion would be: 'Technology, Interpretation and Action in Storytelling'. We briefly discussed mediation and semiotics[1] in the Pre-Production section of the Storytelling as Performance post. We mentioned then:

"mediums are combined to enhance the visibility of the message and the power of the experience of stories. [...] Each medium: video, audio, text, music, etc.- becomes “a new literate space” or “symbolic tool” storytellers use to portray narratives about the self, community and society (Hull, 2006)”

These thoughts were triggered by the work of the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, who considers our self-identity a result of sign mediation and interpretation. Other themes in his work include: discourse and action, temporality, narrative and identity; also useful and relevant when exploring how storytelling and reality intersect. For example, how does building a narrative develop into a discourse that mirrors our context and existence? How does the medium chosen to carry this narrative define the language system of our discourse? Finally, let’s not forget this discussion is happening amid the digital question: how does the mediation of digital technologies enable or constrain our narratives of change?

Against this background, I would like to propose a discussion around five points of intersection that came up organically* during my conversations with them.

a) The power of storytelling:
What makes it a powerful vehicle of communication? How does this practice break from more traditional strategies of information dissemination?

b) Storytelling as a vehicle to make change:
How does the practice of storytelling intervene in the social imagination of its audience? Is it the experience or the content of stories what drives the message of change forward? Where does change happen: at the value, behavioral, community or macro level?

c) The role of technology in storytelling:
What is the part technology plays in storytelling vis-a-vis traditional storytelling? Is it a static infrastructure or does it shape the force and direction of the story? How does technology influence and impact their work

d) Translating awareness to action through stories:
Can you guarantee the ideas and values imbued by the story will translate into action in the public space?

e) Influence of stories on citizenship and political participation:
Can the power of stories be leveraged to instill a sense of responsibility in the audience?

* With the exception of Arjun Srivathsa, who addressed these points in a conference I attended. He later responded to a questionnaire in which I inquired about the intersections specifically.

Introductions

We first have Arjun Srivathsa. He has a Masters in Wildlife Biology and Conservation and currently works as a Research Associate for the Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS India). In tandem, he started Pocket Science India, an initiative that combines wildlife science with art and cartoons to promote conservation in India and disseminate information from scientific journal articles. He aims to bridge the gap between the work of scientists and people using art and humour.

Arjun: I find the world of science and scientists very cool. Finding new things, discovering and inventing ways to understand the world better is an awesome way of life. I chose a career in science for this reason, second only to my love for nature and wildlife. But the essence of science, according to me, is not just to discover, but also to communicate. Even though wildlife research in India has progressed massively in the past few decades, the only notion people have is that of exaggerated scenes from television documentaries. When I discovered that most of the work by Indian scientists on wildlife and conservation of India is making no difference to people (mostly because they are unaware), I decided to use the easiest way to bridge the gap: through humour and art.

Second speaker is Ameen Haque from The Storywallahs. In what he calls his past life, he worked for 18 years in Advertising and Brand Strategy Consulting. Ameen also has a background in theatre and now works as as storyteller for The Storywallahs.

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Finally, we have Ajay Dasgupta, the founder of The Kahani Project, who also has a background in theatre and believes listening to stories is a fundamental right of children. His team works to capture stories in audio format and make them accessible.

I will now invite them to share their thoughts on the points described above. Each panelist will respond to the questions using a different medium: Arjun will comment with text and images, Ameen will comment with video and Ajay will comment using audiobytes. The idea is for each storyteller to use the medium and language they use for their own storytelling: cartoons, body language and audio respectively, as we explore how this choice mediates how they conceptualize change. I will act as a moderator and comment on common themes in the light of Paul Ricoeur’s characteristics of narratives.

1. The Power of Storytelling

What makes it a powerful vehicle of communication?

“narrative attains full significance when it becomes a condition of temporal existence” Time and Narrative

The first characteristic of narratives according to Ricoeur is: the ability to bring independent elements and episodes together into a plot within a specific context and time. The relationship between time and narrative is addressed by the philosopher in his work 'Oneself as Another,' in which he frames narratives as the most 'faithful articulations of human time'. This leads to an understanding of time as a framework where we can locate unique events and patterns, trajectories and sequences. Our three storytellers comment on how stories are an effective mean to communicate information, and how this information resonates because it can be located in the frame of our human existence.

Arjun: Storytelling really is the nascence of any communication technique. As kids we were all told stories with bees and birds, which spoke and thought. The moral life lessons and similar “information” were served to us on these fascinating platters.

Dugongs are closely related to whales and dolphins. They are peaceful mammals that swim around gracefully and feed on sea grass.
They are categorized as “VULNERABLE” because there are not too many of them left in the world.

Find full cartoon here

At some point in life, we all seem to stop appreciating the power of storytelling. Plain reporting of information has been done to death. Even an amazing discovery written as a formal report will fail to excite audience. It is time we all get back to appreciating stories. They sell. Movies generally do better than documentaries don’t they?

Ameen:

Ajay:

2. Storytelling as a vehicle to make change

How and where does change happen?

“All action is in principle interaction [...] change happens through interaction, as others are also encouraged to change” From Text to Action

The second characteristic of narratives is how the episodes in our narratives involve contingencies that will be shaped and reformulated through the development of the story. The narratives are constructed in such a way that induce us to imagine possible events in the future and how we would act in said circumstances. This characteristic is supported by Ricoeur's understanding of the 'self' as an 'agent', who can act and influence causation by taking initiative or interfering[2] in the story. Even if the listener cannot necessarily influence the outcome of the story (unless it is participatory storytelling), it triggers thoughts about its capability to act and its ability to change future realities, as he imagines himself n the situation of its characters. This out-of-body experience is what turns story into experience.

Our storytellers comment on how stories can influence and activate our agency and enable listeners to act towards creating change.

Arjun: Of course! Like I said, it is easier to influence people when you are not being preachy. Storytelling sidesteps the moral high ground that change makers are often blamed to occupy and takes a pleasantly shrewd path, as silly as it may sound.


#2: Increase in wildlife tourism has been brought about by the increasing population of the ‘Tourist’. This species is easy to recognize (see figure). The species has created an ecosystem of its own. It eats any kind of high or low profile food. Lives in resorts. Seeks charismatic animals like the tiger. Its daily activity involves excessive use of its camera. This species facilitates wildlife tourism	#9: Wildlife tourism is an excellent way to expose people of India and abroad to its rich natural heritage [...] We definitely need to regulate the number of tourists to avoid crowding in the forests, but we also need to educate tourists, especially the first-timers, about wildlife and its conservation. The tourist can be an important tool in conservation – let’s not let it go waste!"

#2: Increase in wildlife tourism has been brought about by the increasing population of the ‘Tourist’. This species is easy to recognize (see figure). The species has created an ecosystem of its own. It eats any kind of high or low profile food. Lives in resorts. Seeks charismatic animals like the tiger. Its daily activity involves excessive use of its camera. This species facilitates wildlife tourism

#9: Wildlife tourism is an excellent way to expose people of India and abroad to its rich natural heritage [...] We definitely need to regulate the number of tourists to avoid crowding in the forests, but we also need to educate tourists, especially the first-timers, about wildlife and its conservation. The tourist can be an important tool in conservation – let’s not let it go waste!"

Find full cartoon here.

To the question of where we locate change, it depends on what this change is. Through my work, I often target individuals and smaller communities (say students, villagers etc.). I don't necessarily grab my paintbrush and declare that I will change the world. My idea of change is a tailored, targeted and therefore an efficient influence on individuals.

Ameen:

Ajay:

3. The role of technology in storytelling

How does technology influence and impact your work?

Ricoeur’s thoughts on the relationship between text and action, makes us reconsider how we think about ‘text’ and how this reading can be applied to technology. According to him, the distinction between text and action is not at the linguistic, but at the discursive level. This is how he differentiates language from discourse:

	Language	Discourse
Structure	A system: timeless and static	Located at a given time and moment
Composition	A sequence of signs	A sequence of events that describe, claim and represent the world
Meaning	Refers to signs	Refers to the world
Communication	Provides codes for communication. Necessary but not sufficient	Communicates

Using these working definitions, we can understand the medium as a language: a system that provides us with signs and codes for communication. A creative use of language and mediums will hence, enable us to create narratives and produce meaning (which will be generated and negotiated by the audience). Technology is in this case our language, and how each storyteller uses it determines new ways to create meaning: experiences, connections and associations with and within their stories. We now ask them if/how the use of this 'language' mediates and impacts their work.

Arjun: Technology is the best facilitator in the realm of my science-art-communication. I depend on it extensively, to first educate myself. Then to create artwork (computer, tablet, smartphone). And then eventually I depend heavily on social media to broadcast my work. I will definitely credit the power of technology for fostering and enabling effective communication.

# 11: The story of Ajoba was carried far and wide in newspapers, television news and the internet. Find full cartoon here.

In my capacity, I feel most confident targeting students and urban youth. But thanks to the power of social media, putting my work out there has grabbed the attention of change-makers who are capable of things that is beyond my scope. This has led to collaborations through which the reach has become wider. Teachers use my art work in their classes, some organisations are using it in forest department buildings to educate visitors, some local groups have translated my work into regional languages.

Ameen:

Ajay:

4. Translating awareness into action through stories

Can you guarantee the ideas and values imbued by the story translate into action in the public space?

“what must be the nature of action...if it is to be read in terms of change in the world?” From Text to Action

So far they have told us about the power and content of stories. However, we have yet to find out what is it in stories that make listeners translate fiction into real life action. Ricoeur's final characteristic of narratives points us in the direction of empathy and interpretation.

Like discourse, action is open to interpretation. He posits that characters of our stories rise to the status of ‘persons’ when we evaluate their actions, including their doings and sufferings. This ethical verdict determines the identity of the character in the eyes of the audience (above any other physical or emotional characteristics) and this is what ultimately adds meaning to the events of the story, as it inspires the audience to emulate or reject this behavior through their actions.

We asked our storytellers their thoughts on how to translate stories' messages into meaningful action, or if it was even possible to guarantee this transition to begin with:

Arjun: I don’t [know]. One never does, I feel. But a lot of good awareness programs have made me change little things in my life. The people or groups who initiated those campaigns don't know of this, do they? This is somewhat similar. I believe that even if ONE person in the thousand who view my work gets influenced into making little changes, then it was worth my time and effort.

Ameen:

Ajay: (Ajay commented on the impact of stories while we were discussing how to gauge the impact of his work. In our first conversation he said: "Change is happening but there are no tests that can measure it and quantify it." and he elaborates on this idea below:)

5. Influence of stories on citizenship and political participation

Can the power of stories be leveraged to instill a sense of responsibility in the audience?

"You can only achieve power in common by including the opinions of as many people as possible in the discourse"

Finally, as stated in the brief of the project on methods for change, we are also interested in defining how political participation should be manifested in the public space. Ricoeur frames political action as a result of discourse and political deliberation.For a brief discussion of the relationship between storytelling and our political identity visit Part 2 of Storytelling as Performance.)

This last section captures the storytellers' point of view on how stories may affect our sense of citizenship and political responsibility.

Arjun: We are living in a society which is becoming increasingly insensitive and arrogant. There seems to be no time to stop and see the big picture: what are we doing? are our demands and lifestyles sustainable? Is the future generation secure? Impacts of our actions on the natural world.


#1: Most of us love seafood. And why shouldn't we? It tops the charts as some of the most delicious delicacies in the world! It so happens that we rarely think about what goes on “behind-the-scenes” and take many things for granted. The story behind how food reaches your plate is quite a scary one!	#12: So next time you feel like a getting a seafood dinner, do it with some perspective.

Find full cartoon here

Ameen:

Ajay:

Closing Remarks

I hope you enjoyed reading, watching and listening these three wonderful storytellers share their ideas on technology, interpretation and action. The question that remains unresolved is whether the effect of the story is shaped by the use of technology or not. At the end of the day it is the interpretation of stories -more than what it is said and how it is being said- what will determine the sustainability of these intents for change. The answers of our storytellers reinforce the notion that technology is a system, a language, a medium that transports our messages and intentions, but that inherently lacks the ability to provide guarantees for action and sway users into a lifestyle of responsible citizenship the second they pull out from their cartoon, screen or mp3.

The box below includes a quick run through the main ideas discussed throughout the post:

1. On the power of storytelling:

Arjun argues that storytelling is the origin of all communication techniques, and this makes it extremely attractive for the public.
Both Ajay and Ameen bring up the ability to influence behavior, shape the minds of people and transmit experiences, values and beliefs.
Both also brought up how dominant religions, ideologies, markets governments use storytelling to build movements and sustain their support
Finally Ajay comments on the issue of access: stories are powerful yet only a small share of stories are being told Hence, the need for this method to become more pervasive.

2. Storytelling as a vehicle for change:
Each storyteller locates change in different yet complementary spaces:

Arjun believes it must occur at the community level and hence the approach (stories) must be tailored and targeted in order to achieve an effective influence. His approach to change is very contextual.
Ameen locates it at the behavioral level; in our ability to make decisions and choices. His approach to change is based on how we use information from stories to interact with our surroundings.
Ajay locates it at the value level: He believes stories should influence us to adjust our values and only then, we will shape our behavior accordingly.

3. Role of technology:
We approached technology as a 'text' and as a 'language' that creates new possibilities for meaning and interpretation.

For Arjun and Ajay, technology enabled them to connect with other organizations and increased possibilities for partnerships and collaborations.

The three of them believe technology is an accelerator of the journey of stories and that it enables them to reach a larger audience.
Ameen argued that each medium requires different fluencies, and that the language of each medium should be adapted for the story. For example, a story will be told in different ways if using body language, video, audio, etc. He uses the example of the Twitter adaption of the Mahabharata.
Ajay closes by noting that although technology enables, it cannot replace the storyteller.

4. Translating awareness into action

Arjun and Ameen comment on the power of effectively and positively influencing one person. They believe the impact will exponentially spread and grow through that person's network or community.
Arjun believes you can guarantee it will turn into action.
Ameen believes you need to move them and inspire them through your characters to the point they feel they can be the hero of that story and act accordingly.
Ajay takes a more pragmatic approach towards action and shares some of the activities The Kahani Project uses to complement his storytelling sessions, such as: story-thons, story-booths and interactive storytelling, where they engage the audience in the production of their own stories.

5. Impact of storytelling on citizenship and political participation

Arun and Ajay believe this will come as a result of self-reflection and an evaluation of our impact in the world.
Ameen believes effective stories transmit the 'responsibility of action' through rhetoric. He uses the example of the popularity of India Against Corruption movement.
Ajay believes storytelling is a humanizing force that has the power of healing. He recommends institutions should utilize this method to spread confidence and inclusion among society and particularly with excluded groups.

Footnotes

[1] Semiotics is defined as the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. It is the study of making meaning and is essential to understand communication processes. While we will not look at any specific semiotics theory, we will focus on how stories create meaning through different signs and mediums, and how this meaning can be leveraged for making change.

[2] Refer to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s page on Paul Ricoeur and the section on ‘Selves and Agents’ to learn more about how action is mediated by causation, interference and intervention. Some interesting thoughts that inspired the above post

“What must be the nature of the world … if human beings are able to introduce changes into it?. Ricoeur adopts the analysis of interference or intervention that G. H. von Wright gives in Explanation and Understanding, and shows that for there to be interference, there must be both: an ongoing anterior established order or course of things and a human doing that somehow intervenes in and disturbs that order. Moreover, interference is always purposeful. Hence an interference is not merely ascribable to an agent. It is also imputable to the agent as the one whose purpose motivates the interference.”

“The second crucial question about action is “What must be the nature of action … if it is to be read in terms of a change in the world?” Ricoeur argues that every action involves initiative, i.e., “an intervention of the agent of action into the course of the world, an intervention that effectively causes changes in the world” (Oneself as Another, 109, translation modified). Initiative requires a bodily agent possessing specific capabilities and vulnerabilities who inhabits some concrete worldly situation.”

Sources:

Dauenhauer, Bernard and Pellauer, David, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/ricoeur/>.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/multimedia-storytellers