CROSS-CULTURAL NARRATIVE THROUGH GRAPHIC STORIES IN POLISARIO REFUGEE CAMPS A NARRATIVA TRANSCULTURAL POR MEIO DE NOVELAS

​The Graphic Novel as a development of the last decades and nowadays an independent art form is presented in the context of workshop series within its educational potentials. Graphic story telling workshop series as methology exemplifies us an alternative form of communication beyond textual literacy. This took place within the framework of teacher training workshops in the Polisario refugee camps in Algeria. With the possibilities of the graphic novels, contents from the school environment and the everyday life of the participants were developed by means of art education, in the sense of a reflection of the own work event/ reference, for oneself and others. Drawings and personal stories from everyday life were developed in detail in the form of successive pictures and pictorial elements, sometimes including writing. In a non-verbal and playful way, the reality of life should come to face. In particular, one's own experiential space should be experienced as a source of creativity personal, original, self-referential should be appreciated and valued. Unconventional forms of communication were generated and established as mutually effective educational methods.


INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
One's own field of experience was used as a source for creative output, underling the notion that one's own original and personal experience should receive the strongest possible appreciation.
Self-created stories from day-to-day business were developed in detail in the form of successive pictures and picture elements, partly by incorporating writing. In non-verbal and playful ways, life-reality should come to the fore. In particular, one's own area of experience should be experienced as a source of creativity -personal, original, self-referential should be valued. Alternative forms of communication possibilities were created and received as mutually effective educational processes.

THE POLITICAL SITUATION BACKGROUND
Large parts of Western Sahara have been occupied by Morocco for more than two generations without interruption (UNO RESOLUTION , 2018). By means of a more than 2500 km long, mined earth or stone wall, which the state of Morocco has built since the occupation in 1975, the refugees were excluded from their ancestral territories near the sea into the distant desert of Algeria. This is an internationally almost forgotten drama in world history ( FENNINGER, 2001, p. 14 This miracle of the Saharawis, who are very poor and very few, cannot be explained solely by their tenacious will to be free, which is abundant in these places where everything is lacking. It is also largely a factor of international solidarity. And the majority of assistance comes from the people of Spain. Their vital solidarity, memory and dignity are far more powerful than the waffling of governments and the cynical calculations of business . They are called children of the clouds because they 1 have always chased the rain ( GALEANO , 2015).
The camps of the Sahrawi refugees in the south of Algeria are located in the most inhospitable of deserts. It is vast emptiness, surrounded by emptiness. (...)The Sahraouis are waiting. For thirty years now they have been searching for justice, which in today's world seems even rarer than "water in the desert. ( GALEANO , 2006).

GOALS
The research activities in the refugee camps of the Polisario took place atop the cultural foundation of the predominantly Muslim Saharawi, one that is primarily characterized by textual literacy. For these teachers, the realizing of visual images as a means of communication was a method that they had never previously encountered and was learned as a new educational approach. The focus rested on the role of visual expression in the process of personal, internal and broader, external appropriation. The resulting illustrated worlds thus illuminated the teacher's perspectives and worldviews. Artists negotiated everyday experiences with imagined material and implemented their vision through graphic means. The presentation, illustrative representation, and reception of the works were experienced at the intersection of teaching and learning processes at mutually effective meta-levels for the participants. Methods included participatory observation, qualitative empirical investigation, and phenomenological analysis ( MAROTZKI and STOETZER , 2006). This approach can be described by the term´empowerment`which is based on ensuring the appreciation of the participants ( HERRIGER , 2014). It identifies processes in which people work out their own affairs and become aware of their individual strengths and abilities, thus gaining self-knowledge. In a setting that fosters coexistence, participation, and creativity, social resources could also be developed that become available for reference in the future. As theorized by Hannah Arendt (1970/1993), the "power to create" is understood as a "power and ability": "Power springs from the human ability not only to act or to do something, but to unite with others and in agreement to act with them." ( ARENDT , 1970, p. 45). This research activity in the refugee camps took place against the background of the cultural form of the predominantly Muslim Saharaouis, which is characterized by textual literacy. The realization of pictorial representations as a means of education and communication represented a little-known field of learning for these children and their teachers.

ISSUES, AIMS AND APPROACHES
How does the course of a day, the everyday life, the creative expressions in isolated camps in the Algerian Hamada -in a foreign country -look like?
How can the lives of refugees, some of whom are waiting there in the second or third generation, be seen? Can becoming active create communicative-connecting projects using art educational approaches?
Which art educational approaches can create communication -even across language barriers? These guiding questions determine the procedure. In order to be able to approach the questions and answers, the Saharawi teachers, accompanied by Rolf Laven, implemented Graphic Story Telling-Workshops. The aim of these workshops was to communicate via visual language and imagination.
The aim is to make the creative expressions of inhabitants in camps in the Algerian Hamada comprehensible and to give an insight into the lives of refugees. Information about visual languages and living environments is to be generated in order to make it usable for future art education in the age of globalization in our transcultural societies ( WELSCH , 2012, p. 146-156). The intended approach is to achieve equal rights with the project partners on an equal footing and to offer a platform to emancipatively face the challenges of reality. situations, the way to school, a journey or an experience.

WORKSHOPS
The workshop series was overall part of the cooperative project targeting the subjects of personal competency and implementing interdisciplinary (communicative) methods in the teaching profession.
The idea of communicating with teachers about their everyday teaching life through drawings initially arose after inspiring visits to the schools located at the refugee camps in the Western Sahara located near Tindūf, Algeria. Due to the pronounced differences in the culture's school and social systems, it was not assumed that there had been any previous engagement with the graphic or illustrated novel, or that participants would have an individualized drawing style.
First, individual graphic expression was defined, actualized and practically developed into a drawn manuscript. The respective teacher-student image was agreed upon as a topic.
There are many different approaches to the task, including rough sketching, developing a narrative story, collecting ideas onto a page, creating a sketchbook, or writing a script. With the creation of a visualized story from one imagined, it became increasingly easier for the illustrators to create their characters. This came from outlining initial ideas through targeted preliminary markers and signs. On this basis, teachers visualized their characters and/or heroes and, in the end, made their drawings using lead and ink in a multi-step process that worked in conjunction with creating a scripted narrative. There were no restrictions with regard to form, colour, or language, and every graphic was a creative form of expression that was directly integrated. No previous time was used for practice, and as such, each first draft was central to the development of the drawing's core. A variety of drawing materials were offered, including coloured pencils, pastel and wax crayons, black felttip pens, fineliner pens, and markers.
Participants made numerous decisions in regards to choice of paper, composition, content, portrait or landscape format, and proportionality. The entire page was drawn using pencil. The participants would make either precise or vague sketches, and the text for each panel could be entered directly onto the page using pencil. As soon as the participants felt satisfied with their pencil drafts, they would begin the next phase of the process, which involved using ink of various weights, such as black felt-tip pens, fineliner pens, and markers. The option to use Chinese ink, which is optimal for creating deep, vivid, and powerful images using a brush, was eliminated due to time constraints as well as the lack of sensible prior experience with its use.
The panels for the introduction of the script -as well as the texts in Arabic calligraphy -were traced using fineliner pens. It was possible to later colorize the drawing using coloured pencils, and pastel and wax crayons. Unnecessary pencil lines were erased near the conclusion, and small corrections could be made by partially scraping out material using Stanley knives. Operating with erasers or white correction colours, this would have changed the quality of the drawings and added dimension to the paper, and also would have interfered with the immediacy and directness of the illustration. This directness remained evident in the work of the participants. Using various means of artistic expression, such as colour, shade, line widths, and layout, precise atmospheric images and visual worlds were produced in an expressive manner, such to the extent that in some cases, participants deliberately chose to not include any textual input.

THE DRAWING OF THE GRAPHIC STORY TELLING
In order to achieve the goal, namely to gain more information about people's

OF FIELD RESEARCH
Refugee Camp Smara; on the fourth day of February 2015; mornings, nine to eleven. Persons present: One interpreting teacher, twenty-four students, the author.
On this fourth project day I am in a flat dry-brick building with a corrugated iron roof, no windows, electricity, running water. This classroom is equipped with blackboard, teaching desk, flat floor of terrazzo tiles. Indispensable and permanently present are sand deposits on the floor, furniture and equipment due to sand dust from outside.  It was not a matter of finishing as quickly as possible, but rather of carrying out the topics in detail calmly and quietly. It was repeatedly asked whether the assignment has been understood. My recommendation was to present objects that they remember or that are of particular importance to them. We distributed the pens in the middle on the respective double tables; each child received a drawing sheet.
The frontal alignment of the tables remained a known constant. The children thus worked at their usual places. First, first and last names as well as age should be written on the front or back of the drawing page. Some children first wrote the names of objects before they draw these objects. Without hesitation, they started drawing immediately. There was absolute silence and a concentrated atmosphere; without any admonition. Occasional photography on my part took place with a small digital camera and only rarely, without flash, without clicking noises. It was important to me to move around the classroom as quietly as possible in order to disturb image creation processes as little as possible and to be able to observe these activities more closely.

RECEPTION AND EVALUATION OF CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS
Later on, the author reviewed the drawings several times at intervals in order to strengthen the intuitive image acquisition and understanding and to develop the signification of research-relevant, definable aspects. By using Graphic Story Telling, the use of writing is of interest; among other things, it acts as an explanatory signposting. In the context of this material interpretation, the focus is on aspects of narrative. No linguistic fixation of an interpretation that appears universally valid is imaginations, which are to be thought of as dreamy, cheerful desires, such as the green football field, the trees in blossom or hung with fruit, come into view, as they do not exist in reality. A further category lends itself to those things that are culturally considered particularly significant, such as the flag or the flat palm, as a culturally traditional sign.
Narration/ Category 1: Illustrations with direct reference to reality Here those elements -these are image details -are classified whose experience in the environment is or can be actually given. Water bottle, toothbrush, houses, the colourful car, ball describe the real world of the children.

ART EDUCATION DIDACTIC ASPECTS
The exemplary implementation protocol conveys didactic aspects such as the analysis of the initial situation and the working environment and the fundamentally appreciative handling of these circumstances, but also the building of trust, the conveying of appreciation on a non-verbal level, the initiation of aesthetic experiences, the focus on the child's living environment and the creation of images.
This gave space to the experiences, everyday occurrences as well as the imaginations and ideals of the participating children. The transfer from traditional linguistic narration to visual and pictorial narrative took place. The previously unknown approach using graphic story telling was tested in an exemplary way. Once the drawings have been implemented, they generate numerous narrative and interactive possibilities, which may also be considered part of an educational experience. Drawing thus offers opportunities for communication. Font was partially integrated into the drawing image. It is thus part of the aesthetic experience.
According to Michael Staiger (2012, p. 45), image and language are in any case inseparably linked in the narrative process -through the evocation of imaginary images; according to him, visual narrative is fundamentally essential in educational forms.

REAL, IMAGINED, HANDED DOWN IN PICTORIAL TRANSFORMATION
As can be seen from the presentation of categories, everyday experiences, actions and imaginations are formulated. In many cases -in addition to what might have actually been touched -the imaginary was depicted. These imaginations can be described, as the examples presented above show, partly as positive and joyful in the sense of images of longing and sometimes as frightening. These drawings make visible that numerous imaginations accompany the pictorial spaces of these children.
According to Bettina Uhlig (2016, p. 181), "aspects flow into each other (Aspekte ineinander)" in the children's pictorial inventions or pictorial concepts: the development of the pictorial memory and the pictorial worlds, the imagining, drawing or looking at pictures "are not forms of thought and action that can be separated from each other, but are closely interwoven (sind keine voneinander zu trennenden, sondern aufs Engste verwobene Denk-und Handlungsformen)" ( UHLIG , 2016, p. 180). Such a (picture-conceptual) procedure would be "culturally generated and disposed of (kulturell erzeugt und disponiert)" ( UHLIG , 2016, 175). In the children's drawings presented here, the imaginative childlike perspective of these adolescents who create these pictures is shown alongside representations that are comprehensible from a life-worldly, material point of view -without the author having intended it.
The present results underline that narration, as it "constitutively belongs to being human (konstitutiv dem Mensch-Sein zugehörig)", makes "the real and the fictitious equally accessible (das Wirkliche wie das Fiktive gleichermaßen zugänglich)" ( UHLIG , 2016). These drawings are therefore to be understood as documents of child's perspective, world interpretation, here as the sum of real and imagined aspects. In this way, reference may be made to the vital ability of children to generate their ideas -possibly nourished by oral narration, transculturation, etc.on the basis of cultural disposition to their own pictorial narrative.

SUMMARY
The