History - Storytelling

As I mention before, the tradition of storytelling serves a vital role during the whole process of African American oral traditions development.  Another article that I find really helpful for this topic is “Talk the Talk: Storytelling and Analysis Rooted in African American Oral traditions,” which is wrote by JoAnne Banks-Wallace.

The reason why this article attracts my attention is that one of the key words of this article is qualitative health care research, which seems to have little connections with the linguistic field. At the beginning, I cannot think of any connection between storytelling in African American oral traditions and qualitative health care research. 

But after reading this article, I find there are some connections between qualitative research and African American oral traditions. I figure out that the major method of qualitative research is interviewing, and generally the main theme of an interview is sharing personal ideas and experience, which is known as the behavior of storytelling. From this point, I realize the importance of storytelling in health care research of African Americans.

This article begins with the discussion about storytelling and stories, and then focuses on the storytelling traditions in African American culture. In the following part of this article, JoAnne applies her personal experience of her research with women of African descents to the exploration of the question: how to understand the social-cultural-political characteristics of African American interviewees in our health care researches.

She applies plenty of her personal experiences from her previous research, and shows her great knowledge in African American history, sociology and physiology fields as well, which will definitely builds a trustworthy and erudite image to her audiences. Furthermore, by taking a variety of social phenomenons, which are related to the racial discrimination of African Americans, JoAnne also makes her article is highly connected to the our current life.

At the beginning, JoAnne stresses the critical role of stories in all cultures. She writes that “Stories are a means of preserving common characteristics of a culture and passing them on to subsequent generations." They provide practical guidelines and help us answer existential questions about the meaning of life in general or our life in particular.

 There are three important elements in the process of storytelling: the content of story, storyteller and story-taker.  Furthermore, the process is not only the storytellers tell the story to the audience, but also the interactive process of “Sharing” stories with others using an oral medium or body gestures. Namely, both storytellers and story-takers are integral elements of the process of storytelling. 

Before JoAnne furthers her discussion to storytelling in African American culture, she mentions that the close connections between personal experience and the stories root in African American culture. JoAnne stresses that analyzing the story of one community is an effective way to help us make sense of human behaviors.  Nurturing the spirit-self is a primary function of storytelling, which provides a way of articulating people’s dreams hopes and fears. 

Then, JoAnne transitions her article to the storytelling behavior in African American oral traditions.  She points out that the content of stories and storytelling are profoundly shaped by Africans experience within America. Throughout African American’s history, stories constantly play a critical role in people’s life. For example, the “griot” was the storytellers in African American culture acting as the most respected person, oral historian and educator in African traditions. 

Storytelling also play a vital role in “nurturing a harmonious African American community, sustaining a unique cultural identity, under-girding the struggle for spiritual and material freedom, and having a clear picture of their situation and the options available for them.” 

The characteristics of the storytelling during slavery time are affirming the ongoing commitment of a people and nurturing a unique spiritually based culture in the midst of an oppressive environment. Some stories also reflect that many of the rituals, valued and guiding principles of the culture remain constant in current society. 

I realize the storytelling tradition of African American culture from my experience of the civil rights trip. During the trip, almost every speaker will use plenty of examples or their personal experiences to help audience members immerse into the African American tragic history, which will help them stir people’s emotion and create an effective pathos. 

Because of these special characteristics in African American storytelling traditions, JoAnne reminds researchers that when they interview African Americans, there are three elements that they should always keep in mind: cultural values and norms, immediate storytelling environment and historical context. 

Although some researchers take African American s’ historical background into consideration, most of them still fail to consider the individual contextual factors during their qualitative research. “A clear understanding of the research question is a prerequisite to determining when it is best to math storyteller/story-taker characteristics and when variety might be better.” 

When it comes to the individual level of the storytelling traditions of African American culture, JoAnne questions why African American women were reluctant to participate in research. According to her understanding, she expresses that “African American communities struggle with additional questions related to the need for racial solidarity and the appropriateness of sacrificing one group, African American women, for the greater good of the whole.” JoAnne notices that during the interviews with African American women, there are conspicuous absences, silences or even lying throughout the interviews. 

Conspicuous absences are the things that were not said but that would have expected to be part of the discussion. The general explanation of why there would be absences during interviews with African American women is the huge cultural gap between interviewers and interviewees. It is not surprising that people often leave out some information that they assume to be common knowledge during a conversation. However, JoAnne emphasizes other important reasons for this situation: race-based and gender-based power differentials of African American women. Many African American females are shamed of sharing stories of the interiors of African American life and think it is disloyal to “the Race” and dangerous.

In the end of the article, JoAnne expresses the aim of her project. She believes that a more deliberate articulation or integration of the oral traditions with qualitative method could further enhance our understanding about the decision-making and behaviors about health and illness. 

 JoAnne suggests that instead of focusing narrowly on curing disease or minimizing symptoms, we should also have some knowledge about their historical background and culture traditions, that is to say, we are going to curve a person, not only the illness. Furthermore, JoAnne also emphasizes the importance of applying multiple focus groups during the researches for a more comprehensive data collection.

I guess you already see the close connection between African American oral traditions with some current social issues just as JoAnne mention in her article. With English have become a worldwide language and Standard English become more and more favorable; we can't help thinking what the situation for African Americans' language - African American English. In next blog we will discuses more about the African American English, which is not only a combination of English and African Language. There are so many histories, cultures within this amazing mixture.

Please see the video learn more about storytelling in African American culture. 

 

Wolfram, W. (1998). Myth13 : Black children are verbally deprived. In L. Bauer, & P. Trudgill, Lanuage Myths (pp. 103-112). London : Penguin. 

Rickford, J. (2005). Suite for Ebony and Phonics.In M. Marilyn & N. Netherton, What’s Language Got To Do With It(pp.278-285).New York: NORTON &,.