 And also, can you make me again co-ost? Because, thank you. OK, great. Yes, that's true. You see my window with a web documentary in the background? Yes. Yes, OK. So I'll leave it like this for now. So as some of you know, before doing this web documentary, I first started with a documentary film on the same topic of slavery, emancipation, and of slavery, post-slavery, in Western Mali. I filmed it in 2010. It was called The Jumbo, which is also available online. But I had quite limited financial and technical means at the time, and it affected to some extent the result. I'm still happy with it, but I felt that I hadn't been able to mobilize the full potential of this filmed investigation. And I was looking for an opportunity to use other rushes or to revisit those already used in the film, but I needed also extra funding for that. So I always had this idea back at the back of my mind, but I didn't want to make another documentary film because I had impressions that would be just a repetition. And I was also into diversifying the media used for my research and to make my research outcomes accessible to a wide audience. So especially from 2017, I started exploring other media and I had heard of web documentary, which is not something which is that one known in the UK, but it's basically creating an interactive platform on the website and making accessible videos, all kinds of media, video sounds, photos, et cetera. And with a few clicks, you follow the story. So there is a background story guiding the viewers. I'll show you after my introduction how the Buoyagi Web documentary is organized. So it's an online media. So I had been interested for some time in the possibilities of doing a web documentary, but I didn't really know how to start with it. I considered even doing a training to do it by myself, but realized soon that that would be a bit difficult and time-consuming. And in 2020, actually, I was lucky to get financial support from SOAS to make this happen for this new project, Buoyagi, a free village. And why did I move from the documentary film to this new form of putting my research online? I like about the web documentary support and form what the possibility of using a set of material that I had accumulated for my research since 2008 on the history of slavery in Western Mali and to value them in another way than by a published text. So there was a number of pictures, of interviews, of video material, as I said, that I hadn't really used or not to the same extent as I wanted. And I thought the web documentary would be a good way to make this accessible beyond the small cycle of the usual readers of scholarship on the matter. And in comparison with documentary film, the web documentary made it also possible to add more text and then more context than the documentary. Probably that's my scholarly bias. I'm not trained in filmmaking. I'm not sure how to really use images to build a narrative. I learned while doing it, but I was not really trained in that. And I felt like I was missing in my previous documentary as a possibility to add context, more context to the video material in more details. So this is part of a larger long-term project that I've been working on, as I said, since 2017-19 to diversify the media for disseminating my research. I've worked on a graphic novel, which is also based on the history of Buyagi. And that's a co-production with villagers in Buyagi. This is not finished yet, but this is on good tracks. I have also worked more recently on an animation film, which is also on tracks to be released hopefully next year, which is also a broad interpretation based on the graphic novel. So the idea is to multiply the number of teaching and public history tools about history called struggles against slavery with the overall idea to inspire maybe the younger generations in Mali and Biyang to fight against all forms of exploitation, including modern slavery. So getting inspiration from historical fighting and combat against slavery to fight against ongoing discrimination and all forms of exploitation. So the plan is of course to screen the wet docking schools. We haven't been able to do it so far, not extensively. We have an event in 10 days time in Kai, during which I'm not going to be there. Kai is now in the right zone, so I'm not allowed to travel there. But my team will be, who is based in Kai, will be presenting the web documentary to the audience of this event in which we hope to invite school pupils as well. And one thing is also that the web documentary, as such for now, doesn't work on mobile phones, just on PC and laptops. So we plan for next year to turn it into a mobile app. This is also ongoing, so that as many people can use it and to organize events around that. It's actually by doing this, by working on these tools that I realize the limits each time, starting with the documentary. And then I need to do something maybe more interactive. I started working on and something that can be circulated more easily. And all these tools have their own limits, so each time. And I realize them while I'm trying to use them with a wider audience. And each time I realize that's not the end of the project. Just the beginning, I need to develop another tool to alleviate the limit of this new tool. So once the web documentary was done, that I realized, for example, that cannot be read on a mobile and that we need a mobile app because otherwise the developers will need to change even the tool to make this web documentary which is not something I have impact on. So the web documentary was, I worked on it. That's one of the rare positive things which happened during the first lockdown is that I managed to do this web documentary with a firm based in Paris who specializes in new media. So they do also a lot of sound systems for museum and experiences, sound exhibitions, et cetera. For all kinds of new media to explain the experience of knowledge, I would say, in different settings. And actually, so it was not made on the project. It was released during the pandemic, during the lockdown. But it's what was positive about having it released at this time with that it found immediately an easy audience easily through distance learning for students, especially in Europe and North America. So that became the main audience. The shame is I don't think I have any access to statistics about a man through the websites. As it's better, so I don't have access to the whole data. So I don't know what extent it's really used. But I had some good feedback by users and colleagues. So the feedback was, of course, diverse and varied. But students seemed to be particularly touched by the fact that they could access this rare and direct testimonies of slavery from their home. And these testimonies and this access, this facilitated access for the students, was allowed them to perceive the traumatic aspect of slavery, the psychological violence in particular, which can be difficult to capture as directly through scientific publications. So really, I mean, this is something I had already tried to explore in my documentary film. But as I said, I'm not trained in film studies, in filmmaking. So I was not really, I didn't go as far as I wanted in using a video of film to, as a language to share a narrative of trauma for this book. And so my limits in the visual language to convey all together trauma of slavery through the camera. In the web commentary, it's a bit easier because I can add text to contextualize. I was saying, as I was already saying. And also, I made the previous film that was my first film investigation. So as I said, I was learning while doing it. And of course, between 2010 and 2020, 10 years difference, my research has really evolved. So I was happy, therefore, to have a new opportunity to rethink some of my ongoing research concerns and to rethink some of the key topics I had been working for the past 10 years when it comes to the history of West Africa, of slavery in West Africa and in Malin in particular. So really, it's not only the fact that the media is different, but also my research has evolved and changed slightly. And my position in my own research also, I mean, I'm clearly more mature with the topic. And for example, in the documentary film, there is no voiceover. I couldn't do that. I completely refused to appear in the documentary for a number of reasons. We can discuss later. While in the web documentary, there are a number of videos in which there is my voice over, explaining my approach. And that was actually the firm with which I worked on this documentary. I mean, the people, the web documentary filmmaker, who told me, you know, that would be very interesting to have your own voice telling how you approach your research. And I was very hesitant at first. And then I decided to do it because that was another way also of conveying ideas and just text and images. And it also was a web documentary, was very much in the continuity of my PhD research at the time, which was mostly based on archival documentation. It's only shortly after my PhD that I really started an oral history research, of which the general was one result. But I mean, it reflects also where I am now in my research is web documentary for which there is absolutely no archival data. So this is really a history from below, a very local history, but which it's a case study, but it's not just a unique history. And it tells us a lot about potentially about the history of resistance against slavery in general in West Africa, outside or on the margins of colonial emancipation networks. So really devoting a full web documentary to the history of this village, Puyagi, which was founded following a revolt against slavery in another village. So all the people were categorized as slaves around 1914. So about 10 years after the official abolition of slavery when French West Africa, they decided to leave and to found their own village. And this web documentary is the history of this struggle to really secure their freedom and their autonomy. And also, and I will finish on that before we navigate the web documentary, this history of slavery and its legacies actually have come back into the highlights in the past two years with a resurgence of violence against people who are categorized as descendants of slaves locally. So that's something also that I decided to add in my web documentary and to explain how actually the news have caught up with my research, unfortunately. And that was important in that sense, that I include these latest developments and to see how this history of slavery still haunts the situation today in the region in the young. And what is also interesting is, I mean, I touch upon these issues of resistance against slavery in my documentary film and the documentary film of 2010 ends on some of these rebels against slavery. But at the time when I released it, the critics were more about the fact that I insisted so much on the exactions of Samoitoe and the fact that he put people into slavery. And that was against post-colonial art, post-Santric rewriting of West African history, in which Samoitoe has been made a great anti-colonial hero of the post-colonial hero. And the fact that I didn't insist enough in, I mean, in this original documentary, there was far more on the colonial authority's role in the abolition, et cetera. And recently when I re-screened it, actually people started saying, I mean, well, say, when it was released, people would say it's almost a colonial apologetic film because I'm talking too much about the role of the authorities, anti-authorities in the abolition, and not enough about forced labor and forced recruitment and exploitation of the population by the colonial authorities. And more recently, because of the recent events and the violence against people categorized as descendants of slaves in Chi, people have started saying that the documentary of 2010 is too political because it ends on so-called slave revolts. So just to say that, depending on the time, I think these two works reflect also the evolution of my own research and also of the situation of the memories of slavery and the political meaning of slavery in the public space in Mali. And as I said, even myself, where I locate my research in the broader public debate in Mali today has evolved. And my current project works closely with anti-slavery activists in Mali. And that's also why I included this aspect in the web documentary. Yeah, too much talking, I guess. I'm sure you're very excited about having a look at the web documentary, which is freely accessible. I hope you can see here the link. But that was also in the description of the talk of today, the Booyagi, so as ac.uk. And just thoughts like these have to play. I don't know if you hear the sounds. So on the top of the page on the right side, you can choose between French and English. So I will switch to English. And then we start to explore this history. So it was a first panel explaining the context of my research and the situation of the short piece of debate about slavery while it's taboo. Topics still in Mali, also while with the recent political events in Western Mali and the violence it had put it back into the public space. But basically, you have a contrast between this taboo, still ongoing, and the fact that the Booyagi villagers are very proud of their own history of resistance against slavery, but which is hardly known beyond the borders of the village, the limits of the village. Then you click on Next. And then you arrived on the first screen. And again, this is meant for a broad audience. So this is not a scholarly publication. This is to make this research accessible to wider public. So we have tried to keep it as simple as possible. So we start with the first screen on how was internal slavery born in the West African Sahel, explaining the general context with a few pop up windows, like footnotes here with a chronology. And then on the right hand side, you have a series of videos. Part of them are recycled, so some extent from the documentary, but re-edited in another way. So we have a number of film. And I must say that we have a number of films in the West African Sahel in the West African Sahel in the West African Sahel in the West African Sahel. And I must say that most of the people who appear here have passed away. So it's also a circle of life for these memories to be put in this form and to reuse them beyond the original documentary film. And then you can move to the next chapter by clicking on the chapter at the bottom, so which is next screen is really on the history of Buyagi, the end of resistance against slavery. You have, again, a kind of footnote here with a map to locate Buyagi in Western Mali. So very close to the contemporary border of Mauritania. There is also a diagram of Buyagi today. And again, some video footages with first a tour of again a tour of Buyagi today. I have conducted research in several rebel villages of the Kay region. I felt an immediate connection with Buyagi and its population who was particularly enthusiastic in sharing their history. That's why I have decided to fill my research with them so that the extraordinary history of resilience get better known. I was fortunate to be able to interview the last generation who still knew well the history of their parents taken into slavery. Their parents had escaped subjugation by funding Buyagi around 1914. That is nine years after the colonial abolition of slavery in West Africa. Before being able to settle definitively, the Buyagi founders had to face the hostility and the attacks of their former owners who wanted to prevent them from living. They also had to fight hard against the colonial administration to obtain their land rights over the land of Buyagi. Once settled, they had to continue fighting for the survival of their children despite the climatic vagaries and the uncertain agricultural harvest. Today, Buyagi is a village of about 2000 inhabitants which looks very much like neighboring villages with a primary school, a great mosque, its population travel, forming an important diaspora in Europe, in France and Spain in particular. Yet its unique history is very little known beyond the limits of the village. Yeah, and we had some more recent footages as well by Aldous. So, in this case, they had even started their own culture. There is a small dispute between the two guys who have been settled in Buyagi. There is the Rene here, and there is the Bahá'u Bahá community. There is also fish. Even if we don't have 10,000, we will be able to bring the Bahá'u Bahá. We are going to eat the fish, and we are going to eat the fish as well, and now we are going to eat the fish. Even if we don't have the Bahá'u Bahá, we are going to eat the fish as well. So, these are a number of videos explaining the foundation of Buyagi. Then we moved to the last chapter, which is the work I've been doing on the memory of slavery with Buyagi. In particular, we organized a number of small workshops with school pupils to collect local history in the village. And we also worked with villagers for them to collect their own history. It had to work on the web documentary, and added to my own research. But it was mostly used actually on investigation to work on the script of the graphic novel that we hope to publish next year. And we did really a work of composition. This is graphic novel, and here we come to the storyboard, which is finished now, and at the end. So, it went also again, the number of my interventions with the voiceover explaining why it was important to know this history and the kind of memory work we did in Buyagi and to discuss the traces of slavery and the memories of slavery. And then the last screen is on some of the resources that can be used. So, we have added some questions. If teachers or lecturers want to use a web documentary, these are leading questions. Of course, it's up to the people to use this web documentary the way they wish. The idea is also to build another website where we give more tools to use this web documentary along the graphic novel, for example, and the animation film, eventually. That's the next project, basically. And there are, of course, bibliographical references because I'm still a lecturer, so I need my bibliography at the end of my entire release as work. And of course, then there are all the credits. Yes. That's it, but of course, I really encourage you to explore more. I just didn't want to spend the whole time looking at all the pop-up windows, videos, etc. While the web documentary is in open access anyway on this website, which is hosted by SOAS. Yeah, that's it for now. I'll leave it to you if you have any questions or comments. Thank you very much, Marie. Thanks for such a very interesting presentation. I have a couple of questions on my own, but I see there's already one in the panel, so Mike, Johnny. Thanks, Mike. Go ahead. Hi, Marie. I had one question. I can't remember if I saw it in your before in the documentary or not, but one of the things about Mali, as I understand, is that a lot of the clans or the families, they know who was a former slave or who isn't. And I was wondering if you could connect that to the reference you made to increasing violence against people who come from former slave communities. If they still treated each other in a differential way, the former slave families to the former families that they were owned by, what is the reason for the increasing violence against the former slave families? Is it because they showed some rising up in society, or were they changing these attitudes, differential attitudes, or what? Shall I answer now? Yes, go ahead. So that's really the contradiction in all memories of slavery in Mali is on the one side, you have a taboo. So people haven't been talking about it in the public space for a long time. While you still have strong legacies, it's a public secret, basically. And on the other side, you have this long history of resistance against slavery and trajectories of liberation and emancipation, which have been silenced and not always transmitted. But my approach to that is that it was made unproposed to make sure it doesn't give ideas to others. So basically, you have these few villages, which are not that few, but the few I had the chance to study, who have managed to liberate themselves and on their own means, on their own terms. But in a still hostile environment, meaning that there are a few exceptions confirming the rule that the ideology of slavery, of the social hierarchy based on the history of slavery has been maintained. And one way of maintaining it for the local rulers, the so-called nobility, was to silence this history of resistance. And until recently, so that was working to some extent because there was resistance, but not massive resistance. There were several ways of emancipation, resistance, and people who just disappeared in big cities, in migration and would be not great consequences on the villages of origin. It doesn't mean that that was completely the statu quo. We cannot compare the situation in these villages today with 150 years ago. They have been renegotiation, but the ideology based on social hierarchy and the prominence of the nobility over other subjugated classes, the categorized slaves have continued in some of these villages, in many of these villages, until, let's say, four, five years ago, when through the diaspora, and the diaspora had already played a role in trying and with the democratization process and the decentralization process in Mali, they had managed to reach a position of power on this population who were historically subjugated. So they became mayors, they became local councilors, etc., but there was still this dual system of the traditional chieftain somehow was still held by the nobilities, the ones who founded the villages, and their legitimacy came from that, and the others, so the modern system of election, etc., but since 2018, and especially through the diaspora, they have started to organize themselves, one who all categorized as slaves in these communities, and especially through social media, and that's really a revolution, that revolutionized the way they organized themselves, and the virality of the messages and the ways they want to change the society played a big role in making this fight a massive fight. They were telling me that I think more than 30,000 people following these WhatsApp groups against slavery, so I wonder if it's not even 70,000, it's not negligible at all, and they are all following these WhatsApp groups changing and trying to sensitize about equality, and the main group is called Donbana, Donbana Roul in Soninke, which means equality, so they want to change the society on the basis of equality. It was originally founded by Soninke from Mauritania, so they have been influenced by what's going on in Mauritania, and by the anti-slavery movement there, but applied to their own community, so it's no longer about racial discourses, but about what's happening within their own community. Coming from Mauritania, saying that this discourse against Bidan slavery is hypocritical because it's all focused about the white, black slavery, while black people fighting against the Bidan slavery are not able to fight against slavery within their own black community. It started through Mauritania and Mauritania and Diaspora, Soninke Diaspora, but the Soninke in Paris from Mauritania or from Mali, they know each other, of course, and soon after the Malian got involved, and they founded their own movement which is affiliated with the Mauritanian one, and they started using again WhatsApp and to circulate discourses, anti-slavery discourses, and actually they've been quite successful, and their first claim was to ask the nobility to stop calling them slaves, because in these villages they are still called slaves. The local term in Bombardy, in Soninke, it's Como, and you still have neighborhoods in villages which are called the slave neighborhoods, so they wanted that to stop, and all what they call the laddas, what is translated, rather ambiguously as custom, the fact that they have basic social tasks to perform in ceremonies which are not performed by people who are categorized as slaves locally, like cutting the meat for ceremonies, or bringing water, cooking, etc., all the domestic courts to organize a ceremony, and so because they were quite successful and gathering so much attraction and such a big following, and they started refusing to perform this task, these laddas, these so-called customs, and to become slaves, basically the nobility, the local rulers, fought back, and I believe they fought back by violence because of the ideology of slavery, of course, this long history of violence, but also because to my understanding, they have lost already, geologically to some extent, and it's their last resort, they have nothing left except violence to repelicate, to fight against, so it's the way I see it, and I mean last week three people were murdered in one of these villages because, and that was not the Sunke village, so it permits now this fight against slavery, permits all the social cultural groups in western Mali because it's not just the Sunke who had these practices, but basically all of Mali, I mean all the groups in social cultural groups or ethnicities, whatever you want to call them, they practice decent-based slavery, two different levels of course, I mean some places are less tough, I would say, and some are quite extreme, and all that against the background of a very unstable political situation, a security situation, so I often say, no Mali responded to misgovernance, bad governance, and to lack of state with a claim for independence, and the 2012 crisis, central Mali responds to that by inter-ethnic fighting, the Fulbe against the Bambara and the Dogon, and yeah it's more complex than that, but that's the way they interpret it as well, while in western Mali it's basically the fight against slavery, or the fight against people, fighting against slavery, with the diaspora in the background, which is extremely important to this context, sorry I'm talking too much, actually we've got a couple of questions lined up, first up is Deborah DeGates, Deborah DeBee, thank you very much, sorry Mari, it's just I've got to go to another Zoom, so that was absolutely inspirational, and I just hope that colleagues know about this, so I was thinking about someone like Marion Wallace at the British Library, the people, other people who work on French West Africa, the film department at Birkbeck, the West Africanists at Birmingham, maybe your networks know about all this already, but it just seems such a brilliant teaching too, yeah so I just wondered how far you've got with publicising. Yeah that's the next step actually, the problem of having released it during the pandemic, we were a bit all down, not very motivated, so it limited in me, in a sense it was a good time also to release it because it was used as distance learning tool, but at the same time I was a bit down and not very motivated, I mean basically I'm doing it now in this seminar too, we start the process of trying to make it publicising it, yeah I'm back on tracks, I'm telling myself I need to do that because last year was not a good time, it looks extremely usable, I'm in a small French conversation class and I'm going to tell them all to get on these links and yeah the speaker will manage the French and the others might even try, you know. Yeah I've seen in both languages so it's obviously. Yeah no I mean the work that must have gone into it it's you know it seems terrific. Honestly I will not have had this firm to support me to do it professionally, I will have never been able to do that by myself, we manage to, I mean firms don't have the same kind of understanding of deadlines than we have, so they told me we have two months to get that done, no more, for this amount of money, if you want to get it done it's now or never So hard to ask good because as I said, so you had to work under pressure, yeah yeah and according to their own deadlines and not our usual academic deadlines, you know all about it, it just looks terrific, I'm sorry I've got to go but thank you, thank you for coming and for writing that, yeah. Thanks very much Debbie, okay cheers, sorry not to hear Farida, I'd love to hear what Rita has to say but I've got to go, thanks bye. That's your cue Farida, thank you very much for coming. Okay thanks very much that was really interesting, I had two points, one is a follow-up on what you were saying about the anti-slavery movement and clearly my discipline informs my question which is about the use of human rights, about the role of the state because one of the things that I'm aware of is there actually quite a few cases that have been brought against states, the Mauritania has a case brought against it by the African Committee, I mean a ruling made against it by the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which oversees the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Niger, I think Mali as well, in otherwise the Economic Court of West African States so clearly there is an actually an African recognition of the ongoing slavery as being violations of human rights and suggests that there is actually yes the African recognition and the second question I suppose I had was on methodology, you said two things that I found interesting, when you were discussing the fact that there were schools programs you said you couldn't be there because of the red list then you said my team will be dealing with it and then later on when you were speaking about the graphic novel you said it was a collaborative engagement and so I'm wondering what is the I suppose the research relationship that you are having with the people on the ground is it a partnership model in which case you use collaborative or is it a top-down model where you have a team and you ask them what to do or tell them what to do so I'm trying to see about you know I'm trying to work out issues of ownership yeah yeah sure so yeah regarding law indeed there are a few cases but it's mostly as you said Mauritania and Niger two cases uh the echo was level uh Niger was condemned sentenced uh against uh for not protecting uh their citizens against slavery so Niger was sentenced um and there was a compensation paid to the victims two victims two cases 10 years apart the last one was just this year but no cases against Mali yet I know that they are trying to put together a case a number of cases but it requires having a full legal team means and it's it's not it's not that easy it's it they are working on it but it's it's uh how can I say there are a number of lawyers who claim to to to support the case etc but it's all about money in the end and who pay for their fees so there is no pro bono lawyers ready to do that at the moment no I don't think that's correct I'm sorry I don't think that's correct Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa does cases I think doing one on Mali I think Mali now there's been a suspension of cases being brought against Mali um because of the coups um but actually there have been interesting cases that have been brought against Mali and Mali and government has said fine well Mali government before it was overthrown I don't think it's actually true to say that money is the only object because they're human rights organizations which are ready willing and able and have litigated these cases before I agree but that was for with a commission uh Verité and just justice and that was for the situation in northern and central Mali and for example with a commission for justice and to some justice the cases of of um of slavery in western Mali could not be included because that was not within their uh um missions so uh what I'm saying is I know that the as you say the Institute for Human Rights uh has brought these cases for Niger against Niger uh but also Mali but also Mali so cases not not on slavery not yet no but the point I'm making is it doesn't matter that it's not on slavery the link I'm making it's this anti-slavery movement and the fact that there is jurisprudence and the fact that these cases have been found against Mauritania and Niger means by implication they also apply to Mali yeah I know but for that you have to have a structure uh uh supporting the the the change and this is not happening because as I said the anti I mean we are trying to to to support them and to make to to make them heard with my ongoing project but this is that the situation is the political situation is is complicated at the moment in Mali as I swear but in Mali uh actually in particular now and and you know even the uh when it comes to the family code which was sentenced as being against international treaty in Mali uh in a few years back and they had to change the the family code there hasn't been anything happening I think we're having two separate conversations I don't want to take over but it just is a kind of conclusion on this particular point I think we're having two separate conclusions because I mean uh conversations because I think it's important in your discourse that you acknowledge um that these things are going on I mean this idea that there's non-implementation happens everywhere including in this country so I think it is important actually that we have some African agency um in these conversations no no no I I agree I'm just saying that there's there are attempts from from from Mali to bring that to the attention of international organizations and there is increasing in attention and I hope that they will bring it to the echo as court at some point but this is a slow process and right now I'm not aware of but I might be wrong of a team working on that constantly I mean the whole focus from Mali has been on what's happening in northern and central Mali and it just now that what happened with slavery and this and this slavery and the teams that uh last last last week uh this week the one of the ministers one of the members of the government went to West Mali to acknowledge what was happening and that has been happening for four five years without the the government saying anything and the international organization saying anything it just happened now because it's it's going to a to a level uh when they realize if the Cai region is is falling apart all of Mali will will fall apart and the weight will fall apart is is is uh unfortunately uh with this issue of slavery I'm just saying that the attention and the interest has changed in the past few months and it's increasingly and uh and the radar but uh we've been talking about this situation for a number of years without attracting any attention it's big it had needed three people to be killed last week and three people to be killed last year to make things changing a bit in terms of awareness and and at all levels but it's very slow and it's not I mean as I said I recognize there are all these uh these cases and that should make jurisprudence but this is not happening in Mali at the moment um thanks thanks Marie there was a second question from for you yeah about co-production and partnership yeah so what we did with um with uh well for the web documentaries that was not possible to do co-writing uh because of the technical side there's an organization of uh how how I mean it was it was made but uh we we we had the authorization to use the material you see you see that there are some videos with some of the villagers and these villagers were actually included in the initial project with with uh with a graphic novel and they actually uh conducted the research with our partner don't consider in Mali with they are a local association working on the um the diffusion of local local knowledge uh little non-local knowledge and village knowledge and um and marginalize knowledge so this is part of their commitment uh to work on this kind of of stories and and what we did was uh we organized a series of workshops with these villagers to um to work on how we could collect uh together this history and uh they work with mobile phones and they were trained to use them to collect and to report on all these histories and then based on that uh I started working with our partner don't consider with with the team of don't consider on the script for the history of buyagi for the for the graphic novel and each and and then and we submitted the script based on the interviews they had made and the reportages they did and the villagers uh they did and they agreed or they they they corrected or they did what they sought so we organized these small workshops continuous follow-up workshops and and then once we agreed on the script we started working on the storyboard again with the help of of don't consider but also with with a graphic designer uh who is from Mali and with whom we visited buyagi so that he gets he gets to know the villagers he gets to know the village and the environment the landscape etc and and then each time there was a new new series of of pages of the storyboard uh don't consider uh we'll go to uh buyagi to check with the villagers if they were happy with the design with the graphics uh with and that was very important because they they sent they gave great feedback included fictional feedback adding some fiction to make the the story a bit more attractive and not just a historical dry narrative and so now we've agreed on the storyboard I think everyone is happy we even organize screening of the storyboard uh on big screen in in buyagi so that the old village could see what was happening and translated live in in sonique because for now the storyboard is is is in french we hope to have it in english and and it's for the animation films that we work on a bombar on the sonique version and and and um the idea is once we managed to find um uh publisher uh we will um I mean all the royalties will be uh kept for the village to develop uh projects development projects and it has been decided to be invested in the in the garden and the women's garden uh association to develop the women's garden and economic economic activities for women because we did all this project also to raise awareness against against slavery um including modern slavery and all forms of exploitation getting inspiration from historical fighting against slavery to fight against current exploitation and this community garden is women's garden is very important because it prevents girls by by building uh opportunities of economic development prevent girls from going to work as meds and being exploited in other villages and in in in the in the in the city of kai and be young um and that's that's a way of fighting against further exploitation so it's how we try to combine all these different aspects of co-production co-writing when possible and but I am aware of I mean there's still uh clearly an asymmetry today I'm the one presenting this research um my team is not here um they don't speak English they cannot I mean we we did some presentations in French and they will be presenting the web documentary uh in this event so we're saying next and 10 days time in kai thanks thanks mary uh thanks parida um were there any other questions we have we have time for we've got a few more minutes we have time for one or two more questions if there are any others from members of the audience one thing I can add also because that's um as you see the web documentary is is in French or English so for people who are not literate in any other especially villages in Mali this is not very accessible so we did screenings uh and with live translation but what we will do is to make a video of the documentary like a youtube uh tuto um uh with a a voiceover both in Sunke and Bambara so that people can access a web documentary on youtube just playing it and it goes along like I did with you today except that it's automatic and you have a voiceover uh reading the screens and translating um uh the the the footages which which are uh in French or English thanks mary I mean but I had a question which was similar to to the question that Farida asked about your um your own place in this production I mean Farida asked about your relationship with your co-producers and my question was about your relationship with the sort of community itself and I wondered if you could say anything about um you know the uh the the way in which you interacted with your uh respondents your interviewees and so forth um that was one question I had but then I had another question about slavery itself and I wondered if you could say something about how uh I mean slavery of course says we know takes different forms at different in different locations at different points in time and I wondered if you could say something about how slavery is itself is understood in your particular setting okay so when it comes uh I'm sorry Farida I should also answer answer this question so I have known Buoyagi the villagers not all villagers so 2000 inhabitants village for more than 10 years now so first time I went was in 2008 just by chance I and it's when I started this all history project of collecting narratives of resistance against slavery and I kept in touch with uh with uh some of the villagers including the uh the the teacher one of the teachers of the school who became a friend and uh so two years later I came to film shortly in the village that was for the Diom Buru so we spent a few days in the village to film uh about again the history of of of slavery and the foundation of the village and then along the years I kept in contact and when I had finally the possibility to apply for bigger funding and not just having my own historical project on my own with very little means I immediately thought of involving them as villagers in the project and that was my first project in 2017 on um collecting uh local knowledge of resilience uh in in marginalized communities in west Africa so we had Mali we had Guinea and Senegal and the idea was to value us through a website and um and mobile app uh this local knowledge is this long history of resistance uh against adversities of all kinds so the villagers had to also define what mattered to them as local knowledge and resilience practices um and to be and to to do reportage uh on on these practices is mobile phones again and then and then um at some point there was this call to use arts and humanities to fight against modern slavery and I thought well I always wanted to do a graphic novel uh on this history and I should just see if Buyagi would be interested in taking part in this project to relate the history of Buyagi as an example of fight against slavery which can inspire younger generation to fight against all kind of discrimination and including as I said a return a return for the the village in terms of royalties to invest and we we along the way anyway we invested anyway with these projects in the community gardens already as soon as we managed to have some money on one way or the other we did that so today we built a garden and it's it's working well now uh it just needs sustainable revenues uh to expand even more so there is this longer history uh I have myself with this village just a 10 year 10 year history and now each time I have kind of a project I'm trying to continue to include them as as giving back uh for uh what we what they they they they gave me uh for for my research which is uh to be and for for for us invaluable so each time I can I'm I'm trying to so they are involved in this in this current project against against slavery and and and and forced displacement in Western Mali and and the next project is to do a video game and again are included as the villagers helping to build this video game this mobile game against against against decent based slavery so it's a conscious history is what I mean of engagement in the village and I'm trying to get them involved each time there is a possibility for them in the different projects I may have and and to to get to get to get to get also for themselves I mean each time we organize that I mean there are some revenues available for them to conduct the research and the reportage and and and when they come to a workshop they get also support and all that so it's how we we've managed to I have managed to some extent to give back if I can use this term um okay thank you very much Marie um we have one or two minutes for any final comments or questions or queries okay um I don't see any hands um so we don't have any further questions thank you very much Marie for I think everybody found that immensely interesting and from if we go by the comments in the chat people are very clearly keen to see the graphic novel and further output um thank you very much and if you haven't looked up the document through then it's easily accessible on the solar website thanks Marie yeah thank you for for your questions and thanks for coming tonight um yes thank you and we uh we'll continue our seminar in two weeks time thank you very much have a nice evening cheers