This article focuses on how ableist discourses and practices seek to "normalize" the disabled body which is deemed to be "deviant". This leads to acts of normalization that expose disabled bodies to precarity, conceived here as the lived experience of marginalization, ostracism and vulnerability. Using the case study of a…

The Laedza Batanani Project has been regarded as the pioneering experiment that paved the way for other prominent African Theatre for Development (TFD) projects such as Kamiriithu in Kenya, Murewa in Zimbabwe, Kumba in Cameroon and Marotholi Travelling Theatre in Lesotho. Laedza Batanani (1974-6) aimed at awakening the creative potential of…

In both contemporary educational and development discourse, the idea of participation is increasingly being regarded as falsely leading to an erroneous interpretation of the social construction of reality by dominant groups with the people's transformation. The strategies being deployed in the name of participation such as dialogue, giving voice,…

Most of the applied drama and theatre projects being carried out in African contexts tend to be one-off events with limited follow-up in terms of building the capacity of target communities and organising them for action. Besides bringing people together for workshops, performances and post-performance discussions, such projects simply pass by…

The prevailing tendency in applied drama and theatre research and practice in African contexts has been for both critics and practitioners to apply the Freirian educational paradigm of "codification" and "decodification" in the interpretation of their work. Guarav Desai asserts that most of the theoretical premises of applied…

An outstanding problem that has haunted most development workers in Africa has been how to effectively engage rural communities who often have no access to modern technological media like newspapers, radio, television, video and film. The tendency has been for development workers to resort to top-down or blueprint development approaches that…