Possibilities emerging with Tchiyiwe Chihana: "I don't know if there's anything more powerful than communities coming together around storytelling"
Tchiyiwe Chihana is a systems-change practitioner and a creative leader and producer who works at the intersection of media, arts and the equitable distribution of resources. She is the Chair of the Independent Media Association, a Director at Opus Independents, Coordinator of the UBI Lab Network and a member of the Steering Group at Foundations Earth. Tchiyiwe spends her time between Sheffield and Zambia.
In this interview Tchiyiwe reflects on her experience with stories, and their potential to hold both the complexity and coherence needed for transformative change.
This conversation is part of a series called ‘Possibilities Emerging’ published by Foundations Earth. We are currently engaging with active members of communities responding to our inquiry: ‘What if we could respond inclusively and effectively to planetary-scale problems?’ To learn more about Foundations Earth can visit our website or check out our inquiry.
At what crossroads do you find yourself standing at this moment in time?
At this moment the crossroads that I stand at is about the complexity of channelling storytelling into a viable, effective tool in systems change. As I get older – not in age, but older in my engagement with the complexities, the poly-crisis, the interconnectedness of issues such as climate crisis and inequality – I'm seeing more that there's an emerging place for storytelling to bring coherence to the narratives that need to inform and shape this type of change.
So the crossroads I’m finding myself at is how those stories cohere from a planetary perspective. And also, as stories emerge, how are the holders of some of these stories understanding the impact of what they're putting out there and what they're doing as such a key component that informs the wider picture.
That's the biggest crossroads that I'm at and that's only because I'm starting to think there is a way out. So the way through some of these challenges – probably the quickest way – is through shared storytelling in its multiple and myriad forms. I can see myself probably anchoring almost everything I'll be talking about here today around that.
So this next question is about what's enlivening you, what's animating you, what's bringing you energy, what's bringing you joy or hope? What's motivating or mobilising you?
I'm seeing storytelling, I'm hearing storytelling, I'm feeling storytelling. I am respecting storytelling, and I'm seeing it emerging in multiple places. I’m not seeing it coming together as well as it could, but I am seeing it – I'm seeing the respect that it's being given.
I feel excited about the accommodation that's emerging – that there are multiple ways to tell a story. There are multiple ways in which we can connect emotionally. There are multiple ways in which decision-making happens. And all that is only now starting to come together.
That's really giving me some vigour, because it means there's still this ‘appreciated chaos’ that I think should still be there within the ambitions of systems change and the approaches to it. But that chaos is being organised around storytelling, and bringing together storytellers at multiple points.
I don't know if there's anything more powerful than communities coming together around storytelling.
And that community inter-connecting with another community, and another community, and bringing those together around a common purpose. I'm hoping that people are seeing the power of that and the potency, potential and privilege of that – of being able to use storytelling as a foundational basis for tackling the crisis. Sometimes without being deliberate about it, people are able now to share more around practices and how they’re arriving at solutions.
So for example, not too long ago I was reading a story about a laboratory somewhere, maybe in south Asia, that were looking at developing maize seed that was resilient to climate change. Because maize is a staple in quite a lot of places. For example, my country of heritage and my village Lundazi, last year was hit hard with poor rainfall. And not just last year, but the year before, and it came at the wrong time so crops were damaged. This is food that they rely upon. So whereas they’re struggling and battling to figure out how they’re going to feed, there's this other place somewhere else that’s looking at how to make climate-resistant maize. It's those things that you don't automatically think about as being part of a coherent narrative that speak to bigger issues. So already you’re speaking about inequality, you're speaking about the climate crisis and how our decisions are being made.
I love that idea of stories holding the complexity, holding all the different types of action, holding all the different actors, as well as providing that point of connection for people.
In a place like Lundazi there’s some indigenous methods that they're tackling these things with. For the next year, this community is going to gather together with that next community that's in Malawi, maybe across a wider region without knowing it. And then when you think about it, ironically, there's probably an invisible border if you look at a map between those two areas. Phenomenal stuff is happening that could probably help us get to the foundational thinking around how we would shift certain systems.
Tchiyiwe sharing stories with family at Chenje Farm, Zambia, December 2022 (from Mangaliso Chihana)
The things that you’ve named, the things that you're paying attention to, how are they affecting you?
You know, it's crazy how I'm affected positively or negatively in the same scope. So on the positive side is that enlightenment feeling of ‘Ahh, this can be done!’. Then on the other side, a lot of the people who are actually making changes that could tackle systems – systems that are not working, systems that need to be changed – are people who do not know that that's what they're doing. What they're doing, could inform what we should be doing across the piece.
Again, I'm seeing storytelling at the heart of that, so we're not having this linear way of thinking – we're thinking across the piece. And sometimes they are sense-makers themselves, because right at that community level you are making sense of those challenges that are there, and you're thinking of how all those things are interconnected without even trying to say ‘I’m a systems change thinker’. So I see them, I hear them, and it always comes back to me.
So on the challenges side of things, there's this adage ‘Until the lion learns how to write, the hunter will always be the one who will tell the story’. Maybe that's what worries me. We've not got enough ways to tap into these stories unless you're sitting in a certain place of privilege. But I do feel like I’m privileged to be able to speak to these things, with my very little experience of what the change-makers are actually doing to stop the systems we’re talking about.
But we have the privilege of having some kind of planetary oversight or expectation based on who we can connect with, and how we can share stories using digital methods.
What's the declaration of possibility, naming the problem that you've just shared?
The game-changer in systems change is probably storytelling. I think sharing of values, mindsets, goals – those are foundational things. What I think is possible is that we'll be able to think more about what supports storytelling in various functions, places, existences, ways. I think that's going to be a possibility, we just haven't figured that out yet. But we have understood the power of it. But it's how they will be shared. What do those commons look like?
I also think organisations are going to be applying that kind of lens more, of storytelling, to arrive at solutions.
Storytelling won't always be a clear-cut answer, but it will definitely hold the solutions for those possible changes that we’re looking for.
And we can use that to evaluate, understand, as well as showcase what's occurring elsewhere. I do think storytelling is what the game-changer is going to be, and that is the story of possibility – how we harness that opportunity for care. The possibilities emerging from storytelling are unlimited.
Just going back to what you said earlier about how often the people doing the change-making aren't part of the systems change conversation. What's your declaration of hope that responds to that?
My declaration of hope is that the awareness of the absence of those voices among the systems-change people is what ignites an interest in sharing that knowledge. And giving back in a way where the people who are custodians of those stories get to appreciate their role and understand their impact. And that it changes their lives as well – not just in a linear way, in the ecosystem of everything else that they have an impact on.
That's my declaration of hope – that we are not holding on and being precious. But we are sharing and learning and continue to learn, but we're not being extractive. There are very few circumstances in which people communicate as enthusiastically as they do in storytelling. They do it in their own way, in a language they understand, in a manner that they prefer – sometimes it's poetry! Sometimes it's literally poetry in a village. If you go to villages in the Horn of Africa, they communicate poetically across their communities in some cases. They have tackled some of the most challenging crises and they’ve lived. They've protected the planet and protected their community. But we've only learned it because of those storytelling methods. This is why we owe it to them to celebrate them as systems-change practitioners.
What's the courage required of you to celebrate those people, to celebrate that work, to celebrate that history?
The courage I need is to respect those communities’ ability to understand more than I think they would. I need the courage to let go of my academically-influenced thinking, because it has obviously shaped me, and just strip back and sit with them and see those precious moments and those activities just from that baseline understanding of existence.
I don't need to let go of understanding the systems around me. But I do need to understand it from that change agency that's happening, and I need to engage with it and respect it from that level, and speak to it in that way. Everything, like everything, above me just immerses itself in that understanding. While I still hold this very much academically-informed approach, and understanding it from that level, because it is there but maybe it's not named. That's what I want to do – I want to be able to have the courage to vision it and embrace it from that perspective.
Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo'o telling stories in Sheffield, October 2023 (from Enoch Carimba)
What do you want or need from your community, your people, your friends, your colleagues, to make a success of that?
My community in whatever form it takes, we keep an open door for shared ideas, no matter what format they're in. Communities can embrace the discomfort of not everybody being the same and moving at the same pace. And also embracing the multiple ways in which I manifest myself in the conversation, because I am multiple things, I’m not linear. I think that's what I would like. I think in every circumstance I have multiple manifestations to suit that environment, and it might not necessarily be my community as a girl with Zambian heritage with a family that's in the village in the rural community, or me as a person existing in the city in a semi-privileged family. I think what’s important is an awareness of the actual challenges and crises that we face, and where we are heading. That is what I speak to – I'm not just speaking to it, but I'm looking for ways in which we could survive.
What meaning has been made for you in this conversation, if any?
The intention was that I should prepare. But I told myself not to. Because I just wanted to come as Tchiyiwe without everything else. And of course, I still have brought that. But I've heard myself better, stripping back. I've heard myself in the voice of me, not in the voice of the industry. So that's very meaningful for me. I guess the things that matter to me are about how stories are being told, where they're coming from, and I didn't even know that. So I'm glad that this is the me that has come out of this.
This interview was conducted by James Lock, with editing support from Sam Gergory and Jack Becher.
Learn more about Tchiyiwe'‘s work at Opus Independents, UBI Lab Network and the Independent Media Association, or connect via LinkedIn.
Find out more about Foundations Earth on our website, or check out our organisational summary and core inquiry.
