US Department of Education Grant

Project Title: African Oral Narratives

Over a four-year period, African Oral Narratives will collect valuable oral resources that can be used for conducting research on Africa’s past and studying many of the continent’s languages.

The project will provide free web access to 20 collections of oral and life histories, folklore, and songs from Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania.  These audio and video resources are in Akan (Twi), Wolof, Bamanakan (Mandinka), Igbo, Fula (Pulaar), Farefare, Amharic, Oromo, Swahili, Zigula, Chewa, Zulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Tswana, Afrikaans, and English.

African Oral Narratives is a collaborative effort at Michigan State University between MATRIX, the Department of History, and the African Studies Center in partnership with scholars at Addis Ababa University, the University of Ghana, University of Malawi, the South African History Archive, the United Nations, Indiana University, and Oakland University. An important goal of this project is the development of sustainable, transparent, and equitable partnerships with Africanist scholars and organizations.

African Oral Narratives is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) Program and by Michigan State University.