Anatomy of Contemporary Storytelling: Performing National Culture in Kenya
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Date
2018-10
Authors
Gaita, Murimi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Journal of Law, Humanities & Social Science
Abstract
Throughout time, performance has been the domain of celebrating the process of
being and becoming by rejecting, affirming and consolidating identities and cultures. This
article argues that contemporary storytelling performances in Kenya can be viewed as a site
for the construction of national culture and identity. Postcolonial theory, used in this article,
engages dominant discourses in its endeavour to give credible representation to the colonial
subject within situations of unequal power relations. Moreover, the theory’s critique of
Western pretensions of the universality of knowledge which results in recovery of submerged
knowledge systems from the margins enables the article to revive such concepts such as
‘national culture’. Consequently, this exploration attempts to examine how culture is created
when opportunities for its deliberate construction avail themselves through the performance
of contemporary storytelling. Logically, in constructing national culture, contemporary
storytelling negotiates postcolonial interventions in the search for coherence, stability and
control of this mode of expression and communication. This is observable in the innovative
communicative strategies of storytelling in terms of management, organization, production
and performance. The findings arise from fieldwork research conducted in Kenya between
2004 and 2007 which sampled performance of contemporary oral storytelling in commercial,
corporate and educational institutions (the chief performers are the youth) with a view to
determining how national culture is created, negotiated and perpetuated.
Description
A Research Article in the International Journal of Law, Humanities & Social Science
Keywords
National Culture, Contemporary Storytelling, Performance, Performing Space, Post-Colonialism
Citation
Murimi Gaita (2018): ‘Anatomy of Contemporary Storytelling: Performing National Culture in Kenya’ International Journal of Law, Humanities & Social Science © Volume 2, Issue 6 (October 2018), P.P. 16-28,