Download creative struggles: analysing the potential and problematics

CREATIVE STRUGGLES: ANALYSING THE
POTENTIAL AND PROBLEMATICS OF
RE-RADICALISED PARTICIPATORY
DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THEATRE FOR
DEVELOPMENT.
Bobby Smith
MA Theatre and Global Development
University of Leeds
2012
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION // 3
CHAPTER ONE // NAVIGATING THE LANDSCAPE OF
PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT // 6
CHAPTER TWO // (EN)ACTING THE REVOLUTION?
THE POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF
PARTICIPATING IN THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT //
23
CHAPTER THREE // COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE
AND COLLECTIVE STRUGGLE IN THE MARGINS:
WHAT CAN THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT AND
PARTICIPATION LEARN FROM MARGINALISED
COMMUNITIES IN TANZANIA AND KENYA? // 39
CONCLUSION // 53
BIBLIOGRAPHY // 57
2
INTRODUCTION
The participation of communities in development has been a key concern of
development practice and theory since the 1950s.1 Participation is usually
framed as empowering communities to reshape oppressive sociopolitical
structures and realities through engaging in processes of social change. 2 This
approach can be defined as bottom-up development; where participants
influence government rather than simply comply with policy legislated by
politicians and the elite, known as top-down development. Claims of the
efficacy of participation in achieving such bottom-up development and change
have led to its ascension to a buzzword in development practice,3 often
resulting in simplistic and uncritical applications of participatory approaches to
projects that only pay lip-service to the ideals of empowerment and
community-led change.4
Furthermore, James Petras asserts that Non Governmental Organisations
(NGOs) focus on providing support, encouragement and assistance of
localised community projects, but fail to encourage the participation of such
communities in the wider structural causes of deprivation, and how they might
reshape these.5 The belief that (NGOs) can work with communities to pursue
radical agendas of social change through participatory practice is therefore
unstable.
1
Participation: From Tyranny To Transformation? Exploring New Approaches
to Participation in Development, ed. by Samuel Hickey and Giles Mohan,
(London and New York, Zed Books, 2004).
2
Participation: The New Tyranny?, ed. by Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari,
(London and New York, Zed Books, 2001).
3
Pablo Alejandro Leal, ‘Participation: The ascendancy of a buzzword in the
neo-liberal era’, in The Participation Reader, ed. by Andrea Cornwall, (London
and New York, Zed Books, 2011), pp. 70-81.
4
Francis Cleaver, ‘Institutions, Agency and the limitations of Participatory
Approaches to Development’, in eds. Cooke and Kothari, pp. 36-56.
5 James Petras, in Pearce, Jenny, ‘Is Social Change Fundable? NGOs and
Theories and Practices of Social Change’, Development in Practice, 20, 6,
(2010), pp. 621-635, (p. 623).
3
Theatre for Development (TfD) defines the use of theatre and drama
techniques to meet development objectives. Kees Epskamp highlights that
TfD provides a process of learning in communities that enables them to
identify deprivations, their possible solutions, and to implement these.6 In this
dissertation I will seek to analyse this claim in detail, considering whether TfD
offers a radical sense of participation in a field full of rhetoric, but arguably
sparse on outcomes. For coherence and to create a greater sense of context,
I will focus my analysis on examples taken from three sub-Saharan African
nations, each with a British colonial past: Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya.
CHAPTER ONE
NAVIGATING THE LANDSCAPE OF PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT
Here I will investigate the different uses and abuses of participation in relation
to Sarah White’s identification of the four strands of participation.7 I will
interrogate these examples informed by Sen’s notion of development as
freedom. I will then analyse mainstream development and uses of
participation by organisations such as the World Bank, highlighting how this
limits the potential for social change through participation.
CHAPTER TWO
(EN)ACTING THE REVOLUTION? THE POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS
OF PARTICIPATING IN THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT
In this chapter I will explore whether TfD offers a set of alternative discourses
and practices that enable community-led social change. I will draw on three
case studies from Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi in order to identify the
possibilities and the limitations of the TfD approach.
6
Kees Epskamp, Theatre for Development: An Introduction to Context,
Applications and Training, (London and New York, Zed Books, 2006), p43.
7 Sarah White, ‘Depoliticising Development: The Uses and Abuses of
Participation’, in ed. Cornwall, pp. 57-69.
4
CHAPTER THREE
COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE AND COLLECTIVE STRUGGLE IN THE
MARGIN: WHAT CAN THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT AND
PARTICATION LEARN FROM MARGINALISED COMMUNITIES IN
TANZANIA AND KENYA?
In this final chapter I will address the limitations of TfD highlighted in chapter
two. I will do this by considering uses of performance by communities in
Kenya and Tanzania that have not been linked to NGOs or external
facilitators, elucidating what TfD and participation in general can gain from
these examples.
5
CHAPTER ONE
NAVIGATING THE LANDSCAPE OF PARTICIPATION
IN DEVELOPMENT
PARTICIPATION AND (UN)FREEDOM
White8 categorises participation in development into four strands:
1. ‘Nominal participation’: where governments or NGOs create
organisations or make links with existing communities in order to give
the appearance of having a ‘popular base’,9 and are therefore able to
legitimise policies or programmes.
2. ‘Instrumental participation’: concerned with encouraging people to
participate through free labour or donations in order to combat a lack of
funding for key services.
3. ‘Representative participation’: aims to allow communities a voice in
shaping projects and their implementation to ensure sustainability and
appropriateness.
4. ‘Transformative participation’: frames participation as empowerment,
and enables participants to be active in ‘considering options, making
decisions, and taking collective action to fight injustice’.10 It is most
directly linked to Paulo Freire and Participatory Action Research (PAR),
explored later.
Amartya Sen’s approach to development focuses on the freedom of
individuals to fulfill their ‘capabilities’, or to undertake the range of activities
(such as education, political engagement, economic activity, etc) and live the
kinds of lives they value as crucial to development for two reasons. Firstly,
increased freedoms (in terms of political, economic and social) are the
8
White.
White, p.59.
10 White, p.60.
9
6
primary way in which development and human progress is evaluated.
Secondly ‘freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and also
to influence the world’.11 Furthermore, Sen highlights that in achieving
development a reflexive, two-way relationship should exist between state and
citizen; where public policy enhances freedoms, and is also strengthened
through participatory processes allowing individuals to influence policy.
This resonates with discourses of participation when considering the link
democracy and freedom has with participation: ‘[a]t the national level
[democracy] is seen in the rhetoric of ‘civil society’ and ‘good governance’. At
the programme and project level, it appears as a commitment to
‘participation’’.12 If participation is construed as having a function in
encouraging more localised democracy, instances of participation should
therefore be judged on how far they enable participants to influence policy.
NOMINAL PARTICIPATION
With this criterion in mind I will consider nominal participation during Banda’s
dictatorship in Malawi from 1961-94. Harri Englund13 outlines Banda’s use of
performance to assert his power, and to create an image of popularity.
Rallies were often held across the country, where women and children were
forced to ‘participate’ in songs and dances that praised the dictatorial regime.
This reflected the government’s wish to portray Banda as wise, heroic, as
‘”redeeming the country from the bondage of colonialism” and “developing it
beyond recognition.”’14 They were therefore not intended to delve into
matters of concrete policy, but rather to uphold a sense of Banda’s
11
Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom, (Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1999), p.18.
12 White, p.57.
13 Harri Englund, ‘Between God and Kamuzu: The Transition to Multiparty
Politics in Central Malawi’, in Postcolonial Identities in Africa, Werbner,
Richard and Terence Ranger (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1996),
pp. 107-135.
14 Chijere Wiseman Chirwa, ‘Dancing Towards Dictatorship: Political Songs
and Popular Culture in Malawi’, Nordic Journal of African Studies, Vol.10,
No.1 (2001), pp. 1-27, p.4.
7
unwavering wisdom through non-specific verbal and visual propaganda.15
This propaganda was visually striking, utilising the image of the woman and
child as the key praise-givers; those members of society so often considered
to suffer most from marginalisation. On a superficial level, Banda effectively
portrayed his regime as making great strides in terms of inclusivity, with
women at the centre of politics. In reality their political role was reduced
through their forced participation in public displays of apparent support for
solely male politicians.16 Freedom and democracy, despite Banda’s assertion
that he was dictator by consent,17 was non-existent.
Participation was nominal due to its use of communities and individuals to
create an appearance of legitimacy. In relation to Sen, nominal participation
is clearly problematic. It does not allow participants to shape policy; focussing
instead on participants having a ‘decorative function’, where they are seen to
legitimise policies they have had no part in forming, and perhaps no
understanding of.18 Nominal participation therefore does little to increase
freedom and, especially in the case outlined above, further entrenches
communities in ‘unfreedoms’,19 through being seen to embrace policies at the
root of economic and power deprivations. This example also highlights how
nominal participation can mask reality and make it more difficult to understand
the boundaries between support and coercion. Whilst history allows us to see
the manipulative context behind the performances, it is perhaps far harder to
navigate contemporary abuses of participation, and to identify whether
policies and political voice originate from the participants, or are dictated from
above.
INSTRUMENTAL PARTICIPATION
15
Chirwa.
Reuben Makayiko Chirambo, ‘Subverting Banda’s Dictatorship in Malawi:
Orality as Counter-Discourse in Jack Mapanje’s Of Chameleons and Gods’,
ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, Vol. 38, No.2-3 (2007),
pp. 139-157.
17 Chirwa.
18 Roger Hart, Children’s Participation: From Tokenism to Citizenship, (Italy:
UNICEF, 1992).
19 Sen.
16
8
To consider instrumental participation I will draw on my experience of working
with Act 4 Africa in Lilongwe, Malawi. Act 4 Africa is an NGO using TfD to
address HIV/AIDS related stigma in Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and
Zimbabwe.20 Much of their work relies on a ‘Training of Trainers’ (ToT)
approach, whereby individuals from communities across the countries they
work in are trained as facilitators in a central location. They then return to
their communities and deliver sessions raising awareness and challenging
stigmas encountered by those living with HIV/AIDS.
My work involved researching and writing a ToT manual dealing with
HIV/AIDS and gender inequalities. I observed sessions where training meant
the British facilitators giving short bursts of information regarding human rights
and sexual health that were absorbed by the trainees. The work delivered by
trainees in rural communities centred on the repetition of these speeches to a
passive audience. The expectation of facilitators was that trainees would
return to their communities and attempt to persuade audiences to change
their behaviour in accordance with Act 4 Africa’s agenda. This was
particularly clear in one exercise where trainees were split into groups of five,
with one taking the role of facilitator. The facilitator’s task was to pick a topic
and present their opinion on this topic. They then guided the group members
through a discussion, aiming to persuade them to agree with their point of
view.
Consequently, there was no space within the delivery of work to allow local
people to consider the implications such messages have on their
communities, and what changes should occur. Such discussions may have
taken place after the event between villagers, but any solid discussions about
potential change were between the British facilitators, trainees and village
chiefs.
act4africa, ‘Find Out More’, <http://www.act4africa.org/we-are.aspx>
[02.06.12].
20
9
Whilst instrumental participation is useful in ensuring the delivery of key
services and messages, there is a risk that this way of working fails to engage
participants deeply enough in issues surrounding the lack of service provision,
or in the complexities of topics broached through message-based work.
White highlights that this form of participation has become far more prominent
since the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in the
1980s.21 SAPs coerced governments in the global South into decentralising
welfare services (such as health and education), and opening up their
economies to the global market place in order to receive much needed
financial support after the seventies’ oil crisis.22 As with nominal uses,
through instrumental participation individuals may be indirectly supporting
policy that widens inequality and exacerbates problems in accessing key
services.
REPRESENTATIVE PARTICIPATION
Representative participation focuses on including voices of communities in
development projects, and has largely been implemented through a set of
activities known as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) or Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA). They have remained popular since their inception in the
early 1980s, largely due to the influence of Robert Chambers’ work, and claim
to allow indigenous knowledge and expertise to shape development policy
through the use of participatory tools such as questionnaires, surveys or more
creative methods,23 demonstrated in the following case study. Such tools
have come to form the ‘mainstream’ of participatory development practice,24
which will be analysed in more depth later in this chapter.
21
White.
Leal.
23 Robert Chambers, Rural Development: Putting the Last First, (Harlow:
Longman Scientific and Technical, 1986).
24 Hickey, Sam and Giles Mohan, ‘Relocating Participation Within a Radical
Politics of Development’, Development and Change, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2005), pp.
237-262.
22
10
To analyse representative participation I will consider a research project I was
involved in during March 2012. A group of students from the Shebomesa
secondary school in the Usambara Mountains, Tanzania, agreed to attend a
research workshop on a Saturday morning. It aimed to investigate effective
methods of environmental education to assist with the formulation of a
community education project using drama. The workshop was designed to be
as ‘participatory’ as possible. The three hours included activities utilising
participatory diagrams and drama as a way to spark dialogue. The workshop
was heavily based on PRA approaches, with participants asked to place
beans on a grid marked out with six boxes: FAMILY, EDUCATION, MINING,
FARMING, LOGGING and ENVIRONMENT. Where they placed the bean
indicated their response to a series of questions, such as: ‘which is the most
important to you?’; ‘What comes next?’; ‘which is the most important to your
parents?’. Next, we used image theatre, which requires participants to make
a series of still images with their bodies in response to a problem. Usually
image theatre is used to think about the causes of the problem, and possible
solutions, which are discussed and debated by the group. The aim is that
viable solutions could be implemented by the participants in their
communities. Using image theatre allowed participants to begin making links
between ‘undesirable’ human activities (such as illegal logging and mining)
and their root causes. It exposed that those perpetrating the illegal acts did
so out of necessity, rather than the more common perception in that they were
acting out of greed. Participants decided such actions were taken by the poor
and marginalised desperate for paid work. One example showed a family
forced to leave their home due to a lack of money, which led the father to
begin illegally mining in the area. They questioned whether imprisonment
was an appropriate punishment, or if they might begin to look elsewhere to
understand the complexity of the problem, and to find a solution not reliant on
the punishment of this desperate individual. However, the workshop did not
allow space for such considerations, both in terms of time and due to our predetermined set of research questions. This exploration was cut short; it was
time to move onto the next set of questions.
11
This lack of flexibility and our predetermined agenda displays a key tension in
representative participation: whilst projects of this nature allow some scope for
participants to shape development, there is a real danger that PRA could be
used to shape interaction and views, implicating participants within processes
and decisions that conform to the agenda of the facilitator or agency. 25 In this
example, this meant that the participants were unable to engage with the
complexity of the issues raised, or to think about ways to tackle these.
Instead, what we wanted from participants; sound bites and concise
illustrations of how effective community education and drama might be, meant
we only skimmed the surface of a much wider issue. NGOs utilising similar
methodologies therefore risk viewing participation simply as a way to
legitimise pre-determined projects, rather than as a way to shape them.
This confirms Cornwall and Brock’s26 central problem with participatory
practice of this nature: often participants are told what to do, and are not given
space to ask questions. In our workshop this was hidden by the ‘edginess’ or
‘earthiness’ of placing a colourful grid on the floor and handing out some
beans, which somehow gave the impression of a grass roots, bottom-up
approach to working, and provided the opportunity for photographs of
students getting up, moving, ‘interacting’ and ‘engaging’. If the main drive for
our approach, though unwittingly, was to extract images and phrases to
uphold our proposal it is interesting to look towards Kothari,27 who
problematises PRA approaches as framing participants as performers:
In ‘performing’ their role as participants they are coerced into
also performing their lives in overly simplified ways that satisfy
the practitioner, this skews reality […] PRA could therefore be
seen as requiring participants to learn roles and be convincing
in order to be ‘good’ participants, and the question here is:
What happens to the narratives of those who do not possess
Kothari, Uma, ‘Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory
Development’, in eds. Cooke and Kothari, pp 139-152.
26 Andrea Cornwall and Brock, Karen, Beyond Buzzwords: “Poverty
Reduction”, “Participation” and “Empowerment” in Development Policy,
(Geneva: UNRISD, 2005).
27 Kothari.
25
12
the right skills, or more appropriately, the talent, to perform as
required?28
Instances of representative participation can therefore be problematised on
the basis that they often require participants to merely comment on projects to
be planned and implemented by exogenous forces. There is also a risk that
facilitators of this type of work may ignore those participants who not only lack
the ‘talent’29 to perform, but whose performance is not in line with the agenda
of the facilitator.
The idea that representative participation delivers the types of freedom
envisaged by Sen is therefore unstable. Whereas on the surface such
approaches appear to enable participants to comment on projects, we have
seen that there is, in practice, limited scope for individuals or communities to
truly ‘own’ a project and ensure it delivers according to their wishes.
Furthermore, White makes clear that in participatory practice the terms on
which participation is offered is key to the outcomes delivered and the
interests served. 30 Representative participation does not ensure that those
interests are true to work undertaken, and that outcomes work for the poor as
the power to interpret, plan and implement projects still rests in the hands of
external agencies or governments with their own vested interests.
TRANSFORMATIVE PARTICIPATION
Sen’s conviction that in order for effective development to take place, those
communities and individuals whom programmes purport to benefit should be
actively involved in their processes31 is particularly compatible with Freirean
principles. Although mainly concerned with education, Freire’s theories
outlined in Pedagogy of the Oppressed32 became important points of
28
Kothari, p.150.
ibid.
30 White.
31 Sen.
32 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman
Ramos (London and New York: Continuum, 2006).
29
13
reference for practitioners seeking to frame participation in ways that involve
participants more deeply in achieving development outcomes.
Transformative participation seeks to engage marginalised communities, such
as the poor, illiterate or disenfranchised, often through adult literacy or other
educational projects. Freire describes such communities as an oppressed
class, 33 who through the dominance of elites maintaining socioeconomic and
political structures for their own benefit, are dehumanised and incorporated
insidiously into oppressive hegemonies that favour the powerful34.
Furthermore, the French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu highlights that
compliance with oppressive hegemonies occurs not only through the will of
the powerful. Arguably it is continued through the reproduction of oppression
by those that are themselves oppressed,35 and from whom the neoliberal
agenda has taken the ability to hope for a more equal society. 36 Bourdieu,
similarly to Freire, stresses the role of social institutions in maintaining and
spreading oppressive social orders, and points us towards sites of education
as key to this reproduction. It is therefore argued that development projects
need to find ways to avoid perpetuating hegemony. In challenging instances
where participants have been treated as little more than empty vessels to be
filled with the knowledge of a more powerful, often exogenous force, 37 Freire
calls for:
A humanising education […] through which men and women
can become conscious about their presence in the world. The
way they act and think when they develop all of their
capacities, taking into consideration their needs, but also the
needs and aspirations of others.38
33
Freire.
Gramsci in Preston, Sheila, ‘Introduction to Participation’, in The Applied
Theatre Reader, Prentki, Tim and Sheila Preston (London and New York:
Routledge, 2009) pp. 127-130.
35 Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Education, Globalisation and
Social Change, eds. Lauder, H., P., Brown, J., Dillabough and A.H. Halsey
(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) pp. 105-119.
36 Freire.
37 ibid.
38 Paulo Freire and Frei Betto, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and
Liberation, (Amhurst: Bergin and Garvey, 1985), pp. 14-15.
34
14
To achieve a humanising education Freire stresses the importance of
‘conscientisation’,39 where participants and facilitators learn together, and
identify the oppressive social, political and economic factors that lead to
marginalisation. Importantly, Freire viewed having an understanding of these
factors as insufficient; rather, it is necessary to mobilise collectively in order to
change exclusive structures and seek more equitable realities for the poor, on
their terms.
The ‘Silent No More’ project in Kenya, run by Moving Framez Africa, used an
approach based on Boal’s legislative theatre methodology,40 and provides an
interesting example through which to illustrate transformative participation.
Legislative theatre links Theatre of the Oppressed approaches such as Forum
Theatre and Image Theatre more concretely to political transformation, as it
intends to allow for participants to formulate laws that will address
oppressions. In the ‘Silent No More’ project, the aim was to engage young
people in slums in the formulation of a Kenyan constitution. In the project’s
work in Kibera, Nairobi, facilitators began by asking participants how they
might ensure young people’s concerns were represented in the Kenyan
constitution and upheld by government.41 Participants responded by
highlighting that guarantees of employment after O Levels or college
education were key, as were procedures for dealing with corrupt government
officials.
The project could easily have fallen into representative participation; however,
what distinguishes this example from uses that concentrate on simply
garnering opinions, is that participants were engaged in a wider scheme of
learning and reflection. After this initial question, participants were split into
groups to consider issues raised in more depth. One group devised a scene
exploring the bribery of teachers by parents to ensure their child progressed
39
Freire.
Mary Goretty Ajwang and Jack Shaka, Silent No More: Youth Legislative
Theatre Process in Kenya, (Helix Group, 2010).
41 Ibid, p. 7.
40
15
to high school education, despite low grades. This was identified as excluding
children in Kibera, whose families often live on less than $1 a day, and as
lowering the quality of Kenyan education since children with better grades are
often unable to further their education.42 The explicitly transformative element
of the work came in moving from the identification of key issues to considering
how participants might struggle for change. They also considered selfadvocacy and ways of holding government to account.
Groups were given a case study illustrating a Member of Parliament fighting
for money to fund investment in water services and a laboratory for a school.
The MP was successful, but then manipulated the project to meet his own
ends. The investment in water was seen to predominantly benefit the MP and
a pastor, and the laboratory went to the school owned by the MP’s wife. The
participants used role-play to think about ways of holding the MP to account.
Their exploration highlighted the efficacy of working with elders and
attempting to influence the media and police to resolve the issue. They also
explored the use of the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission and Human Rights
Commission in order to ensure the resolution of this issue. The project built
on the principle that in order for transformation to be possible, a personal
transformation needs to occur first, a principle advocated primarily by critical
pedagogy practitioners and theorists. In particular Henry Giroux asserts that
for social change to occur, participants or students must first engage in
schemes of education designed to practice the skills and personal mindset
necessary to become ‘agents of social change’.43 However, it is important to
note that despite the strengths of the project, participants were not concretely
linked to ensuring the constitution reflected their opinions. This is explored in
more depth in chapter two.
42
Ajwang and Shaka.
Henry Giroux, Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture and
Schooling, (Oxford, Westview Press, 1997).
43
16
PARTICIPATION FOR RADICAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Whilst the four strands analysed above are useful in framing a discussion
around the potential of participation in development, in reality Cornwall claims
that instances of participation are far more complex and blurred. 44 Whilst my
analysis advocates that nominal, instrumental and representative participation
are less desirable in relation to Sen’s understanding of development than
transformative participation, these uses of participation might also secure
positive outcomes for communities. Nominal participation, for example, might
be useful to mobilise larger numbers in collective struggles that the time
constraints and processes of transformative participation might not be able to.
In the context of calls for social or political change this would enable more
visibility for marginalised communities, which is undoubtedly important in
successfully securing social or political change.45 Furthermore, White
highlights that ‘[e]verything depends on the type of participation, and the
terms in which it is offered’.46 Therefore, if the terms on which nominal
participation is offered benefit communities, or are formed by instances of
representative or transformative participatory projects with smaller sections of
a community, such uses might be ethically sound. Transformation could
therefore occur through uses that do not adhere to transformative
participation.
However, transformation through non-transformative strands of participation
might be more a case of chance than of any participatory process having the
potential to nurture social change. Cornwall uses the example of a rural
Kenyan community’s decision to block the road when their MP came to visit in
order to demand accountability from him in regards to issues of child
nutrition.47 The catalyst for this mobilisation was a PRA exercise. Cornwall
Andrea Cornwall, ‘Unpacking “Participation”: Models, Meanings and
Practices’, Community Development Journal, Vol. 43, No. 3 (2008) pp. 269283.
45 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action
and Politics, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994).
46 White, p.64.
47 Cornwall 2008.
44
17
notes that the facilitators were ‘stunned’ and that the ‘PRA exercise did not
cause this sudden exercise of citizenship, but it certainly helped trigger it’. 48
The fact that facilitators were stunned suggests that PRA rarely acts as such
a radical catalyst for community action in pursuit of democracy and
accountability. Furthermore, the acknowledgment of PRA in this instance as
a trigger suggests that there was a pre-existing awareness and anger over
issues of child nutrition. The opportunity to collectively discuss these issues
in the presence of a team of outside facilitators may have enabled individuals
to see the issues and possible solutions as collectively shared. In line with
Freire’s argument that neoliberalism and hegemony actively dehumanise, 49 in
situations where individuals and communities have been unable to see the
oppressions affecting them on a daily basis, the application of PRA exercises
might not spark such an outcome.
Similarly, transformative participation does not necessarily guarantee
transformation: participants might be unable to meet required time
commitments; more powerful members of the community might manipulate
projects to meet their own ends; key institutions or agencies might refuse to
act upon the demands of participants.50 In ascertaining the potential for
participation in development projects to deliver outcomes of community led
social change, ideology therefore forms a crucial concern. It is important to
consider mainstream development, ideology and participation within this
framework.
PARTICIPATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT MAINSTREAM
Despite contemporary ideas of participation appearing to embrace Freirean
ideals, utilising the language of ‘empowerment’ and ‘transformation’ in project
proposals and evaluations.51 Transformative participation, though part of
mainstream development discourse has played only a minor part in the history
48
Ibid, p.274.
Preston, ‘Introduction to Participation’.
50 Cornwall 2008.
51 Hickey and Mohan 2005.
49
18
of participatory development and its actual practice. Hickey and Mohan cite
the beginnings of calls for participation in development as being rooted in
colonial concerns to reproduce sociopolitical relations in such a way that
growing resistance to the colonial administration, largely rooted in leftist,
radical struggles, might be stamped out. 52 Early participation therefore grew
out of aims to bring individuals and communities more closely in line with
colonial desires. Participatory methodologies in the context of the 1940s and
50s were highly manipulative, and reinforce Preston’s identification that:
…harnessing the consent of a group through the communal
spontaneity of ‘participation’ might carry a ‘useful’ hegemonic
function in society. The seductive ‘feeling’ of participating and
‘joining in’ with others is less a neutral or benign act but,
rather, manipulation into compliance with social order.53
A key danger in participatory practice lies in its potential to seduce
participants into compliance. This is a concern that still resonates in the
current era of development practice. In particular, Robert Chambers’ work on
participation from the early 1980s until today has been extremely influential in
development practice, and has already been shown to adhere to White’s
definition of representative participation. RRA, a key tool in representative
participation, provides quick ways of assessing poverty in rural areas, and
potential solutions through ‘identifying and learning from key
informants…direct observation…guided interviews with informal or selected
groups’.54 It offers a quick and cost effective way to do, or appear to do,
participation. In the 1990s RRA led to the development of Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA); a set of practices that sought to rely less on the outside
practitioner, and instead involve local people more rigorously in their own
development.55 As well as being linked to RRA, PRA draws inspiration from
Freirean perspectives. Importantly, whilst Chambers acknowledges Freire as
a key influence: ‘…he is cautious of the more radical Freirean school,
52
Hickey and Mohan 2004.
Preston, ‘Introduction to Participation’ p. 127.
54 Chambers 1986, p.200.
55 Robert Chambers, ‘The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural
Appraisal’, World Development, 22, 7 (1994) pp. 953-969.
53
19
restricting talk of power reversals to individuals rather than broader systems of
power relations through which people are structurally disempowered’.56
Problematically, Chambers moves away from collective planning,
implementation and evaluation of projects called for by Freire, offering instead
a softer, less radical approach to participation.57
As well as shifting the focus in participation away from collectivist, radical
action, Chambers’ theories and methodologies also coincided, and were
subsequently adopted by, desires of organisations such as the World Bank to
work in participatory ways.
Policy-making elites have also viewed participation as a
means or set of techniques available to government agencies
for the purposes of making development programmes
function better and the development process itself more
efficient and more equitable. That is, popular participation
has been seen as a ‘missing ingredient’ to be achieved
through fool proof or bureaucrat-proof ways of adding
‘participation components’ to projects and activities’. 58
This concern of institutions to work in participatory ways may, at first, seem a
positive move in development practice. However, as demonstrated in
previous case studies, participation when utilised by government and
institutions often becomes coercive: seeking to domesticate or seduce
participants into compliance rather than to liberate. 59 Leal links the
emergence of participation as a dominant discourse in development to
Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) by the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund (IMF). 60 After the oil crisis and subsequent
recession of the 1970s, in which socialism was framed by the West as failing
(with Tanzania being held up as the prime example), neoliberal economic
reforms were offered as the only way to solve a global crisis. SAPs required
56
William and others, quoted in Hickey and Mohan 2004, p.5.
Hickey and Mohan 2005.
58 M. Stiefel, and M. Woolfe, ‘The Many Faces of Participation’, in ed.
Cornwall, pp. 19-30, (p. 23).
59 Preston, ‘Introduction to Participation’.
60 Leal.
57
20
governments to decentralise the provision of key services and open up their
economies to the global market place to receive vital loans and ease the
crises. Participation allowed the World Bank and IMF to claim that
consultation had occurred and that policy was a response to, and even
created by, poor people; making entrenchment in the neoliberal agenda
possible and acceptable.61
CONCLUSION
This chapter has highlighted that whilst nominal, instrumental and
representative participation can serve the interests of marginalised
communities, the wider context of mainstream development makes their use
highly risky. The neoliberal agenda, as well as oppressive government
regimes such as Banda’s dictatorship in Malawi, have co-opted participation
with great ease and utilised project to perpetuate hegemony. Transformative
participation, with its clear stance on seeking to break from hegemony and
link projects to social change, takes a far more radical perspective in aiming to
ensure development meets the needs of participants. In projects utilising
nominal, instrumental or representative strands of participation, transformative
outcomes appear to occur more by chance than as a result of the
characteristics of these strands, as evidenced by Cornwall’s experience of
representative participation in Kenya. What seems clear is that if nontransformative strands of participation are used it is most effective and ethical
if they are implemented to give a broader base of support to smaller scale
transformative projects. This might go some way to ensuring that agendas for
change or development avoid reproducing oppressive hegemonies.
The mainstream of development practice has also been highlighted as a
problematic space within which to pursue goals of grassroots social change
and pro-poor development. Through considering the history of mainstream
development, from its colonial roots through to its use in introducing and
upholding neoliberalism, we can see that transformative participation presents
61
ibid.
21
little more than a dot on the landscape of participation. Participation has for
the most part been about incorporating identities into ideology through
normative, instrumental or representative instances. This chapter has
therefore illustrated that the mainstream arena of development practice does
not offer much potential for implementing transformative participation: there
are simply too many vested interests in development related structures and
agencies that complicate and seek to dampen radical social change. Sen’s
faith in freedom and democracy, which manifests in participatory practices at
the micro-level, is therefore limited. To deliver the freedom necessary to
secure development we need to look away from mainstream practice.
Alternative spaces of development might give some hope; in the next chapter
I will therefore look towards Theatre for Development as offering a potentially
radical, transformative set of practices and ethics.
22
CHAPTER TWO
(EN)ACTING THE REVOLUTION? THE POSSIBILITIES
AND LIMITATIONS OF PARTICIPATING IN THEATRE
FOR DEVELOPMENT
In this chapter I will outline three examples of TfD practice. I will then
interrogate these along with relevant literature, in order to illustrate the
potential and problematics of TfD in terms of providing an alternative practice
that enables transformative participation and community-led social change.
THEATRE-BASED HEALTH RESEARCH PROJECT, LUNGWENA,
MALAWI 2003-2004
My analysis of this project is taken from the lead facilitator David Kerr’s article:
‘You Only Made the Blueprint to Suit Yourselves: A Theatre Based Health
Rearch Project in Lungwena, Malawi’.62 This project ran in 2003-04 in
collaboration with the Norwegian Centre for Cooperation in Higher Education
(NUFU), and was part of a larger, long-term scheme of work aiming to
improve the health in the Lungwena area. Kerr outlines his interest in the
project due to the determination of NUFU to keep a low profile, and allow the
research team, comprising academics from the University of Malawi, to lead
on research and intervention. NUFU was primarily interested in qualitative
research around the following areas: early marriage of girls; the reluctance of
many people to attend health clinics or use birth control; the impact of
initiation ceremonies for boys and girls; the influence of traditional attitudes to
food consumption; a reluctance to build pit latrines or preserve food in harvest
time. Kerr’s first task was to create a play to tour villages in the area that
would spark discussion on knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to
David Kerr, ‘You Only Made the Blueprint to Suit Yourselves: A Theatre
Based Health Rearch Project in Lungwena, Malawi’, in eds. Prentki and
Preston, pp. 100-107.
62
23
these themes. It was hoped these discussions would provide useful data to
enable a greater understanding that would inform the planning of
interventions. To achieve this aim Kerr worked with local performance group,
Tukumbusyane Travelling Theatre, who had previous experience of using
indigenous performance forms (such as drumming, singing, dancing and
mime) didactically.
The resulting play, Lingongochichi? (What are the Reasons?)63 focussed on a
married couple without enough food to celebrate their son’s initiation
ceremony. This situation caused conflict between the couple that whilst
initially about a lack of food, went on to cover the range of topics outlined by
NUFU. Throughout the play several attempts are made by other characters to
reconcile the couple; however, no solution is found and the husband threatens
to leave the wife. At this point the play ends, followed by discussions over the
issues causing conflict with the intention of uncovering local knowledge and
practices, as well as potential solutions.
UNICEF TRAINING OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THEATRE FOR
DEVELOPMENT, KIBAHA DISTRICT, TANZANIA NOVEMBER 2002
The second case study I am using draws on Julie Koch’s analysis of a TfD
training programme implemented by UNICEF across eleven districts of
Tanzania in her book Karibuni Wananchi: Theatre for Development in
Tanzania, Variations and Tendencies.64 The project aimed to tackle risky
sexual behaviour in relation to HIV/AIDS. I will focus on their work in Kibaha.
The training framed TfD as a methodology comprising research, intervention
and action using the following seven steps: familiarisation, data collection,
data analysis, theatre creation, performance, post-performance discussion,
follow up. UNICEF assumed that participants would have sufficient
63
Kerr 2009.
Julie Koch, Karibuni Wanachi: Theatre for Development in Tanzania,
Variations and Tendencies, (Eckersdorf, Breitinger Bayreuth African Studies
Series, 2008).
64
24
performance skills, and therefore concentrated on how they might become
effective facilitators. UNICEF sought to stress the importance of avoiding
imposing knowledge and views on audiences, and advocated an approach
whereby the facilitation of post-show discussions was underpinned by three
central questions. These were: ‘which problems were portrayed?...Do these
exist here in the village, and if so why?...What can we do about them?’. 65
Trainees were expected to undertake HIV/AIDS related research in their area
and to analyse this in a participatory way with representatives from the
community. After data analysis, they created theatre tackling these issues,
which would then be shown to whole communities and provide the catalyst for
wider discussion over social and behavioural change pertaining to HIV/AIDS.
Each team was expected to continue producing work after this initial project.
An experienced TfD practitioner worked with each team, but would not be
available on a regular basis for future projects.
‘SILENT NO MORE’ YOUTH LEGISLATIVE THEATRE PROJECT, KENYA
In the previous chapter I considered an element of the ‘Silent No More’ project
in Kibera. In this chapter I will look at this case study in more depth. I will
primarily draw on the book documenting the process and findings, Silent No
More: Youth Legislative Theatre Process in Kenya, written by the project
facilitators Jack Shaka and Mary Goretty Ajwang.66 Alongside using
legislative theatre in Kibera, Moving Framez Africa (MFA) worked in the
Lunga Lunga slums, also in Nairobi, and the Nyanza district. The workshops
focussed on exploring young people’s desired contributions towards the
Kenyan constitution, and used theatre to bring these suggestions to life,
stimulating deeper discussion. The project also aimed to combat a sense that
in the past young people had largely been spoken for, rather than being able
to represent themselves. The project was a response to Kenya’s struggle to
65
66
Koch, p.73.
Ajwang and Shaka.
25
rewrite their national constitution for over twenty years. 67 In 2005 Kenyan
citizens rejected a draft constitution,68 and a more participatory approach to
writing the constitution was adopted.69
THE OFFER OF THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT
Further to the problematics of participation in relation to neoliberal mainstream
development identified in the previous chapter, it is illuminating to consider
Jenkins and Micklewright’s view that the primary way development is
measured and considered is through economic inequality.70 On the global
level this manifests in a focus on growth rates, on the national and local levels
this is considered through income disparity. This is due to a belief that
through addressing income disparity, individuals will have greater access to
key services such as health and education. However this approach to
development, propagated by the mainstream, is limited in addressing
inequality and marginalisation. Sen describes such approaches as
‘instrumental’ and argues they provide simplistic, top-down ‘cures’ for social
problems rather than create deeper bottom-up development that more
effectively addresses development issues. Furthermore, Nussbaum argues
that the normative focus on growth as an indicator of development is
undesirable, since it ‘fails to tell us how deprived people are doing’.71 Sen’s
approach therefore advocates an understanding of ‘intrinsically important’
deprivations relating to access to health, education and the practice of
capabilities.72 It is understood that through development programmes
implicating themselves and communities in struggles for greater access to
health, education and wider social change, inequality can be addressed in a
BBC, ‘Kenya President Ratifies New Constitution’,
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11106558> (2010) [30.06.12].
68 ibid.
69
Ajwang and Shaka.
70 Inequality and Poverty Re-Examined, eds. by Stephen Jenkins and John
Micklewright, (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2007).
71 Martha Nussbaum, ‘Capabilities As Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and
Social Justice’, in Feminist Economics, 9, 2-3, pp. 33-59, (p.33).
72
Sen.
67
26
more meaningful and lasting way. It is in this break from mainstream
development that TfD usually seeks to position itself.
Sen73 and Nussbaum’s74 problematisation of instrumentalist approaches
makes it clear that without understanding the complexities of access to health
care, or the socio-political aspect of health, providing resources is unlikely to
be effective. NUFU’s approach to the health research project resonates with
these concerns. As Kerr states: ‘[u]nlike many health projects, the NUFU
coordinators of the Lungwena project realise that poor health is not primarily a
medical problem, but a social problem’.75 MFA’s ‘Silent No More’ project
aimed to be much broader in its approach than NUFU’s work, covering a
range of topics and securing change not only on the local level, but also on
the national level for all young people.
This example actively sought to pursue a radical political agenda that would
enable participants to effect change on the wider scale. The main aim of the
project was to enable participants to talk to, and influence, politicians during
the writing of the Kenyan constitution. This is in contrast to NUFU’s work,
where the focus was on community members talking to each other about very
local issues, and UNICEF’s work, where the agenda for change was far more
individualised and concerned with behavioural change, particularly in relation
to safe sex. However, it is difficult to clearly unpick the impact of the MFA
project, and whether young people successfully influenced the writing
process, due to a lack of funding for follow-up work. From reading the
Kenyan constitution it is clear that many of the issues brought up by
participants feature in it: such as assurances that every child will have the
right to free basic education; and guarantees of youth access to training and
employment opportunities.76 However, from writing to MFA for clarification
73
Sen.
Nussbaum.
75 Kerr 2009, p.101.
76 The Constitution of Kenya
<http://www.kenyaembassy.com/pdfs/The%20Constitution%20of%20Kenya.p
df> (2010) [01.06.12].
74
27
over their project and its outcomes, it transpired that they are unsure of
whether the project was responsible for these elements of the constitution.
The constitution is also vague with regards to the participants’ clear demands.
Whereas the constitution guarantees that children will have access to free
basic education, this does not necessarily address the participants’ concerns
that secondary education should be universally available and free. Especially
when we consider the global focus on Universal Primary Education, typified
by the Millennium Development Goals,77 which shifts the pressure away from
providing secondary education and leads governments to consider access to
primary education as sufficient. Furthermore, despite assertions that:
The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against
any person on any ground, including race, sex, pregnancy,
marital status, health status, ethnic or social origin, colour,
age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress,
language or birth78
there is no solid mention of protection or recognition of same-sex
relationships. This is despite numerous mentions in MFA’s book of the need
for tolerance and protection against discrimination in terms of sexual
orientation.79 Nonetheless, the project offered an innovative way in which to
engage a large number of communities and young people in actively thinking
about the constitution and Kenyan politics, and displays the strength of using
TfD methodologies to consider complex problems and solutions, and possibly
to have these views acted upon in a way that encourages democracy and
bottom-up development. MFA’s focus seemed to be on harnessing a broad
base of collective support, which provided a more effective image of
legitimacy and greater pressure on the government to respond. This could
render their work as operating to definitions of representative participation.
However, MFA arguably managed to navigate the problematics of
representative participation by aligning participant responses to the possibility
United Nations, ‘Millennium Development Goals’,
<http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/education.shtml> [03.06.12].
78 The Constitution of Kenya, p.24.
79 Ajwang and Shaka.
77
28
of better policy representing young people’s interests. As described in the
previous chapter, they also provided space for participants to ‘rehearse’ being
agents of social change,80 which may have benefits yet to be seen.
NUFU’s work differs from MFA in that it focussed on localised examples of
oppression, where the objective was to encourage community members to
talk to each other and to facilitators for research purposes. Whilst limited in its
scope for encouraging change on a national level, this project still showed
potential for acting as a catalyst for change within the community. In one
example, during the post-show discussion, a group of younger men
challenged the underlying focus on equality present in the performance. They
claimed that issues such as polygyny and the early marriage of girls were
miyambo, or traditional customs that represent a ‘blueprint given to us by our
forefathers’.81 An old man spoke up and challenged this assertion, claiming
that when he was younger such actions were frowned upon, and that these
young men were falsely portraying traditional customs to mask their
oppressive attitudes. The women in the audience were in unanimous
agreement with the old man, the younger men were deeply embarrassed by
this very public shaming.
Clearly there is value in work that enables community members to talk to each
other about their shared realities and oppression within communities. This
discussion could have provided a catalyst for much deeper work, with social
change, though on a very local scale, as the aim. However, there appears to
have been no follow-up of this particular instance, and through the lack of
involvement of community members in planning NUFU’s further work, may not
have even been the space for the targeted, very specific and localised followup that would have been needed to make this discussion have wider
relevance and impact. We also have to consider that out of numerous
performances and post show discussions, this is the only example given by
Kerr as possibly transformative. The project also risks adhering to the
criticism given by Petras in the introduction to this dissertation that NGOs
80
81
Giroux 1997.
Kerr 2009, p.105.
29
focus too much on the local level at the expense of addressing wider
structural issues.82 Furthermore, Sen advocates that development should
occur through participants being better able to influence policy. This case
study does not provide an opportunity for participants to involve themselves in
legislation that may have addressed issues actively, as I will expand on later.
What is clear in both projects, with their differing focuses on who the
participants are speaking to, is that the impetus of TfD work is in encouraging
participants to speak, and to open up routes of communication through which
change might occur. These projects demonstrate collectivist approaches;
with the wide base of support in MFA’s work being used to influence
government, and less powerful members of the communities in Malawi
mobilising against oppressive male domination. The intended impact on
audiences in the UNICEF project, however, outlines a more individualistic
focus. Although participants discussed what kinds of behavioural change
should occur, it is ultimately up to the individual to take these on board and to
decide what choices are right for them personally.
In focussing on individuals or communities and the potential for them to
engage in development projects, it is important to avoid an elision of these
terms. In Development As Freedom83 Sen tends to focus on the ability for an
individual to pursue their capabilities, which, whilst useful and highly influential
in pro-poor development, can be argued as seeking to make the neoliberal
agenda less aggressive and economically divisive, rather then encouraging
bottom-up change. This also encourages individual and highly personal
agendas for change, rather than collective agendas and struggles. TfD
practitioner and academic Tim Prenkti argues that highly individualised
approaches to development and social change risk producing a ‘plethora of
possibilities [that] may wrap the participants in a wet blanket of
powerlessness’.84 Whilst an individualistic focus, such as Sen’s, may prove
82
Petras in Pearce.
Sen.
84 Tim Prentki, ‘Applied Theatre in a Global Village’, in eds. Prentki and
Preston, pp. 363-367, p.364.
83
30
useful in claiming an individual’s freedom, and reconsidering mainstream
development from a more human perspective, it also risks limiting the
potential of radical change that requires a wide base of support.85 More
collectivist approaches with egalitarian values at their core, are therefore more
compatible with Freirean concepts. That is not to say that these focusses
cannot compliment each other, rather that it is important to remain wary of
overly individualised agendas of change which may never result in effective
struggles.
In terms of the UNICEF project, it is also important to acknowledge the
emphasis placed on collective activity in relation to the trainees. The aim to
train community members in TfD methodologies can be perceived as having
benefits in terms of sustainability and ownership. In terms of sustainability,
training facilitators from a community combats key criticisms of development
interventions. The first being that interventions create unequal power
relations, with the external facilitator assuming greater knowledge and
expertise. The second being that once a facilitator leaves, projects
discontinue.86 By drawing on training local facilitators agencies seek to avoid
intervention, perhaps hoping that a facilitator from the area adds a sense of
legitimacy to the work. There is also the potential that should TfD prove
useful to the community, a discursive, community-led development tool has
been provided around which communities can take ownership of issues and
mobilise. Some of these themes have relevance to my exploration in the next
chapter, and will be drawn on further. It must be noted here that whilst the
UNICEF project, and TfD training in general, offers the potential for work
owned and shaped by communities, it can also adhere to instrumental
participation, shown by Act4Africa’s use of TfD training in chapter one.
Furthermore, the success of the UNICEF project was affected by other factors
such as time and the supervising facilitator, or TfD expert. I will explore these
points in more detail in the next section of this chapter.
85
Tarrow.
Tim Prentki, ‘Introduction to Intervention’, in Prentki and Preston, pp. 181183.
86
31
Overall, the case studies show that clear differences in aims, practices and
manifestations of TfD theory exist. However, as a methodology incorporating
a wide range of nuances in form and function, TfD perhaps owes its use in a
diverse range of development contexts to a perception that it presents:
[…] an effective two-way communication process predicated
on dialogue and genuine participation on the part of the
researchers and the researched. If properly used, it can
perhaps be a most efficacious instrument for conscientising
and enabling the masses and for propagating development
messages using the people’s language, idioms and art
forms.87
This symbiotic relationship between facilitators or development agencies and
participants is seen as ethically desirable. This is especially the case in
relation to Julie McCarthy’s analysis of TfD as a creative, accessible and
inclusive research tool for development. 88 McCarthy stresses that the
dynamic quality of theatre enables participants to contribute meaningfully to
participatory research, and to more effectively contribute to the formulation of
development programmes.
LIMITATIONS AND PROBLEMATICS OF THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT
AS AN ALTERNATIVE PARTICIPATORY PRACTICE
Participatory research methods have already been shown to be unstable in
delivering transformative participation in the previous chapter. To develop this
critique further we can look towards NUFU’s work in Malawi. Despite a fairly
enlightened stance on research approaches and a commitment to
participation in the eventual projects, participants had no ownership over the
research material produced. Consequently they had no say in how it was
interpreted by NUFU or in the resulting interventions the research shaped.
Frances Harding warns that the use of TfD methodologies to involve
communities in research risks limiting their use to more mainstream instances
87
Malamah-Thomas quoted in Mda, p.192.
Julie McCarthy, Enacting Participatory Development: Theatre-Based
Techniques, (London and Sterling, Earthscan, 2004).
88
32
of participatory practice.89 Rather than forming a space for transformative
participation, as understood by White and described in the previous chapter,
TfD can therefore fall into providing more mainstream, limited instances of
representative participation. Such practices have already been criticised in
chapter one as often requiring simple approval or disapproval on a
predetermined agenda. However, this case study shows us that even in
projects where participants are relatively free to explore issues without being
overly facilitated and guided, other problems exist. The earlier example of the
post-show discussion represented only the earliest stages of change; there
exists a risk in TfD that discussion never manifests in action. This is
especially the case when we consider the structured nature of development
programmes, where participation is usually ‘invited’. An invitation to participate
allows the ‘host’ facilitator or agency to frame how, and why, participation will
occur, and implies the host as owning resultant research. 90 This is
demonstrated by the Lungwena health research project, where despite Kerr’s
faith in NUFU’s desire to keep a low profile it was NUFU, not the inhabitants
of the area, setting the research agenda and planning intervention.
Munier and Etherton also highlight that the potential of TfD practice is
impeded by issues of time and funding, with funders usually looking for
projects to be relatively cheap to implement and to deliver results over a short
time. 91 This is visible in UNICEF’s work in Tanzania, where participants were
expected to be trained in TfD, create a product responding to research on
HIV/AIDS in their areas, and then perform and consider ways forward in less
than three weeks. After this initial period, UNICEF anticipated that they would
be able to leave the young people to continue the work with only minimal, and
infrequent assistance. Koch’s observations of the project in one village,
Msangani, makes it clear that one week of training was insufficient, and that
there was a vastly inadequate amount of time dedicated to research, data
F. Harding, ‘Introduction’, in The Performance Arts in Africa: A Reader, ed.
by Francis Harding, (London and New York, Routledge, 2002), pp. 1-27.
90 Cornwall 2008.
91 Asif Munier and Michael Etherton, ‘Child Rights Theatre for Development in
rural Bangladesh: a case study’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal
of Applied Theatre and Performance, 11, 2 (2006) pp. 175-183.
89
33
analysis and devising. Furthermore, the inadequacy of the TfD training meant
participants did not feel confident facilitating, and were often cut off by the
supervising TfD ‘expert’ who took control of the process.92 It was not
envisaged that the supervisor would have any input into future work, which
leads us to question why the supervisor did not place more focus on
participants having to work together to solve problems, allowing them to make
mistakes from which they would surely learn. It also throws the long-term
sustainability of the project into doubt, as it appears that the young people
were unable to claim ownership of the project, or the confidence to manage
future work themselves. Unfortunately, when asked UNICEF Tanzania did
not provide further information on whether this group continues to exist.
These projects demonstrate how central facilitators are to the success of
projects. In Malawi it is clear that the research project may have failed to
engage all members of the community, and to effectively reflect the
knowledge, attitudes and practices of participants if an experienced
practitioner was not present. Kerr notes how representatives of other
agencies often felt the need to intervene and ‘correct’ participants in postperformance discussions. In one such instance a member of the health care
committee for the area used a loudhailer and ‘interrupt[ed] the action to
elucidate a health moral she [felt] has not been sufficiently emphasised’.93
This limited discussion, and alienated men from the process. The women
who contributed in this particular discussion did so by simply showing
approval for the messages given by the health care committee member,
rather than contributing deeper, more personal responses. Kerr was therefore
clear that in the following performances this must not happen, and that all
individuals external to the community needed to focus on creating a space for
open discussion. This approach proved successful in opening up dialogue
between men and women, and enabled the potentially transformative
discussion between the old man, women, and the younger men in the
community discussed earlier, to take place. However, whilst the old man’s
views were met with great enthusiasm by the women in the community, it is
92
93
Koch.
Kerr 2009,104.
34
unclear whether this debate had any actual impact on changing oppressive
realities in the village. The skillfulness of the facilitator in creating safe, open
spaces for conscientisation and discussion, whilst crucial and valuable,
perhaps therefore needs to be met by a greater struggle by the facilitator to
implicate themselves in social change, especially in relation to Giroux’s
framing of educators in social change projects having this responsibility.94
This is made clearer by the ‘Silent No More’ project, where the facilitators
created an effective scheme of work for enabling contributions to the Kenyan
constitution but did not secure the environment through which participants
might ensure they were responded to. Although the resulting book, from
which I draw my analysis, presents the collective views of participants, the
use of a book written by the facilitators to engage with government is
problematic. Firstly, the use of a book to reflect their views creates distance
between politicians and young people; surely what would be more useful is
the provision of a space for young people to present, and then debate, their
ideas with the writers of the constitution. Secondly, the facilitators risk
speaking for the young people, rather than allowing the young people to
speak for themselves-directly in contrast to one of the initial aims of the
project. Therefore, whilst MFA provided a valuable experience for
participants, especially in terms of the hypothetical problem-posing elements
investigating how to deal with corruption, it is unclear how directly it allowed
them to become agents of social change. The facilitators perhaps ‘own’ the
book, and in a similar way to how NUFU owned the research and decided
how the intervention should look, decide who reads the book, where it is
distributed, and are responsible for ensuring it is read and acted upon.
This combination of factors means that the reality of TfD practice often does
not match up to surrounding expectations of empowerment and social
change. Furthermore, it is worrying that Odhiambo’s research on TfD practice
Henry Giroux, ‘Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo
Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy’,
<http://www.truthout.org/10309_Giroux_Freire> (2010) [accessed
02.03.2010].
94
35
in Kenya detailed in his book Theatre for Development in Kenya: In Search of
an Effective Procedure and Methodology,95 highlights that only 70% of
practitioners he interviewed were aware of key philosophies (such as Freirean
pedagogy) and their impact on TfD. Most practitioners felt that the use of TfD
was therefore primarily about spreading messages according to the agendas
of NGOs or the government. Even more problematically 90% of practitioners
interviewed saw TfD as simply a route of employment. This is deeply
concerning, especially when we consider the importance of the facilitator in
TfD projects. This poses the problem that whilst TfD literature and theory
provides a basis for bottom-up, transformative participation clearly linked to
community-led social change, there is a wide chasm between theory and
practice.
The projects in Malawi and Kenya, and to a lesser extent Tanzania, clearly
show the importance of TfD approaches in identifying deprivations and issues
that may otherwise have gone unspoken about. 96 However, each example
demarcates the challenges projects face in turning identification into action,
even when led by experienced facilitators. I propose that a severe limitation
exists in the underlying problematic of ownership in TfD projects, which
prevents the motivation and collective struggle required for social change. In
the ‘Silent No More’ project if participants had direct ownership of how their
views were represented, perhaps we would have seen more radical,
participant-led follow-up work. Harding’s concern that TfD work can result in
the pacification of communities seems applicable here:97 their views have
been heard, written down and the external facilitators and the agency they
work for have promised to make them heard. It is no longer their
responsibility. What impetus is there for the young people to ensure the
government listens? In UNICEF’s work, the supervising TfD practitioner did
not allow young people to own and lead the work for fear of failure, despite
95
Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, Theatre for Development in Kenya: In
Search of an Effective Procedure and Methodology, (Eckersdorf, Breitinger
Bayreuth African Studies Series, 2008).
96 Harding.
97
ibid.
36
failure, or the possibility of failure, often being where solid groups form and
take ownership of projects and where learning takes place.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has shown that TfD has potential for enabling community-led
social change, but that there are numerous challenges and gaps between TfD
theory and actual practice. TfD furthers the agenda for more people-focussed
human development projects, less interested in economic factors and
instrumental approaches and more concerned with addressing the range of
complex themes and underlying issues that lead to inequality, deprivation and
marginalisation. Prentki also makes clear that TfD has a role to play in
offering sites of collective action.98 All three case studies can be understood
to highlight TfD’s concern with the collective over the individual. This is an
important distinction; since collective movements for social change are often
more effective in meetings their aims.99 This breaks from development
perspectives and practices, including those advocated by Sen, which are
interested primarily in the individual.
However, even in projects with potentially transformative aims, these case
studies have shown how TfD allows participants to identify problems, but not
to move beyond this effectively, and include participants in solving problems.
By considering NUFU’s ownership of research, we can frame the way in
which NGOs maintain the ownership of projects as limiting the potential for
the highly specific and committed follow-up arguably needed to ensure social
change. MFA’s failure to ensure participant ownership of the process of
holding government to account also suggests that without the involvement in
wider struggles for change of those it is intended to benefit, aims are not likely
to be met. UNICEF’s work in Tanzania, and their focus on training and
sustainability raised the potential for TfD projects shaped and led by
community members themselves, which might address some of the problems
of the other two case studies. Unfortunately, this example was limited by the
98
99
Prentki ‘Applied Theatre in a Global Village’.
Tarrow.
37
approach of the supervising facilitator, and by the lack of time dedicated to the
activities. Key themes arising from this chapter, and requiring further
consideration relate to ownership, collectivism and the role of the facilitator.
As TfD usually engages with marginalised communities, I will now look to
uses of theatre initiated by marginalised communities in Kenya and Tanzania.
This will enable me to offer further insight into how these themes might be
addressed, and a re-radicalised view of participation through TfD achieved.
38
CHAPTER THREE
COMMUNITY PERFORMANCE AND COLLECTIVE
STRUGGLE IN THE MARGIN: WHAT CAN THEATRE
FOR DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICATION LEARN
FROM MARGINALISED COMMUNITIES IN TANZANIA
AND KENYA?
The previous chapter raised some key tensions in TfD practice that by looking
towards uses of theatre by marginalised communities I feel I may be able to
address. Just as the margins of a book contain insightful notations on the
main body we can learn from, so too can the margins of society reveal
interesting points of analysis that inform practice. As radical educator bell
hooks propagates, the margins can be construed as a space of radical
openness,100 with insights and ways of working that can be more effective
than mainstream society. Furthermore, since transformative participation and
TfD both seek to engage with marginalised communities, it is important to
allow such communities to shape practice and our understandings of
development. To not do so risks ignoring the voice such methodologies claim
to have at the heart of their existence.
In this chapter I will therefore draw on two uses of theatre by communities that
formed part of sociopolitical struggles: the Kamîrîîthû Community Education
and Cultural Centre (KCECC) in Kenya, and the use of ngoma, which
combines song, dance, drumming and occasionally elements of drama, by
women in the Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. I will seek to identify what
development projects seeking transformative participation can learn from
these examples, especially since the previous chapter highlighted the
limitations of TfD in linking projects and participation to action. I will follow
bell hooks, ‘Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness’, in eds.
Prentki and Preston, pp. 80-85.
100
39
several routes of inquiry in order to address the problematics of TfD as
outlined in chapter two. Firstly I will consider what these case studies might
tell us about forms of ownership and collectivism in relation to participation. I
will then discuss the efficacy of these projects in securing social change,
before moving on to consider what implications this exploration might have on
facilitators and NGOs seeking transformative participation, especially through
TfD.
KAMÎRÎÎTHÛ COMMUNITY EDUCATION AND CULTURAL CENTRE,
KENYA
KCECC began in 1975101 and intended to bring life back into a run down
community centre that had been disused for several years, 102 creating
education and training opportunities to improve villagers’ lives. It was solely
run and organised by those participating in its programmes, and from the
outset it was understood that there should be no external source of finance
and no intervention by authorities or experts that were not from the area
themselves.103 One of the major aspects of KCECC was the provision of
adult literacy classes, and the desire to link this to cultural activity. KCECC
had a difficult relationship with the Kenyan government. Two of its key
members, playwright Ngûgî wa Thiong’o and educator Ngûgî wa Mîriî were
jailed due to KCECC’s work, and later exiled, wa Thiong’o to the UK and wa
Mîriî to Zimbabwe.104 In 1982 KCECC was banned, and the community centre
demolished by the government. Their work did not continue.105
KCECC has become renowned for its use of theatre to express the views and
concerns of the community. Their first play, which I focus on in this chapter,
was entitled I Will Marry When I Want. It was written by wa Thiong’o and wa
Ingrid Bjorkman, Mother, Sing for Me: People’s Theatre in Kenya, (Zed
Books, London and New jersey, 1989).
102 Kerr 1995
103
Bjorkman
104 Odhiambo
105 ibid.
101
40
Mîriî in conjunction with the participants of KCECC and, at times, informed by
the wider community of Kamîrîîthû, who often intervened in rehearsals. 106
The play follows the fate of Kîgûûnda and Wangeci, an impoverished couple
living in a small house with their daughter, Gathoni. Their sole possession is
an acre and a half of land, which foreign investors are keen to get hold of in
order to build an insecticide factory. We see the couple succumb to the
imperialist regime, which exists as a continuation of foreign interests, upheld
by rich Kenyans exploiting the circumstances of the poor. Primarily, Kîgûûnda
and Wangeci’s compliance with the agenda of local and foreign elites is to
enable Gathoni to marry Mûhûûni, the son of rich local man Kîoi, who is also
Kîgûûnda’s employer. This requires Kîgûûnda and Wangeci to have a
Christian marriage. In order to be able to afford this, they take a loan, offering
their land as security. However, Gathoni discovers she is carrying Mûhûûni’s
baby before they have agreed to be married, he abandons her and she is
branded a prostitute. In anger Kîgûûnda threatens to kill Kîoi. However,
Kîoi’s wife intervenes, threatening Kîgûûnda with a gun. Kîgûûnda loses his
job and his land, and turns to alcohol. The play is interspersed with dance
and song, which both celebrates local culture and, especially at the end,
serves as a call for action against imperialism and for workers’ rights; the
actors singing:
ALL:
The trumpet of the masses has been blown.
SOLOIST:
The trumpetALL:
Of the workers has been blown,
There are two sides in this struggle,
The side of the exploiters and that of the exploited.
On which side will you be when
SOLOIST:
The trumpetALL:
Of the workers is finally blown?107
wa thiong’o
Ngûgî wa Thiong’o and Ngûgî wa Mîriî, I Will Marry When I Want, (Oxford,
Heinemann, 1982), p.116.
106
107
41
DONGA CULTURAL TROUPE, TANZANIA
In March 2012 I travelled to the Usambara Mountains in Tanzania and found
that ngoma was being used in the traditional, didactic ways normally
expected, covering themes such marriage and, somewhat controversially,
female sexual technique in preparation for marriage and keeping husbands
satisfied.108 However, a group of women known as the Donga Cultural
Troupe (donga being the bucket used to collect water from the well) had also
been using ngoma as both a way of spreading conservation messages and as
a tool to amplify their political voice and confront government ministers and
organisations they felt were not working to represent their interests. The
women enthusiastically recounted how they had greeted a politician who had
come to visit the area. He had primarily been elected because of his
promises to invest in tarmac roads in the area, but had not followed through
on these pledges. As Tanzanian TfD academic and practitioner Penina
Mlama109 points out, it is usual in Tanzania and many other African countries
that politicians be greeted with a celebratory song and dance. Mlama argues
these are often gratuitous, uncritical and devoid of any real meaning. 110 The
women sought to subvert this expectation; they started their performance with
the flattery typically expected, before interweaving the story of a pregnant
woman who died en route to hospital due to the poor condition of the roads
leading up the mountains. As their intention to criticise the politician became
clearer, he stood up, stopping the action and making a hasty exit. According
to the women, he has not visited the area since. Alongside these more
political uses, the women also offered their performances to mark special
occasions such as births, deaths and marriages for a fee. This enabled them
to run the group and devote the time required to devise and rehearse the
performances.
108
Edmonson
Mlama
110 ibid.
109
42
OWNERSHIP AND COLLECTIVISM
KCECC’s adult literacy sessions, run by wa Mîriî, were highly influenced by
Freirean principles. This approach enabled participants to take ownership of
the sessions, and to set their own syllabus, which was largely based on
problems facing the village. The participants’ desire to utilise theatre to
branch out to the wider community of Kamîrîîthû was clearly influenced by
this. Consequently the rehearsal and devising process for I Will Marry When I
Want similarly allowed participants to decide what themes the play would
address. wa Thiong’o sought to draw on the participants’ own life
expriences,111 resulting in a focus, among other themes, on inequality and
neo-colonial imperialism following Kenya’s liberation from British rule in
1963.112
The process enabled participants to actively see their lives and concerns
reflected back to them on the stage, enabling ownership on two important
levels. Firstly, they were able to claim ownership of a highly visible medium
that amplified their lived experiences, daily struggles and political voice.
Secondly, through their discussions and participation in ensuring the play
reflected the realities of imperialism and oppressions, they were able to
‘name’ and ‘own’ oppression in the Freirean sense. Freire believed this is
necessary for conscientisation to take place and for people to discover
themselves and shared identities and problems, resulting in collective
struggles for change.113 By sharing stories and experiences, the project may
also have reasserted the power of collectivism and struggle through cultural
forms specific to the area, such as Muthurigu, a form of dance and Gitiiro,
compared to opera.114 This is reinforced by the history of Kamiriithu, where
people used local song and dance to resist British colonial rule in the
1930s.115 Muthurigu and Gitiiro were incorporated in the performance,116
111
Kerr 1995
wa Thiong’o
113 Freire
114 Odhiambo
115 Kerr 1995
116 Bjorkman
112
43
enabling participants to contribute their own performance skills and
knowledge to the project. This meant participants had an area of expertise to
contribute, and encouraged a sense of ownership, since performance forms
that were central to, and owned by, their community were being used. This
also ensured that wa Thiong’o and wa Mîriî did not dominate proceedings,
avoiding a criticism of the power inbalances argued to be inherent in
interventionist strategies in the previous chapter.
Whilst TfD often seeks to utilise local performance forms,117 a distinction
should be made between examples such as Kerr’s work with the Norwegian
Centre for Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFU), explored in chapter two,
and their use of a professional theatre group to make theatre for the
community and KCECC, which made theatre with and by the community.118
DCT’s use of ngoma similarly shows theatre made solely by the
community.119 Therefore whilst organisations such as NUFU frame
participants solely as an audience who interacted with the piece through postshow discussion, the devising and rehearsal process of I Will Marry When I
Want implicated participants as directors, writers and actors. wa Thiong’o
claims that the process established a:
[…]collective theatre […] [that] […] was produced by a range
of factors: a content with which people could identify carried in
a form which they could recognise and identify; their
participation in its evolution through the rehearsal stages, that
is by the collection of raw materials like details of work
conditions in farms and firms; the collection of old songs and
dances […] their participation, through discussion on the
scripts and therefore the content and form; through the public
auditions and rehearsals; and of course through the
rehearsals.120
117
Manisha Mehta and others, The Theatre for Development Handbook,
(London, Pan Intercultural Arts, 2010).
118
Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, (Basingstoke and
New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
119 Sheila Preston, ‘Introduction to Representation’, in eds. Prentki and
Preston, pp. 65-69.
120 wa thiong’o, pp. 59-60.
44
It is clear that the focus of KCECC was on establishing a collective
environment through which to address issues affecting the community.
Despite encouraging participation in all areas of the production of I Will Marry
When I Want, and consequently instilling a sense of ownership among
participants, KCECC adhered to vertical collectivism. This describes
collectivist structures where despite unification and shared causes, there is
inequality in terms of power and influence within the collective.121 wa
Thiong’o and wa Mîriî, though keen to encourage participation, ultimately had
the final say on the project; they were, after all, the writers. They can
therefore be understood to have been the most powerful figures in KCECC.
In many ways this mirrors the power structures incurred by TfD projects,
where facilitators have greater power than participants, or are seen as
needing to provide some kind of leadership, at least initially. Leadership is
often viewed as important to successful social change; Freire122 and Tarrow123
advocate that social change requires some form of leadership, and each look
towards intellectuals for this leadership. Giroux is more assertive in how he
sees the role of the intellectual, claiming that they must implicate themselves
in securing the conditions through which participants can have voice.124 The
difficulty of this, as I will highlight later, is what happens when leadership is
removed.
DCT enables us to see what possibilities horizontal collectivism, where all
group members perceive themselves as having equal responsibility and
ownership of agendas for change, may hold.125 From talking to the women of
DCT it was clear that their participation in the group was on equal terms; there
was no leader setting the agenda and all decisions were arrived at collectively
through discussion. This horizontal power structure seemed to give the group
its strength; they felt no need to link into NGOs working in the area, such as
Theodore M Singelis and others, ‘Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of
Individualism and Collectivism: A Theoretical and Measurement Refinement’,
in Cross-Cultural Research, 29, 3, 1995, pp. 240-275.
122 Freire.
123 Tarrow.
124
Giroux 2010
125 Singelis and others.
121
45
the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG) and were critical of such
organisations. In particular they complained that TFCG had broken many of
its promises to inhabitants of the area, and stated that they had used ngoma
to highlight these broken promises to the rest of the community and to
express their dissatisfaction directly to TFCG when officials came to visit.
Furthermore, their horizontal approach to collectivism meant that each
member felt equally able to write songs or devise dances to present to the
rest of the group. There was no primary artistic driver behind the work, and
when leadership was required they expressed that it was far more fluid and
temporal, circulating around the group and dependant on skill-sets and
circumstance. One participant, for example, was more used to talking to
outside researchers, and so became my main point of contact. Their
collection of issue-based songs and dances represented the diversity of the
group, but also their solidarity behind common themes. They were able to
identify who had written each of the songs, or contributed aspects of dance,
and seemed supportive and encouraging of each other’s will to express their
political voice. Individuality was still important despite their collective
approach. It appeared that rather than masking individual voice this approach
strengthened it, giving visibility and strength in numbers.
Both horizontal and vertical approaches to collective activity have benefits.
The KCECC developed a high quality and extremely visible product that
reached large audiences through the leadership provided by wa Mîriî and wa
Thiong’o. However, as Ndigirigi points out, it is revealing that KCECC did not
continue once wa Mîriî and wa Thiong’o, the intellectuals in the project, were
exiled in the 1980s.126 This is concerning in relation to TfD projects, since
intervention is only temporary and the facilitators providing leadership will
inevitably leave. The departure of these leaders, or intellectuals can
destabilise the sustainability of TfD projects. In the previous chapter each
example showed how once the facilitator or agency left, communities did not
push to continue work, or to address the themes identified. Instead, in
UNICEF’s work in Tanzania we saw how the strong leadership given by the
126
Ndigirigi in Odhiambo.
46
facilitator hindered the ability of young people trained in TfD methods to run a
successful project. This caste doubt on whether the project would be able to
continue effectively. The examples of NUFU and Moving Framez Africa’s
projects show how rather than communities taking ownership of change, they
left it to NGOs to do it for them. This is not an effective strategy; especially
given concerns raised in chapter two about the lack of funding NGOs receive
for follow-up work. It is also severely limited in reference to Sen, since this
reinforces the problematic raised throughout this dissertation that whilst
freedom and participation are being practiced on the local level, they are not
being scaled-up to address the wider conditions that shape the conditions of
the microcosm. Sen’s image of a reflexive relationship between citizen and
state, founded on freedom as the process and outcome of development and
mutually beneficial to both, is therefore obscured.
Arguably, had there have been a more horizontal, equal sense of collective
leadership, responsibility and ownership KCECC’s activities may have
continued. If the same structure was applied to the case studies dealt with in
chapter two, there may also have been a more sustained involvement of
communities in processes of social change, with less reliance, expectation or
faith on facilitators and agencies to effect change on participants’ behalf. DCT
shows us how a horizontal approach allows for potentially quite risky and
confrontational work to take place. The women gained strength from each
other, and each felt able to contribute their ideas to the group.
EFFICACY
KCECC demonstrates a good level of participant ownership of I Will Marry
When I Want, which ensured participation was established at all levels of the
production. However, the process arguably operated as transformative at the
micro-level, confirming criticisms and concerns raised above. That is to say
individuals, and in turn the community, were transformed and conscientised
by their participation, and gained something to mobilise around, but that this
was unable to feed into change in the macrocosm and affect government
structures or imperialist attitudes. However, I Will Marry When I Want gained
47
a wide audience across Kenya, representing ‘…the first time in modern
Kenya’s theatre there was a play about the people, for the people and in the
people’s own language’.127 This provoked wide-spread identification with the
problems and characters represented in the play, and led to the local district
commissioner in Kimabu withdrawing the performance license on the
perceived basis that it encouraged class conflict and threatened public
security.128 Ongoing tensions between KCECC and government eventually
led to the arrest of wa Thiong’o, and later led to the exile of wa Mîriî and wa
Thiong’o as well as the demolition of the community centre, which as noted
earlier, marked the end of KCECC’s activities.
Despite not ensuring immediate concrete benefits, KCECC could be viewed
as having ‘given palpable form to a vision of Kenya’s future-a Kenya for
Kenyans, a self-reliant Kenya for a self-reliant people, a vision embodying a
communal ethos of democracy and independence’.129 KCECC’s activities
also sparked an interest in many Kenyan communities in reviving elements of
their performance cultures, resulting in numerous cultural festivals. Although
these were concerned with form and aesthetic rather than with tackling
sociopolitical issues,130 this was perhaps important for resisting imperialism
and reinstating Kenyan culture.
Participants of KCECC and the communities affected and touched by I Will
Marry When I want were therefore able to reclaim culture, but remained
unable to reshape politics immediately and in visible ways largely due to
structural issues in Kenyan democracy. The government was unwilling to
listen, and concerned that the play undermined the authority and interests of
elites not only within Kenya, but internationally. Whilst KCECC can be
criticised as not doing enough to seek radical social change and implicate
participants in such struggles, it must also be recognised that if government
127
Bjorkman, p.53.
David Kerr, African Popular Theatre: From Precolonial Times to the
Present Day, (Oxford, James Currey,1995).
129 wa Thiong’o, p.61.
130
Odhiambo.
128
48
refuses to listen and criminalises activity, effecting social change becomes
dangerous, complex, lengthy and perhaps impossible.
In contrast, the wider context of contemporary Tanzania represents a ‘safer’
environment within which to express a political view. There is less risk to
participants actively challenging government, meaning their work can continue
without fear of arrest or persecution. DCT therefore derives some of its
sustainability from the relatively stable political context of Tanzania. DCT also
used performance as a way to make money, supplementing their individual
incomes, with each taking an equal share. This also contributed to a fund to
keep their group functioning. This further reinforces the stability and
sustainability of the group, and represents another way in which the women
can benefit. From talking to villagers and workers in the surrounding villagers,
it was clear that they were seen as strong women, with several of the
members of the group earning more than their husbands through the extra
income it provided. They were viewed as role models for other women in the
community, seen to be claiming political voice and making money of their own
accord, which may have benefits that are harder to measure for the
community. One area of contention in the work of DCT is that whilst the
women’s engagement in the group clearly has great benefits to them, and has
enabled them to assertively convey their agendas for social and political
change, ngoma is a problematic form if it is to be used for development
purposes. Bourdieu, drawn on in the first chapter to describe how people
often become implicit in their own oppression, asserts that ‘the reproduction of
social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous
series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and
reaffirmed’.131 Whilst DCT did not appear to use ngoma in such a way, there
is a risk that by using forms that do not allow for deep interaction with the
issues being explored, oppressive relations may be perpetuated or left
unquestioned. In particular, Lihamba draws our attention to a key criticism of
Tanzanian traditional performance, highlighting that ‘storytelling, dance and
music not only entertained but variously underlined accepted social norms,
131
Bourdieu, p.111.
49
criticised ideas that were against conformity and confirmed the myths and
rituals of society’.132 Ngoma viewed in this way becomes less a space for
active participation and pluralist discussion, and more a site of cultural and
social reproduction. Furthermore, although it was clear that villagers enjoyed
the opportunity to participate in ngoma, the way in which participation
occurred did not allow for the interrogation of issues central to transformative
participation. Villagers rushed in to dance and sing along, but as Odhiambo
points out, participation in TfD must work to encourage:
[p]articipation [as] a conscious act and not an empty gesture
where participants are, for example, driven into frenzy,
hysteria and excitement of the theatrical moment to join the
actors in the singing and dancing of popular songs and dance
steps.133
IMPLICATIONS FOR FACILITATORS AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES
WORKING TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIVE PARTICIPATION THROUGH
THEATRE FOR DEVELOPMENT
The examples of KCECC and DCT show is that there is great potential for
communities to mobilise, and that through ownership not just of the project
being implemented, but of the issues at the heart of projects, participants are
able to drive forward radical agendas in order to address sociopolitical
inequality and oppression. However, in the case of KCECC, this process still
relied on practitioners with knowledge of alternative, participatory education
as informed by Freire,134 and practiced by wa Mîriî and wa Thiong’o. It is
problematic that despite being part of the local community, they still
represented an intellectual presence, who were overly important to KCECC;
evidenced by the discontinuation of KCECC once they were exiled. 135
However, their awareness of TfD and Freirean approaches136 proved of
Amandina Lihamba, ‘Tanzania’, in A History of Theatre in Africa, ed. by
Martin Banham, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 233246, (p.234).
133 Odhiambo quoted in Odhiambo, pp.91-92.
134 Odhiambo.
135 Ndigirigi in Odhiambo.
136
Odhiambo.
132
50
benefit to participants of KCECC. After all, without such an approach
participants may not have felt able to consider the use of theatre, or to ensure
they set the agenda and influenced the play stylistically as well as in terms of
its political and thematic content. As Kothari notes, the key benefit of an
intellectual presence in projects is that they may be able to structure ways of
working that are inclusive and participatory and that deliver desirable
outcomes.137
What remains pertinent to the development practitioner, and to the aim of this
dissertation to consider ways of re-radicalising participation in development, is
how NGOs and facilitators can involve communities in ways similar to the
KCECC and DCT. Both projects highlighted the benefits in terms of increased
participation, ownership and conscientisation of using local cultural forms and
participants’ experience and expertise to make theatre. DCT’s horizontal
collectivist structure demonstrates a form of organisation that allows for a
greater sense of ownership and participation than KCECC, and is arguably
more sustainable, since leadership is not concentrated on one or two
members. However, horizontal collectivism is perhaps difficult to achieve in
development, where so much relies on intervention from exogenous agencies,
especially in light of the potentially powerful role of the facilitator.
Both projects also highlighted the ease with which government can choose
not to listen, or the dangers of pursuing a radical agenda. This reinforced a
sense that if radical social change is to occur, then perhaps it is in fights for
wider democratic and political structural reform that NGOs might need to
implicate themselves, rather than solely conscientisation and participation on
the local level. In order for transformation led by citizens to occur Heller
outlines that several conditions usually need to be in place, these are: ‘a
strong central state capacity; a well developed civil society; and an organised
U. Kothari, ‘Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory
Development’, in eds. Cooke and Kothari, pp. 139-152.
137
51
political force, such as a party, with strong social movement
characteristics’.138
The participants of KCECC were limited by the conditions in which the
Kenyan government framed democracy during the 1970s. Gaventa believes
that NGOs looking to enable transformative participation need to reconsider
how they engage with the problematics of States that may be unwilling to
engage in calls for change.139 In particular he claims that development needs
now to concentrate on ‘awareness building on rights and citizenship; building
civil associations and social movements engaged in governance issues; and
strengthening institutions of governance at both the local and central
levels’.140 This is compatible with Heller’s analysis of the necessary
conditions for social change to occur. Furthermore, NGOs may prove useful
in such processes, since the risk presented to communities engaging in such
work would potentially be far greater than those presented to international,
professional organisations.
Heller quoted in John Gaventa, ‘Towards Participatory Governance:
Assessing the Transformative Possibiliities’, in ed. Hickey and Mohan, pp. 2541, (p.33).
139 Gaventa.
140 Gaventa, p.33.
138
52
CONCLUSION
This dissertation set out to consider how TfD could provide a reinvigorated,
re-radicalised understanding of participation in development. From this
analysis it can be seen that in order to align development projects effectively
with the desires of participants, transformative participation presents the most
stable set of practices and discourses through which to achieve this.
TfD has proven to be a useful methodology in terms of working towards
transformative participation, especially due to its potential to mobilise
collective identification and interrogation of issues. Examples such as the
health research project in Malawi show how theatre can illuminate issues and
act as a catalyst for communities confront oppressions and oppressive
members of their community. The ‘Silent No More Project’ demonstrates how
TfD can present an engaging and creative form through which to encourage
the participation of young people in legislation, as well as in experiential
learning linked to active citizenship.
However, the potential of these projects was limited by a serious lack of
follow-up work, and unwillingness by agencies to fund such work. In the
‘Silent No More’ project this lack of follow-up work with participants meant the
young people were unable to engage with ensuring their views were acted
upon, resulting in the work not reaching its potential for concrete impact. The
research project in Malawi also shows how even in projects where agencies
are committed to the long-term implementation of projects, and demonstrate a
willingness to respond directly to the concerns of participants, these intentions
are not always met. These examples, along with my own case study of
representative participation through TfD approaches in Tanzania, do little to
combat critiques that participation reinforces unequal power relations. The
power to act, to set the agenda and to pursue social change in projects that
solely concentrate on research rests in the hands of the facilitator or NGO,
and not in the hands of the participants or communities.
53
These examples, to different extents, contravene Sen’s call for bottom-up
development, since participants were not able to influence policy directly.
Chapter two also highlights that many TfD facilitators, in Kenya at least, lack
training.141 Consequently they are unaware of theories central to
transformative participation, such as Freirean pedagogy.
Funding, training, ownership and sustainability are all clearly factors that need
addressing, although working to address these factors alone will not ensure
radical, transformative participation through TfD. It is useful to look towards
examples of marginalised communities initiating and using theatre to meet
their own agendas. The Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre
(KCECC), demonstrate greater participation and ownership. This seems to
occur because of the way in which participants became ‘experts’ due to their
knowledge of local performance culture, which contributed to the piece.
Participants were consequently able to shape, reshape and comment on the
performance, ensuring it represented their experiences and conveyed the
message they wanted. Involving participants more directly in making theatre
showed great potential for conscientisation; especially since this enabled
participants to both name and take ownership of issues in their community,
and to see them reflected on stage. The same is true of Donga Cultural
Troupe’s use of ngoma for political advocacy, where it was clear that women
felt they benefited from participating in the group despite limited outcomes in
terms of actually affecting policy. There was also a wider, less tangible
benefit of both group’s uses of theatre; people were inspired and affected by
their performances. In Kenya, this resulted in communities setting up their
own cultural groups, whilst in Tanzania the women became role models,
representing strong, politicised women.
In the case studies explored in chapter two, it is evident that where theatre is
used, it is usually made for a community, rather than by or with.142 This
frames participants as recipients of a message, confined to post-show
discussions, especially shown in the Malawian health research project. A
141
142
Odhiambo.
Nicholson
54
more transformative practice might therefore occur through greater focus on
the strength of making theatre with communities.
A crucial limitation of TfD practice, and participatory development more
broadly, lies in the privileging of localised projects over wider, structural work.
This was identified by Petras in the introduction and has been a key focus
through this paper.143 Work that is overly localised limits the potential for
transformative development, as the macrocosmic factors that shape inequality
are ignored. This also limits the capacity to achieve development outcomes
as understood by Sen, which identifies a need to link individuals and
communities with policy and government; more therefore needs to be done to
address the relationship between participants, NGOs, facilitators and
government agencies.
Chapter three demonstrates two different approaches to collective activity.
KCECC worked through a vertical collectivist structure, which, as with TfD
projects, relied on leadership. Freire suggests that the intellectual interested
in social change is key to change occurring, and can provide leadership.144
Similarly Tarrow also believes leadership is key to social change.145
However, in the example of KCECC we saw how once wa Thiong’o and wa
Mirii were exiled, the community discontinued their work. This has
implications for TfD practice, where intervention is always temporal and
where, despite concerns of sustainability, not enough seems to be done to
encourage participants to take ownership of projects. UNICEF’s training of
young people in Tanzania, explored in chapter two, although deeply flawed
due to the approach of the facilitator, is an interesting example to consider
here. By focussing on training participants to use TfD for transformative
participation in their own communities, perhaps more sustainable groups can
be created. Once initial training has been delivered, such groups could also
begin to set their own agendas, responding to the needs of the communities
they are part of. Aiming to use TfD in this way might enable more horizontal
143
Petras in Pearce.
Freire.
145
Tarrow.
144
55
collectivist approaches. DCT showed how a focus on equal ownership and
participation among members created strength, unity and equal responsibility.
It also enabled each participant to contribute ideas and opinions and to have
these discussed and acted upon by a support collective.
I suggest that a re-radicalised participatory practice needs to focus on how
NGOs can implicate themselves more rigorously in the conditions given by
Heller in chapter three. These conditions highlighted the importance of strong
civil society and a strong capacity for government to legislate according to the
interests of citizens.146 This focus would, however risk further barring
communities from work at the macro-level. If such an approach is to be useful
it would therefore need to ensure that the work at the macro-level supports
micro-level grassroots work, whilst encouraging and providing space for
community participation in changing wider structures.
I have identified some of the ways in which TfD provides potential
transformative participation in development, as well as the areas that limit this
ability. However, it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to address each
theme rigorously and fully, and perhaps more importantly, consider how these
theories might appear in practice through fieldwork. More needs to be done
to consider in depth how development agencies might work to establish
horizontal collective structures, and in what ways they implicate themselves in
ascertaining the conditions that Heller states as necessary for grassroots
struggle to be effective. However, in relation to Sen, the use of theatre has
been shown to provide deep, if sometimes fleeting, moments where
participants have pinpointed issues key to the advancement of their
development and their freedom to live the kinds of lives they desire.147 TfD
can act as conscientisation and respond to Gaventa’s suggestion that more
needs to be done to raise awareness of citizenship and rights to strengthen
civil society and social movements.148
146
Heller in Gaventa.
Sen.
148
Gaventa.
147
56
WORD COUNT: 16,169
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