Not just the Discovery Channel: Indigenous media in Bolivia and beyond
We Media Miami is truly a global event, and on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 27, David Sasaki will chair a session on indigenous media, with a particular focus on Bolivia. In this post, Sasaki tells the story of Bolivian blogging and asks questions the session in Miami will aim to answer. Also included here are short commentaries from some of the panel speakers:
There is no shortage of stunning visual documentaries about indigenous communities from Tierra del Fuego to the central Australian plains. Just spend one insomniac night in front of the Discovery Channel, and you’re sure to encounter several groups of Oxford-educated explorers toting their film equipment through the Amazon jungle or the Sahara desert.
But what if those same indigenous communities were to tell their own stories? Make their own media? Decide how to portray their daily lives to the outside world? What would they have to say?
Welcome to Voces Bolivianas, a citizen-media outreach project started in September, 2007, in the mostly Aymara community of El Alto, Bolivia. Established Bolivian bloggers Eduardo Ávila, Hugo Miranda, and Mario Duran facilitated a series of four workshops with over 20 local residents to teach them the tools and techniques needed to become modern-day citizen journalists.
Through blog posts, online video, and digital photography, the enthusiastic new bloggers have assembled a stunning portrait of what it’s like to live in the world’s highest major city.
But the El Alto pilot project was just the first step in Voces Bolivianas’ mission to use participatory media to encourage communication and understanding in what has become a deeply divided country. The Voces Bolivianas team is now facilitating a second series of workshops in El Alto and Santa Cruz, two cities which, for many, represent the opposite ends of Bolivia’s polarized politics.
At the Indigenous World session in Miami this month we will hear from Eduardo Ávila and Cristina Quisbert about their experiences as facilitator of and participants in Voces Bolivianas. We will also be joined by Dr. Leonardo Ferreira, author of Centuries of Silence, who will discuss how the Latin American press has traditionally neglected indigenous communities throughout the region.
Dr. Luis Ramiro Beltran, a noted pioneer in the field of Communication for Development, will offer some historical context about indigenous media in Bolivia, with a special emphasis on radio. Filmmaker Sanjeev Chatterjee will introduce the session and share a series of video interviews shot in El Alto as part of an upcoming documentary.
Beyond a mere introduction to the adoption of participatory media by indigenous communities in Latin America, the session will also explore how the successful model of Voces Bolivianas can be replicated in other communities. What resources are needed for a citizen media outreach campaign? And how does online participation translate into offline social change?
Indigenous Communication in Bolivia Through Traditional Media by Luis Ramiro Beltran, Ph.D.
The countries of Latin America with large Indian populations are México, Guatemala, Bolivia, Perú and Ecuador. This involves a significant presence of several native languages coexisting with Spanish.
Bolivia is the pioneering country in the use of radio by indigenous and for indigenous people. The precursor experience was that of the Radios Mineras that started at the tale end of the 1940s, manned by former peasants-turned-mining workers. They established the first process of “alternative communication” many years before theory about it began. The second experience was fostered by the Catholic Church that built across the country ERBOL, a network of small educational radio stations managed by peasants in their languages and partly in Spanish. The third was an initiative by a few Indian communicators who rented the very early morning hours of urban commercial stations of La Paz and, for very small fees, established a sort of news and postal service for the Indian peasantry, who were exploited and deprived of mass communication. The fourth and most recent was the creation of Radios Comunitariasstations, which was self-financed by peasant organizations.
And, finally, the present Government of Bolivia, now led by an indigenous president, is establishing a nation-wide network for small and isolated peasant villages.
What I Have Learned in Voces Bolivianas by Cristina Quisbert
Through my participation in the first pilot project of Voces Bolivianas, I discovered the following:
1. How to use new technological tools that I had been unaware of.
2. A network of bloggers, some with ample experience and others who were beginners like myself.
I believe that the role of blogs in giving voice to indigenous people is still limited, especially in Bolivia. This is, in part, because there are few blogs or bloggers who openly recognize their indigenous identity. There is also a general lack of blogs and bloggers in other indigenous communities throughout Latin America.
The presence of indigenous bloggers is still in its initial stage due to a variety of factors including a lack of access to the new technologies as well as a lack of understanding of the importance and utility of online communication. I personally find it very important that those of us who identify as indigenous are able to say what we think, are able to write about our history, and discover more of our own culture so that it is made known to others – both indigenous and non-indigenous – inside and outside of Bolivia.
In the case of Bolivia, the delay in the adoption of new media comes from the more historical problem of illiteracy. Now, with a recent literacy campaign in rural areas, many people are learning to read and write. For the moment, however, it remains more likely that young people living in urban areas will discover and use participatory media tools.
To conclude, I think that making indigenous voices more visible is an important challenge in all countries where indigenous populations exist and existed.
New Media Can Cross Ethnic, Social and Geographic Lines by Eduardo Ávila
During my brief but ongoing experience with Voces Bolivianas, something is becoming much more clear. The project has had the ability to cut across racial, ethnic, class and geographic lines. The participants of Voces Bolivianas in El Alto would primarily identify themselves as Aymara, and most come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. What we have observed is the country is growing smaller, in a good way.
Bloggers from all across the country, regardless of their class, race, ethnicity or location have been responding, commenting, and participating in dialogue with these new bloggers. It would be safe to say that these different populations would normally not interact in ‘real-life’ with one another, but online, they can communicate on a much more equal footing.
It is no secret that racism is rampant in Bolivia and stereotypes about one group or another is also widespread. However, these new-media tools are able to overcome those simplistic dismissals, by allowing people to interact on a one-to-one basis, without the filter of some media outlets and politicians who want these groups to be distrustful of one another. Sure, there may be disagreements about politics or current events, but I honestly believe these tools can continue to be inclusive.
For me, this is so essential in Bolivia right now, when lines are being drawn deeper along these same ethnic, class and regional lines. Perhaps the general sentiment in Bolivia is that, yes, for far too long, the indigenous populations have been marginalized and treated injustly, but there must be a way to be inclusive and reconcile the country. For far too long, there have been two, three or four Bolivias where different groups did not mix or communicate on a equal basis. People on one side of town did not interact with the poor folks unless they were their empleadas or other laborers.
That must change in this new Bolivia, and this social media can be the way to do that. Much of the indigenous communication in the past was only for these groups to communicate amongst themselves, but with the advent of blogs, this communication is allowing the country to be inter-connected and more democratic. This, in theory, can help break down a lot of these barriers, stereotypes, and misunderstandings, and hopefully make the country a better place for all.
Online Discussion for Offline Social Change by Leonardo Ferreira, Ph.D.
Not everything is a mere or sole function of technology. New media transformations must be accompanied by effective social and democratic progress and interaction to be meaningful.
