PhD Theses

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Browsing PhD Theses by Subject "Africa"

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    Drama as a means of education in Africa
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1978) Leshoai, Benjamini Letholoa
    Contemporary African educators have advocated for the elimination of the colonial inherited educational models and to replace them with a system relevant to the needs of Africa. There can be met by directly referring to the entire background of her experience, particularly with reference to the system of aesthetics and pedagogy. True education trains and clients’ the senses and therefore the African background constitute the staple reference to the education of her youth. Since the African is surrounded by an artistic world, the burden of this dissertation is to illustrate through analysis and comparison and concrete examples what drama has been and still remains the most immediately effective method of instruction. True and lasting education actively involves the learner in the learning process; and drama prepares the ground, defines the goals for experimentation and eventual execution. The study embodies results of research through interviews, library and archival work in various parts of Africa, and an analysis of traditional and modern African performing arts. The subject is extensive and demands an acquaintance with the entire range of aesthetics and pedagogy on the continent. Tempting as it is to range so far and wide, this study limits the scope by focusing on those societies in Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and southern Africa of which I have personal experience and adequate knowledge. The dissertation is not a description of current practices in education, nor is it on evaluation of the role of the performing arts, but is an attempt to re-orient and re- direct creative and pedagogical endeavors so as to narrow and minimize the gap that exists between artistic expression and educational practice. Consequently, the study is structured to reflect the ideas and suggestions behind it with the purpose of stimulating a purposeful debate among practitioners of creative dramatics in education. The first chapter reflects the ideas and thoughts of African scholars seeking to Africanize education so that its content and methods will be relevant to Africa’s religious, social, economic cultural and political aspirations. The second chapter examines and analyses the literature of scholars and creative dramatics with the view to reveal their convictions and beliefs of the utility and role of drama in traditional and contemporary education. That there are similarities and differences in the African and western concepts of drama has been established therefore chapter three discusses primarily the concept of African drama and its role in the education of the youth. There is a close relationship between chapters four and five which both discuss the traditional, contemporary and transformed dramas to illustrate their use in the education of young people. The concluding chapter attempts to suggest new areas of research linked with drama. The references used in the study and the additional select biography are intended for the benefit of aspiring and practicing creative dramatists not withstanding limitations in the study, positive principles emerged from it. Drama in education develops in the child self- confidence and poise lasting education in through active participation, and the successful transformed African traditional drama has great potential in various educational programmers for those adventurous and enterprising creative practitioners.
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    Legal implications of REDD+ strategies in east Africa a comparative study on local communities’ participation
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2014) Longopa, Evaristo
    The work underscores the importance of communities’ participation in REDD+ Strategy as a means towards achieving sustainable forest management and conservation within EAC. This study is guided by the hypothesis that law is inadequate in promoting and protecting rights of local communities in natural resources management in East Africa. The study findings indicate that local communities’ participation is not effectively entrenched in some Constitutions and laws. There are no specific provisions addressing the issues relating to REDD+. The absence limits the protection of local communities’ rights in relation to REDD+ implementation. It hinders adequate protection of the Constitutional and human rights of the local communities to participate in decision making and benefit sharing mechanisms. The forest laws in Tanzania and Uganda do not cater for roles of forests in amelioration of climate change thus limiting provisions that promote local communities’ fundamental rights in climate change related projects. The enforcement of the legal provisions for local communities’ protection has bottlenecks hindering their effectiveness and efficiency. There is inadequate participation of local communities in decision making, legislative processes and inadequate benefit sharing mechanisms. This work proposes for legal reforms to overcome these bottlenecks notably strengthening of the benefit sharing mechanisms, improvement of security of tenure and effective participation of local communities as the cornerstone issues for making REDD+ law and practices most efficient and efficacious.
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    Monumental ruins, baobab trees and spirituality: perceptions on values and uses of built heritage assets of the east African coast
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2015) Ichumbaki, Elgidius bwinabona
    The cultural built heritage assets are priceless and non-renewable properties. On account of this international and national strategies have been developed to safeguard them. For instance, the legal and institutional frameworks guide how to protect the heritage assets alongside improving local people’s awareness and livelihood for sustainable conservation and management of the heritage assets. Regrettably, the implementation of such strategies in Tanzania has faced serious conflicting interests between Government conservators and local people living in and near the built heritage regarding perceptions and uses of the properties. On the one hand, the former claim the local people are ignorant of the built heritage importance and that their activities pose dangers to these assets. On the other hand, the latter maintain that the Government conservators disturb their day-to-day interactions with the built heritage landscapes including values and uses. This situation is not worthwhile for the sustainable protection of the heritage landscape within which built heritage properties and baobab trees form a part. Against this background, this thesis aimed to: historicise the built heritage of the central Indian coast in Tanzania; document the conflicting perceptions of local people on the values and uses of the built heritage properties and their surroundings; establish what local people believe on the assets and; propose interventions that would result in sustainable conservation and management of the built heritage properties alongside improving local people’s awareness and livelihood inter alia. To this end, the study employed landscape and integrative approaches to advocate compatibility of built heritage and other aspects of the landscape for the assets sustainability and socio-cultural and economic well-being of the local people. Whereas a review of documents and physical surveys were employed to gather quantitative data, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and personal observations collected qualitative data on the research problem. The results indicate that the central coast of Tanzania has a significant number of decaying built heritages close to the baobab trees. To locals, these properties and their surroundings have multiple uses ranging from being clinics to social problems, spiritual and pilgrimage centers, to providing economic opportunities that earn them income to improve livelihood. Moreover, the assets act as disciplinary centers and sites of justice. These locals’ perceptions and uses of the built heritage assets, baobab trees, and their surroundings indicate synchronous and symbiotic relationships. Such dealings are between monumental ruins and baobab trees on the one hand and spiritual practice, religious beliefs and myths on the other. The thesis argues that the dependence of local people on these properties could influence decision-making for investments and management plans to protect and use the built heritage assets and their surroundings. Towards resolving the problem of conflicting interests among the stakeholders, this thesis proposes that any intervention upon these assets including their conservation and management must, first and foremost, incorporate the concerns of local people who are forgotten all the time. Let the local people be primus inter pares–first amongst equals.
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    The nanga epos of the bahaya
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1986) Mulokozi, Mugyabuso mlinzi
    This thesis sets out to define the nanga epos of the bahaya of Tanzania as a specific example of the African oral epic.It starts from the premise that the nanga epos is an oral performance which exists only as a momentary esthetic event, not as a fixed, permanent text. As such, its occurrence, its content, and indeed, its final is ultimately determined by the social-historical and performance context. The interaction between this con-text and the content and formal aspects of the verbalization of the epos gives us three sets of epos characteristics namely; the contextual characteristics, the content characteristics, and the formal characteristics. The contextual characteristics operate at two levels; the macro-contextual level and the micro-contextual level. The macro-context is the social-historical situation pertaining to the origination and subsequent performances of a given epos. For feature acknowledges the primary role of non-literary factors in defining the nanga epos. For instance the very existence of the nanga epos tradition cannot be divorced from the rise of the Bahinda/Ba-bito aristocracy in Buhaya-Karagwe; the tradition was sustained through the warring activities and patronage of that aristocracy. The decline of the traditional social set-up. These historical realities also dictated its functions in traditional Buhaya societies. The micro-context pertains to the immediate performance situation and needs. The central features of this level are the interaction between the bard, the audience, and the social setting on the one hand, and between the text and the musical setting on the other, it is from this interaction that the nanga epos derives much of its poetic quality and impact. The content of specific epos is likewise dictated and demarcated by the macro-contextual and the performance factors. The subject matter of most nanga derive from the social-historical struggle and processes dating from the time of the Bachwezi (13-14th centuary) to the present. The process of political centralization and its antithesis; the clan and plebeian resistance, that accompanied the changes in the modes of production and the corresponding economic relations, is featured directly or indirectly in the majority of the epos.The subsequent degeneration of the ruling classes, culminating in the rise of new ruling lineges in Kyamutwala and Kiziba in the nineteenth century, is also featured in the nineteenth century epos. These social-political themes are ingeniously blended with sub-themes of a more personal nature, revolving around such existential problems as love, jealousy, the meaning of life, and problem of death and immortality. The bardic per-spectives on these issues are informed by a traditional materialistic world view.The nanga epos are thus more than fiction, they are more that myth and legend, the nanga epos are also history. They contain valuable historical data and they symbolically depict historical process.The nanga conceptualization of the hero and heroic is likewise determined by the social- historical but human, mighty but vulnerable. He lacks divine pretensions, and is not guided by the hand of destiny He can therefore only triumph by employing the tried traditional weapons, namely; his own physical and mental might, occult science and the support of his community. The formal characteristics are determined by the interaction between context and verbalization. The nanga epos derives its structure from the traditional narrative pattern it thus has a unified plot, whose lowest narrative unit is the topes, and whose highest unit is the story, within this narrative framework the utterances are verbalized through a generative process that has two interacting and inter- related levels- the preverbal and the verbal. The pre- verbal level consists of a frame of reference called a Gestalt which branches into numerous core-ideas (formulas) and core-vignettes (topes). These are in turn realized during performance as all forms and allotropes. This process is facilitated and influenced by the musical setting The musical setting has three elements; the instrumental music produced by the nanga zither, the vocal music produced by the bards voice and occasionally the audience and the percussion sounds (e.g. clapping) produced by the bard and/or the audience. These musical elements serve as poetic devices narrative markers, or content reinforcements. The musical setting interacts that constitutes the poetic experience of nanga performance. The other important poetic element of the nanga epos is the imagery is highly developed; it derives from the history environment beliefs and prejudices of the Bahaya as well as the whole gamut of their oral arts and traditions. Two types of imagery-metaphor and allusion, demonstrates how this features operates in the poetry. One obvious characteristic of the metaphors is their association of pastoral images, especially cattle and the wildlife, with heroism, manhood and the aristocracy and their association of aquatic and agricultural images with womanhood. The complex structure of the metaphors, with many layers of meaning, both denotative and connotative, testify to the artistic accomplishment of the nanga bards within their tradition Finally all these features, plus the presence of other literary and non-literary genres in each epos go to characterize the nanga epos as a multi generic, multi functional genre that is truly the encyclopedic art form of the Bahaya
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    Orality in ngũgĩ’s devil on the cross, matigari and wizard of the crow
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2015) Lema, Emmanuel Penion
    This study examines the progressive use of orality in Ngũgῖ waThiong’o’s three novels: Devil on the Cross, Matigari and Wizard of the Crow. The novels under spotlight are picked because they technically belong to a third phase of Ngũgῖ’s writing career, a phase characterized by Ngũgῖ’s mission to revive Gikũyũ oral traditions and create an authentic African novel by embedding orality into literacy. Orality in this study is looked at as a narrative framework informing the entire compositional thrust of the stories. Oral materials are however, considered to have been used only in relation to the oral narrative energy behind them during their execution. The exercise is subjected to voices speaking in the texts, performers of the stories and how the performances are taking place and how the audiences are engaged in the stories. The study begins by setting an argument on Ngũgῖ’s case by showing that the process of interplaying orality with literacy is not new in Africa and it did not start with Ngũgῖ. The study has noted that, Ngũgῖhas successfully managed to trade in two different cultures: African oral and Western literary traditions. The three novels are orchestrated on performance and they exhibit to have their roots in and take their lives from gῖkũyũ oral traditions whichprovide life to the three novels at the levels of inspiration, composition and transmission. Orality is not undermined by literacy or writing rather the two compliment each other since literacy is used to revive gῖkũyũ oral traditions as well as to folklorize global issues and push Ngũgῖ’s thematic agenda inthe novels. The study therefore, argues that three novels can be looked at as a triad of Ngũgῖ’s novels displaying his progressive use of orality as a narrative framework for the narratives as well as his continuous narration of aparable about Kenyans’ post-independence struggles.