An interview with Mr. K. E.
How easy or difficult was to do this work? What were the main problems you had?
The video project was easy and very difficult at the same time. The easiest part of the work was the two way and smooth communication with the farmers (farming community), acquiring using of video, to live and work with the farmers. The difficult part was the unavailability of visual tools, lack of budget.
During these participatory extension working years I closely work with the farming community in general and the contact farmers in particular, to study and learn Sheeb indigenous knowledge on spate irrigation system. During those years I read on culture, ethnography, qualitative research, participatory video, visual cultural studies, and anthropology field research methodologies.
 Maintaining strong linkage and two way communications with the farming community, strong desire to learn and to document the spate irrigation system, respecting the norms and culture of the community, being at the right place at the right time are the bases for the success of the video.
Acquired agricultural and video knowledge alone, however, will not take you further unless you have been trusted by the community. For me who has worked with Sheeb farming community for one year before the start of video shooting, the major problems were unavailability of digital visual tools (video camera) and budget.
In conclusion, therefore, one need visual tools, video skills, budget, working knowledge on spate irrigation system agriculture, knowledge on the local culture, participatory extension, social studies. And a good interpersonal communication skills.
Did you get support or help from others? Who were they?
For the duration of intensive and extended field works (participant observation, interviewing, focus group discussions and in collecting feed back from members of the community) the ethnographic documentary video “Sheeb Indigenous Knowledge on Spate Irrigation System”, was by and large a self initiated and financed video project. However, I get support from academic people that I know. Prof. A. K. provided valuable academic advises at all stages of the research project including text editing, H. J. assisted the researcher in participant observation, interviewing, facilitating focus group discussions and in collecting feed back from members of the community based on the video produced by the researcher, Z. H. narrated the main text for the ethnographic video, H. T. directed and assisted by the researcher, edited the video footage and audio. Spate irrigation academics who support in editing the text for the video narration are Dr. M. T., and Dr. F. van S.
Families also gave me moral and material (a digital video camera) support. My colleagues at the Eastern Lowlands Wadi Development Project -D. H., T. T., B. H. and T. O. also gave me moral support.
It is also worth mentioning the financial support that was provided by spate irrigation net work (metameta) and Ilesia during the final stage of the video.
 Were you able to show all that you wanted to show? Are there ideas or opinions to which you did not have access? (But which are important)?
The ethnographic documentary video presented is a result of many hours of videoing and is a result of hard working. Detailed shooting has been obtained. To my knowledge and experiences I could say I have accessed the ideas and opinion of the farmers, it true however, with trainings in indigenous knowledge documentation, one could have a very good access to ideas and opinions of the local knowledge and practices.
Have you seen similar videos to this one? Is this work based on books or special information already published?
I have seen many documentary videos in National Geography and other television programs; however, I didn’t come across with documentary videos that dealt with indigenous knowledge on spate irrigation agriculture.
Were the farmers and villagers happy to help you? Did they want to participate?
From the out set of the Video project, I have followed and applied the ethics of doing a research. I used the video shootings as a training material during the agricultural extension training programs. The villagers, therefore, were fully aware of the documentation of spate irrigation agriculture video project and were willing to help me. They were also actively participated in back to village workshop where they share their life time knowledge and experiences on spate irrigation.
 Can you say that you have learned something as a result of this exercise? What exactly?
The result of video project exercise includes
- Practical knowledge on indigenous knowledge documentation
- Importance of budget and visual tools in documentation project.
- To have a team for the documentary video production.
- Living and working with the farming community for longer period of time to create.
- A very good understanding of the norms and culture of the community under study
- Importance of show back of the video footage to the community.
- Importance of an integrated knowledge on agriculture, participatory extension and social studies.
And how do you expect this result to disseminate? Do you plan to do something similar again?
The video could be disseminated and used by large audiences including policy makers, agricultural extension agents, farmers, and higher institutions scholars (visual anthropologies, sociologists etc). My expectation is to have an international organization that is interested in this video could contact the researcher, producer and director to make an agreement on how to disseminate this video.
I have also video footage which is not finalized to mention two “Vegetation production in spate irrigation system” and “Sheeb Farmer’s Association”. I have a plan to have my post graduate studies in Visual Anthropology at the University of Kent in year 2008. After acquiring my studies, I have a plan to document indigenous knowledge in the fields of agriculture, natural resource management crop production, forestry, animal husbandry, irrigation practices, soil and water conservation, traditional medicines, etc in Africa in general and in East Africa in particular.
 Read "Filming Sorghum",
by Karim Nawaz, Spate Irrigation Network
 Introduction
|