The Butala project – local content creation, production and distribution

The Butala project was a collaborative project of Serenje District Commission and HKU Utrecht University of the Arts from 2008 to 2012 aiming at local content creation and production, based on local needs and insights, and the local distribution of the productions made. People from Serenje District, all of them farmers, were trained and assisted to create media productions for the local market.

Around 2006, the first portable DVD players with a built-in screen arrived in Chibale. DVDs that were readily available primarily contained Congolese music and dance clips. Except for experiences with radio, media literacy in Chibale was almost zero at that moment. Looking at the state of cinema and television in the cities in Zambia at that time, the question arose whether it be possible to develop media products based on the local perspective before the region would be flooded by external media. For this, the Butala project¹For a portfolio of productions click here. was started, a co-operation between the Serenje District commission and the Utrecht University of the Arts.

We describe the project in this article based on the following topics.
National context
Local context
Aims and their realisation
The progress of the project
Portfolio of productions

National context

In that period, media in Zambia were mainly journalistic. Television also had many journalistic programmes. Other types of media programmes frequently came from outside Zambia. Think of Mexican soaps, Nigerian films, British football, Congo music, international fashion, (international) religion, and South-African quizzes. Nothing wrong with external media sources, but what if they would become source and model? What would become of Zambia’s abundant cultural diversity in the long run? In the 2000s, the Zambian government was shifting its focus away from the One Zambia One Nation cultural policy that was directed towards national culture – read city culture with some attention for local cultural heritage. It was felt that Zambians at least should have the possibility to choose for foreign or for national/local productions. The problem then was the production of sufficient Zambian medial material. Two potential options were a. to develop media design and production in the cities and rural areas and b. to expand secondary and tertiary education as to the design, production and exploitation of media productions. Being specifically interested in the ways that the local perspective could become part and parcel of the creation and production of media, we formulated projects for both options. The first, working in the rural areas of Serenje District, in co-operation with the Serenje District Commission and the second in consultation with the Zambian government and Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka. A further aim was to link the two options in a later stage. About the second project we can be short. The Zambian government allocated a significant amount of money to the project under the condition that the Dutch government also contributed funds. Just in that time, a new Dutch government was presented that had a quid pro quo attitude. As it was unclear to them what quid (or rather quids) was to be expected from the proposed quo, they did not go along. So, our story here is only about the first option.

A development in the 2000s was the increasing international attention for (intangible) cultural heritage. In most cases attention went to heritage preservation. Hardly any attempts were being made to reuse older Zambian cultural material for present-day purposes. In the cases in which it was used, it was used as ‘traditional culture’ material; apparently understanding ‘traditional culture’ as a type of culture not capable of relating to the present. Not reusing one’s own cultural material could therefore be seen as a form of subjugation, forced or otherwise, to the ‘world culture’ dominated by the West. This could be improved by also giving the needed attention to the reuse of heritage, in the sense of what people have and know to have had locally. Preservation and reuse are core themes and processes in (oral) tradition. With the use of media the reuse of cultural heritage could be given new forms. The Butala project aimed at the resurgence of the reusing of existing cultural material, not so much at the resurgence of old ‘traditional’ material.

Local context

In former days, oral tradition was the normal way of transmitting culture across and between generations. This form of tradition still existed in the 2000s but was increasingly being replaced by more formal ways of education relying heavily on external knowledge. In the 2000s, the average 12-year-old in Serenje District was able to mention 34 cities in the United Kingdom but was not able to mention, say, three historical figures from the region or four local medicinal plants. If electricity were to come to the region, the media would add more external knowledge (content and form). Although external knowledge can be relevant, should it supplant other forms of cultural tradition? The Butala project departed from the idea that local culture and knowledge are as relevant for local people as external knowledge and culture.
The Butala project aimed at helping to design new forms of tradition of local culture through the use of media.

People in Serenje District had had little experience with media up to the coming of the portable DVD-player. They were hardly influenced by (inter)national media. Of old, teaching had been combined with entertainment in Serenje District. Therefore media and music would be very suited for the forms of communication and information dissemination that were needed. Would it be possible to have a local perspective in media productions, in content and/or in form?
In most cases aid in the rural areas of Zambia was given from an external (western or city), rather culture-deaf-and-blind perspective; (the sending of) the message seemed to be more important than its reception. When media were to be used for information dissemination or aid, a local perspective would be necessary. In content to take care that the message is understood, in form to take care that it would be in line, or a transformation of, other, local forms of kufunda, in which wisdom and entertainment are usually combined.
The Butala project aimed at creating room for the development of the local perspective in media design.

With a few exceptions, there was no electricity In Serenje District in the 2000s. Yet the transportability of content, so typical for media productions, was often needed. When a solution for a certain problem has been developed in one area of the district, it was not certain that it would spread to other areas since the communication between areas was minimal. When new ways were found to produce a certain crop, they might not be used outside of the area where they had been developed. When a choir or a singer/dancer/composer had a new or particularly effective way of performing, this would not spread outside of the area or circles around that choir or singer/dancer/composer. Methods developed in one area to reduce the risks for young women of HIV/Aids infection and of becoming a single mother were only taken over in other areas after media productions were made and distributed to inform women in other areas.
The Butala project aimed at spreading the productions in as large an area within the district as possible.

Surely there is a new demand for the creative arts and media in education throughout the world and many people are therefore learning some of the new techniques coming in through the computers. This knowledge is also making many countries to review their cultural policies, especially where promotion and preservation is concerned.
∵ Mwesa Mapoma, personal communication, 2007.

Aims and their realisation

We summarise the aims mentioned above.

To create room for the development of media and music productions based on the local perspective.
To develop new forms of tradition of local culture through the use of media.
To develop new forms of reusing existing cultural material.
To spread the productions in as large an area within Serenje district as possible.
To assist in the making of sufficient Zambian medial material by developing media design and production in the rural areas.

In the period 2008-2012, these aims were reached to a decreasing extent.
It turned out that is was surely possible that farmers with little media literacy would produce appreciated media productions from the local perspective within two years when they received support twice a year for 8 weeks and were provided with the minimally necessary equipment.
As much of the productions were made for kufunda, the new forms fitted well into the intention of tradition. In quite a few cases the kufunda was directed to relatively new phenomena like new crops, beekeeping, fishponds, HIV including the increased number of orphans, and women’s power and gender issues. In many cases, the intention was to show what happens to you and your environment when … your father is drunk often, you take care of the children of your deceased sister, a marriage is in the process of being established and the like. Therefore, a form of docudrama was often chosen for the productions.
The distribution of the material was through screenings, which was rather cumbersome, and through DVD sales, which did not form a viable option economically. This goal was not really achieved.
The Butala team made a tremendous amount of material. So, the project showed that it is a viable, be it possibly economically not independent, solution for a lack of material for national media provided that rural productions would also be broadcast and be well received in the towns. The latter is not improbable as most town dwellers are in close contact with the region they come from. Because of this potential, it was a pity that the project with the Zambian government could not go ahead and the Butala project did not last long enough to start working for towns.

Proverb 68²Example from the proverb book Amano mambulwa.

Mu butala emuli amano

Abantu ababona nefya kuntanshi kucila pakashita kenka nko kuti basangwa mu mafya anini.
Ukukwata ubutala cilanga amano. Twalishiba ati ifya kuntanshi tefya kwenekela. Calinga ukupekanishisha libela ukutesa kubutukila ulo nshita ilipwile.

There is wisdom in a granary

People who look beyond the present may experience fewer problems.
To have a granary shows wisdom. We all know the future is uncertain. One needs to prepare in advance, not to rush when it’s too late.

One has to have the wisdom to gather things (kututila) to be able to take them out at the right time (kubansa). The Butala project paid attention to both gathering and (re)using. The team had the funds to be able to gather and preserve (kututila) cultural material. Based on this material they made media and music productions (kubansa) for educational and entertainment purposes.

The progress of the project

The Butala team

Six people, all of them farmers, were working on the Butala project: two media teams of a woman and a man (to make sure that a team could work on all topics), a composer/musician and a factotum, under the guidance of Basil Chisonta who had been working in the research underlying this site from the beginning in 1981. In Chibale, Lafenda Mpyakula and Benadi Mika started as a research team in 2007 collecting local cultural material. In 2008, they became a media team and in 2009 they opened their own small cultural projects office in Chibale Village. After the death of Lafenda, Byuti Male took over her role. The other team came from Muchinka area (in the northeast of Serenje District) and was formed by Prishila Mumba and Dauti Kalunga. They got involved in the project in April 2008. The composer for all media products was Alube Mika from Chibale. He worked with local musicians combining this with work on the computer. The tireless factotum of the project was Chisenga Blantoni from Chibale.
The district commissioner, Musonda Chunga and, later, Stan Chibwana, took care that the project was known and supported throughout the district and now and then visited the team. Chief Chibale Joshua Chipolo supported the project in Chibale. The Netherland side of the project was managed by Marjanne Paardekooper and the author, both from the Creative Design Research Group of HKU Utrecht University of the Arts.

The team used the digital collection of cultural repertoires in Chibale, the results of the research underlying this site, as a basic collection of cultural material expanding it with some material they collected themselves, for instance about medicinal herbs, treatments, rituals and crafts. The collected material was organised in a database that was kept in Chibale and Muchinka where it could be consulted by people from Serenje District. A backup of the database was kept at HKU in the Netherlands. The team used material from the database either as a vantage point or as a means to influence their choices in creation and production.

The two media teams and the composer/musician were supported by advanced HKU students and their teachers. In addition to the technical and productional training, they worked with the team on transforming local narrative and musical forms into medial forms. All met twice a year for a period of eight weeks in Chibale. At these occasions the database was updated with the material that has been gathered and the productions that had been made in the mean time for use in both chiefdoms. The new database was copied by each team and backed up in the Netherlands. The media teams were taught further audiovisual skills. They worked together to develop concepts. The composer was supported in composing, recording, editing and producing music with the aid of a computer. Entrepreneurship skills and concepts were trained as well.

HKU also took care of the national and international relations of the Butala project. As said above, there were good contacts with the Zambian government. Television stations were asked if there was any interest but the project did not live long enough to start with national exposure. In the years 2011 and 2012 there were also external assignments (from the Netherlands) for the team to make productions -about ways to interact with HIV patients and their families and about DIY- from a local perspective. These assignments were mediated by HKU.

The learning curve for the team members in the project was extremely steep. None of them had any experience with media or computers, except the ones having worked in the research underlying this site who had some experience with word processing. After a preparatory period in April 2008 with the team, the first group of 6 students arrived in Chibale in September 2008.  Another two students investigated the state of affairs of the creative industries in Zambia and were based in Lusaka. The students started with some technical instruction, not using any outside examples to illustrate things. As soon as possible they began to make very small try-outs together with the team. Of course, education alone was already a form of external cultural influence but the students were trained to leave the initiative to the team whenever possible and to try to get the team to come up with ideas, forms and solutions without external examples. At a given moment, for instance, one of the team members realised that the films in the camera and on the computer did not consist of a ‘stream’ but were discrete photos each moving a bit further in time. He jokingly suggested that it would be interesting to manipulate this. This led to a number of stop-motion try-outs. Later, these were stopped because the ones attending the viewings found the way the animated objects moved by themselves very scary. After the first eight weeks, the team had enough experience to go on trying things out until the next group of students would arrive end of March next year.
In the second ‘semester’, the team managed to create and produce the first simple productions more or less on their own and the ideas grew of what could be created. In the next semesters they concentrated mainly on kufunda productions: documentary, docudrama, and instruction and other information productions. In a later stage also kwangala in the form of music and dance clips and registrations was added.

The team members made money by making film reports of weddings and funerals, recording music and selling DVDs of their productions. Earning money with the screening of media productions throughout the two chiefdoms -though the screenings were successful in the beginning when no entrance fee was asked- did not work out in the end. One reason was the entrance fee. It was equal to €0,15 for adults and half of that for children but it was still a problem for many. The other reason was that the screenings took too much time for the team members. And it proved impossible to create a construction where someone who was not a member of the team would travel through the chiefdom to show the productions.

The project was stopped in the beginning of 2013 due to new policy of the HKU University of the Arts. It felt that these kinds of projects, of which there were quite some, were too far removed from the opportunities that the HKU wanted to offer its students to develop. Too bad for the Dutch part of the project, but certainly also for the Zambian team members. During the project they had continued their agricultural activities, so it was not a complete disaster. We decided to give them all the equipment we had lent to them to do the project, including solar panels, and to support them remotely in the further work. However, fate befell the team members. Prishila and Byuti both died of a disease and Alube and Dauti both became entangled in (different) witchcraft cases. Only Benadi could continue to work on media productions…

Portfolio of productions

In the Butala project productions have been made from a local perspective, in content and if possible in form. Topics covered have been how to cultivate new types of crops, beekeeping, fish farming, HIV/Aids patients guidance, witchcraft, proverbs in spoken language and in songs, local (clan) history, orphans, christian choirs, spirit possession rituals, marriages, funerals, dance and new music.
Some media products were targeted towards specific groups like primary school children, woman groups, farmers, or HIV/Aids infected and their families, others were aimed at a more general public.

For examples of this portfolio, see the article Portfolio of the Butala media project.