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Tales of Resettlement

Country

Botswana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Pakistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Region

Global, Africa, South Asia

Programme Summary

This initiative, created by Panos London and its partners, uses the internet as a platform for sharing the voices of people around the world who have been displaced by large-scale development projects such as large dams and coal mines. Panos' resettlement project aims to contribute to greater understanding of the resettlement process and its aftermath by providing first-hand accounts from those with the most direct experience of forced relocation, yet with the least influence on policy. The project particularly focuses on exploring some of the social and cultural impacts of resettlement. The testimonies are from the San in Botswana and Namibia, the Tonga in Zambia and Zimbabwe, Adavasi communities in Jharkhand India, pastoralists in Kenya, and Pushto communities in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

Communication Strategies

Interpersonal communication forms the centrepiece of this oral history initiative. Each project, to date, involved a training workshop for interviewers, followed by testimony collection in the field, transcription of the tape-recorded interviews in the language of interview and, later, translation into English as well. Most of the interviewers were members of the displaced communities; a few were fieldworkers working with the resettled. A range of community and national activities, in local and national languages, were developed to expose people to the testimonies. These activities included policy roundtable meetings, community debates, press conferences, and local language publications.

Ulimately, Panos London hopes to develop an online archive of these life stories, which is similar to Mountain Voices, as a way to share the full collection of testimonies and accompanying material with an international audience of policymakers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), students, and academics working on related issues.

In the meantime, Panos London has created PDF versions of their partners' publications, which are available together with an introduction from Panos London on their website: click here. Many of the partners produced an English version of their publication or Panos London translated the local/national publication into English.

As of July 2008, Panos London is exploring approaches and funding to more widely communicate these testimonies to international audiences - for example, through an online archive similar to the Mountain Voices one referenced above and/or through a radio docudrama. They welcome suggestions from interested parties.

Development Issues

Rights, Displacement.

Partners

Panos London, SUNGI Development Foundation (Pakistan), Panos India, Panos Eastern Africa, Panos Southern Africa, Kuru Development Organisation (Botswana).

Contact

Siobhan Warrington
Head of Programme, Oral Testimony
Panos London

9 White Lion Street

London
N1 9PD
Great Britain & Northern Ireland (UK)
Tel: 020 7239 7609
Fax: 020 7278 0345

Source

Emails from Panos London to The Communication Initiative on May 2 2007 and July 10 2008; and Panos London website.


Placed on the Soul Beat Africa site May 09 2008
Last Updated July 14 2008

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