No more voiceless people
Katharine Quarmby

D

uring the Congo’s struggle for independence
from Belgium, in around 1960, the war
correspondent Edward Behr witnessed a
British reporter striding through an airport hangar
of Belgian refugees. At intervals Behr recalled him
stopping and shouting, ‘Anyone here been raped
and speaks English?’ This became the title of Behr’s
autobiography.
Those days are gone. A rape or war survivor today
would claim, and be given, more control over their
story than was the case then. That change has come
about for a number of reasons. One is the rise of activist
organisations, which question the role of the media
(and the author) in how survivors are treated and
represented.
Another is the rise of the internet. Social media allows
the subject to question the power of the journalist
and authorial voice. Although there were pioneering
journalists who engaged actively with those about
whom they were writing or broadcasting before the
internet – such as Mark Saunders, who made the first
citizen journalism film about the poll tax riots, The
Battle of Trafalgar – they were the exception rather
than the rule. Saunders says, ‘I used the term counterjournalism then. But it was actually straightforward,
simple journalism.’
The whole premise of the ‘neutral’ voice speaking
for the voiceless: ‘Anyone here been raped and speaks
English?’ is out of date. There are far fewer voiceless
populations now in the world of the cheap smartphone,
which enables peer sharing through social networks.
The question for writers of books and journalism is how
this could affect their practices.
For journalists, news has become something not
only ‘gathered’ by them but also shared by readers and
viewers. Journalist Dan Gillmor identified this crucial
shift in control, talking about the ‘former audience’
for news and welcoming an expansion in storytelling.
Examples of ‘the people’ working as creators of the
news include the Iranian election protests in 2009,
known as the Green Revolution, and, most recently, the
outcry in Ferguson, Missouri, after an unarmed black
teenager, Michael Brown, was shot dead by a white
police officer.
The journalist Jeff Jarvis wrote of Ferguson and the
need of its inhabitants to speak for themselves, ‘I’m glad
that social media – that is, people using social media
to report what they witness – forced Ferguson’s issues
onto national media.’ He calls for ‘social journalism’,
saying, ‘It’s not going to be easy to turn journalism on
its head, starting with listening rather than publishing,
with serving the needs of a community over telling its

story to others.’
Non-fiction and also, maybe, academic and
educational writing may be on the cusp of change,
because of their links to journalism. Authors and the
publishing industry have rightly identified some effects
of the internet – copyright changes and content change
because of the shift to digital. But could a further change
– in the dynamic between author, reader and ‘former
subjects’ of our books – be upon us? In particular,
groups that were previously seen as ‘marginalised’ now
have the ability to tell their own stories, or at least have
greater control over the narrative in which they play
a part.
There are good reasons why things should
change. Statistics show that few people from diverse
backgrounds are working in publishing or writing in
genres apart from literary fiction. Coming from a halfIranian, half-white English background myself, I want
to see a more diverse media. But there are dangers.
We could end up in a situation where people can only
write books, or comment, on their own narrow area
of expertise – identity politics carried to an extreme.
However, John Pring, a disabled journalist and author
who runs the news agency Disability News Service,
envisages a role for writers in this new world.
Enter co-production, which Pring explains thus:
‘Co-production means you don’t have to be part of that
community – it gives you the opportunity to write about
new things. I would hate only to have to write about
being a white middle class man with depression.’
Co-production is a way of working that originated
in social care, where those receiving services (for
instance disabled and older people) are more involved
in designing them. Some arts services also use
co-production. Some museums recruit panels of people
from different backgrounds who advise on collections,
contribute oral history and, as ‘experts by experience’,
deepen knowledge.
In the disability world, which I encountered as a
journalist when I arrived as news editor of the magazine
Disability Now in 2007, it is summed up as ‘nothing
about us without us’. This meant that disabled people
should be involved in stories about them. I admit that
when I first learnt about co-production, my heart sank. I
thought it could compromise my freedom of expression.
But I have found it intellectually challenging and have
learned a lot by listening more deeply.
I applied the theory to the process of writing my first
non-fiction book, Scapegoat: why we are failing disabled
people, in which I interviewed activists and bereaved
relatives of violent crimes against disabled people.
During the writing process, I returned after interview

No Place to Call Home:
Inside the Real Lives of
Gypsies and Travellers is
published by Oneworld,
(2013), and Scapegoat:
why we are failing
disabled people by
Portobello (2011).

 to many ‘former subjects’ and talked through key
sections with them. I applied the process to my second
non-fiction book, No Place to Call Home: Inside the
Real Lives of Gypsies and Travellers, discussing difficult
sections with affected people. But, with both books, I
also locked myself away to write before delivering
my manuscript. I was the author and bore ultimate
responsibility.
So if you are a mainstream writer, and you want
to tell a story about an excluded community, will
you be accused of, for example, ‘white privilege’?
Co-production can offer authors an ethical way out.
We writers still hold many cards: craft skills, legal and
industry knowledge, a publishing record and contacts,
for example. A young refugee from Libya is highly
unlikely to have all of these – but has a compelling story
to tell, over which he or she is likely to demand more
control than previously.
Another, more radical decision along the
co-production spectrum might be to co-write with
someone when you feel your own voice might be
questioned – or is just not right on its own. I’m in the
process of creating a puppet show about a Romani horse
fair. I had been talking for years to the Romany Theatre
Company, run by the English Traveller playwright, Dan
Allum, about working together. We felt that we could
utilise our different skills by co-writing the show.
In the case of citizen journalism there has been
criticism that it promotes what one academic, Andrew
Keen, called the ‘cult of the amateur’. This could be
said of an increasingly popular genre, ghost-writing,
where a professional writer works with a person who
often has no writing record but has a powerful story.
With some talented interviewees, might this genre
evolve to nurture more co-writing? Some projects
are already ‘democratising’ story-telling – Lowlifes
in California with homeless people, for example. But
for co-productions, many writers are using transmedia
(a format that tells a story across multiple media
platforms), rather than just old-fashioned print.
One possible disadvantage is that co-production
might compromise freedom of expression. John Pring
thinks not: ‘We can’t hide the fact that we get a veto as
the author or journalist on the final draft. But we are
using co-production as a tool to get a clearer picture of
what people are thinking. It’s a more dynamic process
of inching towards what the story is.’ Very personal and
controversial books, such as gonzo journalism, couldn’t
be shared. And you certainly don’t share your material
with everyone – not with those whose hands rest on
the levers of power. This practice is about rebalancing
power dynamics.
Another problem would be if co-production changed
the authorial voice. The writer Kate Pullinger and
digital artist Chris Joseph created a digital fiction project
Flight Paths, in which readers were involved in creating
it – an attempt to harness participatory media from
the outset. Pullinger says that, finally, ‘the authorial

voice emerges from the collaboration between myself
and Chris Joseph. I think the collaboration doesn’t
mean the voice isn’t present.’ But she and Joseph were
clear that they didn’t want it to be ‘a free for all’ and
both Flight Paths and a subsequent project have been
heavily curated. Pullinger also published a novel last
year, Landing Gear, based on the same original story:
‘There were things I could write in a novel I couldn’t do
in Flight Paths’, she says. ‘I could explore psychological
depth and insight.’ Mark Saunders, for his part, is
relaxed about his authorial voice being joined by others.
‘I was happy to become just another participant. There
was group authorship when we made The Battle of
Trafalgar, for example.’
Lastly, there is the issue of copyright. With co-writing,
of course, you share it. But with other co-production
models, it’s about honouring the story of those you
are interviewing by involving them more. Paying
multiple contributors for a book that is largely based
on the journalism model of reportage can disrupt the
relationship and interfere with the story-telling process.
Copyright, like the risks of publishing, should rest with
the author. But who will the author be, in five years’
time?