#indo caribbean folklore

[havatabanca]

[whitnei-writes]

I'm super excited about this! This Carribbean book tour is coming all the way to sweet ol Georgia to visit with me!! 😍😆🥰 Follow This Brone Girl Reads to meet the other awesome stops on the 🚂🖤🥰💥🔥! (And because she’s freaking awesome! 😆) • @thisbrownegirlreads Have you read a book and you wanted everyone else to read it? Well, that was Greyborn Rising for me in 2019. The book was my unexpected fond read for the year. One that I will revisit and share. . 🖋. . Greyborn Rising. Derry Sandy. Exquisitely written, deep in Caribbean folklore. Takes you on a journey through time and space and is flavored with magic, mysticism an adventure. Adorning African witchcraft and rich Afro and Indo Caribbean history. It is a thrill ride from start to finish and let me mention with some badass, kickass WOMEN WARRIORS, embracing their role and never shrinking back. It is a beautiful love story woven in the war of champions. With jumbies and all that makes Caribbean storytelling what it is. Primarily set in island of TRINIDAD 🇹🇹. I have so much to say but IG and it’s character count won’t allow. . 🖋. . I have organized a book tour. The book will travel state to state being read and reviewed by some awesome #bookstagrammer s who were kind enough to accept my invitation for participation on the tour. We will tour 10 U.S. cities and 2 Canadian. I’ve made sure to include #ownvoices representation. All reviews will be honest and may not share the same sentiments as I. Swipe left to view the tour stops and stay tuned for their reviews. . 🖋. . Read more in the comments below. (at Atlanta, Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Le0-PgI2m/?igshid=1o8fo1b2e99t0

[snaliap-blog]

Project Management Part 2

Chinelle put forward the idea of children’s book series based on a character I had created as part of our Page Design and Layout course in the HND. Tessa is a young Trinidad girl or mixed Indo-African descent who would go on local adventures with her family and friends.

Link to previous coursework

We presented both ideas to Christopher Aaron, our lecturer, as follows:

Children’s Book

Research Question: An investigation into how women are portrayed in local children’s books. (i.e. their physical appearance was like, whether they worked and what type of jobs they held as well as how they related to the male characters in the book)

Research Method: Content Analysis

Display/Output: A child’s bedroom with toys and 3 different books on display (three books as one would be considered an individual project). 

Folklore Book

Research Question: To what degree does the population of Trinidad believe in local folktales?

Research Method: Surveys and Interviews

Display/Output: A coffee area where the book would be available as well as a screen showing a short video (in the style of a vox pop) on how people currently regard folklore.

Feedback & Decisions

The feedback received from the lecturer was that he liked both ideas equally, thus they were both tentatively approved and the decision on which to choose lay with us. He said that research questions for the children’s books were stronger, but the book on folklore was a stronger idea for a creative output.

We decided to go with the Folklore ideas for the following reasons:

For the children’s book our research may have lead to us using children who are ‘vulnerable participants’ and would require ethical considerations. 

Three books would be more time consuming to produce than the one folklore book. 

As neither of us are particularly strong illustrators we would have to hire an illustrator for both books. However the 3 children's book would cost more to illustrate as it would mean full coloured illustrations for every page on every book. For the folklore book, we could minimise costs by using less illustrations and making them greyscale.

Roles

We also formally discussed what our individual roles in the project would be. They are as follows:

Chinelle - 

Writer of the majority of the verbal content of the book.

Script and Host the vox pop video. 

Sarah (Myself) - 

Design and layout of the book. 

Director and Editor of the vox pop video

Overall, we would still support each other in our individual roles as I would be able to contribute and make revisions in the verbal content of the book and Chinelle would also have an input on how the layout/design and final edit of the video would turn out. 

The Proposal

After deciding on the topic, I did some preliminary research so as to prepare for the project proposal. I looked into the history of our local folklore as well as what constitutes as folklore. Folklore is not only the folktale characters we learnt about but is the oral transmission of songs, stories, games, rituals from one generation to the next (Tucker, 2008). While doing recon in the local bookstores, I came across two books that related to our topic.  Indian Caribbean Folklore Spirits by Kumar Mahabir and Folklore & Legends of Trinidad and Tobago by Gerard Besson.

Both books had various similarities as well as differences. Though they both cover the same topic of folklore in Trinidad and Tobago, they were vastly different. Each book had its own visual style as well as formatting for its content. The content itself varied for each book.

Indian Caribbean Folklore Spirits has 28 pages, concentrated on 5 folktale characters, has a landscape page format as well as colourful watercolour images all from the same author. The verbal content of the book included descriptions of characters, testimonies, similar characters in other cultures and general notes.

Folklore & Legends of Trinidad and Tobago has 94 pages of content, has a wider range of content including information on folk-dances, has a pages in a portrait orientation and has a collection of images from various artists. The verbal content of this book was more structured as stories told about folktale characters that were passed down.

To have our book be different than what was available it was decided that we would:

not only include information on folktale characters but also creative short stories on the three most recognised folk characters, prayers and traditional remedies based on the information gathered from the interviews conducted. 

Organise our book alphabetically in a more encyclopaedic format.

Use black and white images from one consistent illustrator.

Size our book differently. 

Use a different style of layout.

For the vox pop video we decided that it should have a comedic element and that filming would have a dual purpose. As we intend to conduct interviews as a part of the research, we would film these and use the content for the vox pop.

To gather a good sample for our semi-structured interviews, it was decided that a mix of interview candidates from different areas in Trinidad would be best. For research purposes the age, location and level of education of participants may affect the level of their belief in folklore. 

A list of possible places to visit are:

Blanchchisseuse

Chaguanas

Chaguaramas

Lopinot

Moruga

Port of Spain

San Fernando

Toco

For time management purposes this list will have to be reduced to a maximum of 5 places. The final proposal was handed in on Sunday February 5th 2017.