The African Leadership Centre (ALC) is pleased to announce our next (ONLINE) research seminar on Tuesday, 27 February 2024, at 11:00 -13:00 GMT/14:00- 16:00 EAT.
The session will host a seminar presentation titled “Story-Ing the Future: An Adventure into Time’ by Dr. Mshai Mwangola.
Abstract:
This presentation showcases Orature as a contemporary aesthetic intellectual tradition which provides a pathway for research with and within communities. Orature has been defined variously in relation to the use of the spoken word in the artistic expression of knowledge, feelings, experiences, and history. Within the academy, Orature has tended to be approached as an object of study in the humanities, often with respect to the past. However, it can also be understood as an epistemological frame of engagement, emphasising aesthetic approaches to meaning-making that transcend boundaries, including within and in relation to the academy.
My work uses Story – the crafted, creative re-presentation of lived experience – to explore Orature as a research methodology. In this seminar, I will reflect on insights garnered from a case study of a transformative scenario project to catalyse discussion on how Orature can provide productive pathways for academic research, particularly in community-centred intellectual projects. Using a transformative scenario process on the city of Nairobi (Kenya) as a case study, I explore research that can be used to catalyse, create and sustain communities of action in a peacebuilding initiative.
Speaker:
Dr Mshai Mwangola, Oraturist / Performance Scholar: Artistry; Analysis; Activism
Chair:
Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko, Lecturer, African Leadership Centre, King’s College London