Re-Theorising Theatre for Development through Ghanaian Indigenous Epistemologies

Theatre for Development (TfD) scholarship has long been theorized through
frameworks derived from Western intellectual traditions, most prominently
the dialogical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the participatory performance
architecture of Augusto Boal. While these frameworks have enriched TfD
practice globally, their exclusive primacy has systematically obscured
the contributions of indigenous epistemologies, particularly from African
contexts in which TfD has been most extensively practised. Importantly,
Africa-centred scholars, including Mda (1993), Mlama (1991), Kerr (1995),
and Plastow (1996), have registered methodological and political critiques
of this imbalance; however, the deeper epistemological argument—that
indigenous Ghanaian performance traditions constitute independent
systems of knowledge production—remains underdeveloped in the literature.
This paper advances this argument. Drawing on Anansesem storytelling,
durbar tradition, the Sankofa principle, and Akan communitarian
philosophy, it makes three interrelated claims: that these traditions embody
systematic epistemological commitments structurally identical with TfD’s
core principles; that they provide a distinct methodological vocabulary for
community entry, participatory diagnosis, and post-performance dialogue;
and that in specific theoretical dimensions, particularly the relational
understanding of time, knowledge, and community action, they exceed
the explanatory reach of Freirean and Boalian frameworks. The paper
also examines the internal tensions within indigenous epistemologies
and concludes that the movement from borrowed frameworks to locally
grounded praxis constitutes a necessary epistemological decolonization.