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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Shamans and Midwifes in Senoi Temiars - About the lecture by Prof. Sue Jennings

Yesterday (3 April 2014), I had a chance to be present in an exciting lecture by Prof. Dr. Sue Jennings entitled:  From Top To Bottom: Complementary Roles Of Traditional Temiar Midwives And Shaman”, that was held by the Gender Studies Programme of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (University of Malaya) as part of its Gender Seminar Series - jointly with the Center for Malaysia Indigenous Studies.

The whole lecture was about the maintenance of health and healing practices among the Temiar peoples that are performed by experienced village mid-wives and shaman. The mid-wives main role is the assurance that newly-delivered mothers are out of danger, and immediate bonding (attachment) happens between the new-born and the mother. In contrast the shaman is concerned with the upper body, in particular the strengthening of head-souls. Nevertheless, everyone takes responsibility for not creating situations that could cause illness or misfortune to others. 




The important thing about the seminar was that the information offered by her, was the results of her doctoral fieldwork with the Senoi Temiars and her continued contact with them as an adopted member until the present. She has been there with them with her three children. She explained that when she was adopted as a daughter and became a family member, she could live in the community. She talked about the blood of a child birth (which makes women powerful), low mortality rate among them (possibly because they are using such traditional ways of giving birth) and the three shamanic seances of playing, healing and tiger (by major and minor shamans). 

The tiger seance was of particular interest to me, since she explained that Shaman trances in a shelter that is built inside a house or the area where the dance is performed. She said that the dance brings to our mind that there is always a little tiny tiger inside us.

She also explained about the small children and how they are socialized into the roles by the Shaman and midwives (since the very early time child starts to interact and somehow it helps the baby to develop his or her personality). By showing certain pictures she said how quickly the children take the family roles. 

She also explained about midwifery and how she does her own role during the birth; especially she said about the symbolic washing of mother and then the child. She said that she has not seen any involvement of men in child birth: "they stood outside smoking waiting to receive a news". 

Moreover she talked about non-violence culture among the locals; naming of children and parents (how the child birth affects the naming); the effects of people's culture on her own family members.

She invited us to read the chapter written by her about the dance and shamans: Jennings, Sue (1985) "Temiar dance and the maintenance of order"  in Spencer, P. (Ed.). (1985). Society and the dance: the social anthropology of process and performance. Cambridge University Press. I have not seen the chapter yet, and I hope I can be able to read the chapter as soon as possible.

This is the website managed by her: http://suejennings.com/

Sunday, March 30, 2014

When all participants can participate in all topics...

In Farsi, I call it "Miz-e Dav-var" that can be translated as "rotating table". It is a facilitation technique. In English, it has got different names: Carousel technique or Rotating Review, World Café, Knowledge Café or Charette procedure. It is a brainstorming technique used by facilitators, when there are different subjects in a session and all would like to participate. 

For a definition, I quote from the website of readwritethink.org a part about Carousel technique or rotating review. The technique here has been used for students in a classroom:
"While taking part in Carousel Brainstorming, small groups of students rotate around the classroom, stopping at various “stations” for a designated period of time (usually 1-2 minutes).  At each station, students activate their prior knowledge of a topic or concept and share their ideas with their small group.  Each group posts their ideas at each station for all groups to read." (http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/brainstorming-reviewing-using-carousel-30630.html)

I read in selba.org that the technique of World Café has been created and developed by Juanita Brow and William Isaacs in their book The World Café. As explained in Selba.org the technique is as follows: 
"The big group is divided in small groups of 4-5 people sitting around a table with a paper tablecloth —to write, draw, or doodle in the midst of the conversation— and talking about a given subject presented under the form of a question. In each table there is a table 'host' who stays at the same table throughout the process. After 20-30 minutes the general host invites participants to change tables. The table host explains briefly the essence of the previous conversation to the guests who arrive for the next round. After three rounds of progressive conversation there is a dialogue among the whole group with the intention of gathering and recording key ideas, questions or insights that might be useful for action planning or other purposes." (http://www.selba.org/EngTaster/Social/Facilitation/FacilitationTechniques.html)
In Wikipedia, it has been written that the World Café originated at the home of Juanita Brown and David Isaacs in 1995 when a "large circle" conversation became disrupted by rain. It is called World Café since A café ambience is created in order to facilitate conversation. The knowledge café or K-Café (and sometimes conservation café) shares certain features with The World Cafe. I think it is good to have a look at this slide to know more about knowledge café: http://www.slideshare.net/dgurteen/introduction-to-the-knowledge-cafe



Of course, the technique may go back more deeply into history if we call it Charette procedure. I found the following part in Mind Tools
"The Charette Procedure (sometimes spelled 'Charrette')... involves organizing people into several small groups, each of which brainstorms ideas one-after-the-other until everyone involved has had a chance to contribute fully. Derived from the French word for wagon, it comes from the practice of architecture students in the early 1800s, who used carts to rush their drawings from one place to another to get final approvals. In much the same way, when you use the Charette Procedure, you take the ideas generated by a group, and cart them over to the next group, for them to be built upon, refined, and finally prioritized." 
After this introduction about the different names and history, I have to emphasize that this technique is not only talking, it is a technique of thinking and producing something that is created through brainstorming while everyone in the group has participated in the production process. and of course, it is a different technique from Open Space Technology where there are more people and it may take longer for several days. Meanwhile, speed geeking is a similar tool used for presentation.

I have used the technique several times in different contexts (villages and urban communities). It works. People love to become involved in such a model of thinking and working together.

The procedure for facilitating:  


  1. The content: how many questions are on the tables? Questions are related and fill in a bigger puzzle. 
  2. Arrange the setting and make ready what would be needed for each group (paper, markers, flip charts,...)
  3. Explain for the participants how the technique is going to be done.
  4. Divide the participants into small groups of 5 - 7 people (sometimes more; it depends how many participants are in your workshop and how questions have to be responded). If there are four questions and there are 24 participants, then you have four small groups of six participants.
  5. One person is chosen as group facilitator (it can be called host or recorder). Choosing can be done by the workshop facilitator or by the group; as he or she needs to have facilitation skills, it would be better to be selected by the workshop facilitator. 
  6. Provide each group with a discussion topic or question. 
  7. Establish a time limit (8 to 10 minutes) for the groups to generate ideas in response to the topic. The time limit can determined through looking at : 1) number of the questions; 2) how deep the questions are; 3) participants energy; and 4) and the time you have for the workshop.   
  8. At the end of the time period, we can do in two ways: a) Participants sit in their place and the group facilitator moves and takes the responses from their group and rotate to the next group. b) Each group of participants moves clock-wise or counter clock-wise and the group facilitators remain in their own place.
  9. Once the group facilitator joins his/her new group (for 8.a) or once each group of participants joins the next facilitator (for 8.b), the group is asked to review the information generated by the previous group and quickly add any other ideas or comments they have. 
  10. Repeat the the previous step, until each group has had an opportunity to discuss every issue. Some facilitators prefer that during the last rotation, each group should prioritize the most significant or important ideas generated on that topic. 
  11. The total group is reconvened. Each group facilitator summarizes the discussion and priorities generated by the topic. The workshop facilitator may connect the ideas if needed. The puzzle may become complete at his stage.
Revolving tables, Rotating Review, Carousel technique, Charette procedure, World Cafe or Knowledge Cafe all seem to be one facilitation technique: All Participants Participate in All Topics, and do not forget, it is not a decision-making method.

This method is useful when the facilitator is involved in carrying out a SWOT workshop. I have also used it in knowledge sharing workshops when there are five or six topics at the end.