An Introduction to Ethical Storytelling: Why are Stories Important
"To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralized nation tells demoralized stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art."
Ben Okri
I have always loved stories. My father always read to me and we eventually started reading together and between us, we have my longest running book club. Stories for me, have always been how I understood the world. Through stories, I explored and travelled to different continents without ever setting foot in them. Writers used their words and helped me explore these worlds. Stories helped me expand my imagination and concept of what is possible and impossible. Many of the things we see in the present have been imagined and conceptualised in stories.
Stories are how history is written. We document history through stories. Therefore, the stories we write now are important for the future. As a black woman from Africa, I fully understand the power of documentation and the power of history capturing your story because everytime I look into history, stories of people like me are not common. Yaa Gyasi in Homecoming has one of my favourite quotes on storytelling in the context of history:
“We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So, when you study history, you must ask yourself, whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.”
We know that stories teach us about power, who has it, who doesn't and who is negotiating for it. The one who holds the pen is extremely important.
I am a student of storytelling. I love learning about how stories are created and why they are created. I love asking questions why a certain story was told and why other stories remain untold. After all, what is life if not a series of ongoing stories just waiting to be told.
In the age of social media, most of us have started to actively play the role of storytelling whether we see ourselves as storytellers or not. Social media has also changed the ways in which we share stories and more than ever the conversation on the stories we write is crucial.
Stories for me, have also been how I have navigated emotions and trauma. Alice Walker in the Colour Purple taught me how to journal to deal with trauma. Toni Morrison through her stories reminded me in many ways how my thoughts and my words matter. Margaret Ogola in the River and the Source wrote so beautifully about characters I could identify with, becoming and evolving in a world that I understood. Her story gave me language for thoughts and emotions I battled daily. Therefore, if stories matter then storytellers and how stories are told is vital.
There are a few things that I have learned about stories in the past few years that have led me to this journey of ethical storytelling, and I wanted to blog about them and document the lessons I have learned. I also wanted to document the mistakes I have made and the discuss the teachers/ storytellers who have taught me.
This blog is inspired by a project I worked on last year on ethical storytelling with Yasmin Manji, Aisha Ali and Rehema Baya. The project was a by-product of some of the questions I had been asking myself about storytelling and focused on working with survivors of trafficking during the pandemic to train on writing and photography in an attempt to see the stories that they would tell when given the space to tell their own stories. We also worked with Dr. Helen McCabe and Emily Brady from Nottingham University.
I am dividing the blog into three sections highlighting the key things/ themes that have been consistent as I continue to learn about storytelling.
Questioning narratives: Looking at power dynamics in storytelling
Stories of trauma: Why ethics are important
Changing the way, we tell stories: Principles, Tools and Storytellers
Dr. Awino Okech who is a close friend of mine likes to remind me that citation is important. Citation is not just about research work but also about acknowledging how we generate knowledge communally. My thoughts and lessons on this issue have been inspired but long conversations with my friends Danielle Khan Da Silva, Rachel Goble, Helen Sworn and Minh Dang and Antonia Musunga. Thank you, ladies, for teaching me and the long endless conversations over wine on this.