Agency and Authenticity: Storybooks in Indigenous Languages of the Philippines

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The transition from oral to written: Leveraging indigenous stories to create culturally relevant reading materials and a culture of reading

Proposal

At the very beginning of the International Decade of Indigenous languages (IDIL), in 2021 and 2022, a project was carried out in the Philippines to develop storybooks in the languages of nine Indigenous People groups. As a result of a highly participatory process, five books were written and published in each of the nine languages, for a total of 45 books. The design and implementation of the project fostered both agency on the part of the indigenous people involved and authenticity of the storybooks they produced. Since the project ended, we have received word that the books are being used in schools. This project aligns with the IDIL goals of “preservation, revitalization, and promotion of indigenous languages (United Nations, 2022).”
From start to finish the project followed a highly participatory approach. The participation of indigenous community members was seen in the selection of the participants (including elders in each community); consultations with each community prior to beginning the work; selection of story themes; writing of the stories; keyboarding of the stories; illustrations drawn by community members; and testing of storylines and completed books in the communities.
In selecting the themes for the stories, community members were guided through a process of reflection using tools such as developing a “community map” and “cultural calendar.” These, and other discussions among the community members led to the development of a “theme web” that guided the development of storylines for the books.
Training sessions covered the differences between oral and written stories, noting the features of oral delivery (e.g., gestures, facial expressions, intonation and stress, voice volume, and exclamations) and how these features could be represented in writing (e.g., punctuation, descriptive words, different font faces, etc.).
Participants were also invited to consider and develop both fiction and nonfiction stories and developed some of each. Care was given to drawing illustrations that would be representative of the local setting for each community.
At the end of the writing process, stories were tested in communities with a variety of community members. Elements to be tested included understanding of the materials, level of interest, naturalness, suitability of the illustrations, and acceptability to parents and community leaders.
All of these aspects of the process fostered agency on the part of indigenous community members as they exercised their role as the primary stakeholders in the process. And as a result of the process, the stories written were authentic and representative of community life and values.
Perhaps the greatest proof of the communities’ agency was their choice at the end of the project to not publish the books online but rather to limit the distribution and use of the materials to their own communities. Prior planning had anticipated publishing the books using an online book platform, but those plans were abandoned in deference to the wishes of the community leaders involved.

Author

• Xinia R. Skoropinski, SIL International