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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. 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