East African Stories of Love: Challenging Cultural Perceptions Brendon Briggs BA (Hons) in Media Studies This dissertation is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Murdoch University, December 2019 College of Arts, Business, Law & Social Sciences Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. In addition, I confirm that the fieldwork conducted for the purpose of this thesis was approved by the Human Ethics Committee at Murdoch University. Permit Number: 2014/016. Permit Title: Romancing Authenticity: East African Stories of Love. Brendon Briggs ii Abstract In recent decades a call for ‘outsiders’ to cease the dominant practice of perpetuating negative stereotypes of Africa and African people has continued to grow (Achebe 1977; Adichie 2009; Asante 1988; Diop 1974; Mudimbe 1988; Mwenda 2007; Wainaina 2008). The demand is in response to the homogenising of the fifty-four African nations and their complex sociocultural relationships into a sustained colonial perception of ‘Otherness’. This creative arts PhD attempts to answer that call by challenging non-African normative expectations of Africa and Africans. It employs processes of participatory autoethnography (Conquergood 1985) that integrate autobiographical and fictional storytelling to create four ‘stories of love’ with the diverse collaboration of eight East African participants in Tanzania and Zanzibar. The research is structured to achieve its creative praxis goals through the ‘observer and observed’ experience (Robson and McCartan 2016), utilising individual and collaborative ‘workshops’ with participants whose fictional characterisations were fully informed by their personal experiences with the subject of love – and most specifically those of ‘romantic love’ (Singer 2009; Solomon 2006). The resulting creative output, complementing the exegetical approach of the thesis, is a literary work (prose treatment) that reveals complex, multidimensional characters who portray nuanced and universal experiences of love. Throughout the dissertation attention is directed towards the rights and experiences of the human subjects as creative participants. Hence, this self-consciously, outsider-generated project undertakes an exegetical examination of the creative experiences informing the participatory storytelling model, its application of important methodologies (Pitts and Miller-Day 2007; Way, Zwier, and Tracy 2015) and the subsequent character and story evolution. iii Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................. 8 Methodology Overview: An introduction to the creative process ..................... 14 Important Parameters ......................................................................................... 20 Presentation of the Dissertation.......................................................................... 25 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 28 Section One. “Africa”: The creation of a character ................................................... 29 Millennia of “Africa”: The creation of a character ............................................ 30 A Self-Reflexive evaluation: The creation of my “Africa” ................................ 51 Broken Pumps and Second-hand Clothes: The call in practical terms .............. 52 Conclusion: Renegotiating the present ............................................................... 55 Section Two. Ethics and Morals: The (anxiously) self-reflexive outsider................. 57 Moral Map: Charting the researcher’s narrative turmoil ................................... 59 The Self-reflexive Narrative Journey Begins ..................................................... 65 Moral Dilemmas ................................................................................................. 74 Seeking ‘Permission’: Discovering a localised ethical/moral process ............... 91 Conclusion: Reflexive critical awareness .......................................................... 94 Section Three. Evaluating the Participatory Project Model ....................................... 97 The Pre-Participatory Stage: Localising agency ................................................ 99 The Participatory Stage: Finding character and love ....................................... 127 The Story Editing Stage: The observer as co-author........................................ 185 The Group Focus Stage: A final return to the participatory ............................. 197 Conclusion: Life directing story ....................................................................... 205 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 210 References ................................................................................................................ 215 Appendices ............................................................................................................... 243 Appendix 1. Creative Work: Prose Treatment, East African Stories of Love .. 243 iv Table of Figures Figure 1. Moral Mapping of Performative Stances Towards the Other ..................... 60 Figure 2. Map of Tanzania and Unguja Island, Zanzibar ........................................ 103 Figure 3. Map of Maasai Country ............................................................................ 115 Figure 4. Stage Model of Participant-Researcher Relationships ............................. 136 v Acknowledgements There are two groups of people who absolutely must be thanked first. The local team of people across Zanzibar, Tanzania, and Rwanda who gave their expertise, experience, and time to this project and to me. I learned more from all of you than any book or lecture could ever offer. And the eight participants who gave their unrelenting trust to this stranger from Australia and to the team of East African strangers he had collected along the way. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The stories would end before they begin without you and your willingness to trust – to open your lives to me. I am grateful to all who took part in and supported this project along the way. There are enough names for the Acknowledgements Section to fill a book in its own right. To everyone I am so very thankful. I hope that this dissertation and any works that follow it are worthy of your contributions. Thank you, Associate Professor Mick Broderick, for sticking with me through thick (jungles) and thin (writing) and for steering some of my more ambitious ideas back into a mostly achievable venture. Thank you, Dr Martin Mhando, for bringing Africa into focus during my undergraduate studies and for all the help and guidance you provided when the project moved to Tanzania and Zanzibar. To my friends and family: I am immeasurably grateful for your love and support throughout the PhD and the two- year medical drama that almost derailed it. A carefully worded appreciation to Carmel Forrest, my aunty – to whom anyone reading this document owes a debt of gratitude for her excellent copy-editing and proofing skills. And a final special thanks to Robert and Margaret Briggs – my ever-supportive mum and dad. You taught me to care about my fellow human beings. This project exists because of the kindness and love you fashioned in me. vi Note: Accompanying this dissertation is the Creative Work: Prose Treatment, East African Stories of Love (refer to Appendix 1). It is recommended that it is read after Sections One and Two of the dissertation. The reader will be reminded of this in the opening of Section Three, where an exegetical analysis of the participatory creative process that led to its creation takes place. vii Introduction Shortly before beginning this PhD candidature, my approach as an academic- practitioner was forever changed by a call for ‘outsiders’ to cease the dominant practice of perpetuating reductive stereotypes of Africa and Africans (Achebe 1977; Mwenda 2007; Wainaina 2008). This creative arts dissertation attempts to answer that call by challenging non-African normative expectations of Africa and Africans. The project involved an autoethnographic exploration of collaborative storytelling with a cohort of eight East Africans: four male, four female, from the age range 10- 70, residing in (but not necessarily native to) a variety of regions of mainland Tanzania and the islands of Zanzibar. The work produced is based on the contingencies of travel, the PhD candidature, informed consent, government prohibitions, the input of community leaders, the participants themselves, and the local team working with me. The resulting creative output, complementing the exegetical nature of the dissertation, is a novella-length prose treatment that reveals complex, multidimensional characters who portray nuanced universal ideas and experiences of love. My role as a creative intercontinental academic-practitioner positioned the project’s approach as both a creative ‘experiment’ and a self-reflexive exploration of the act of cultural intermediating (Santos 2004). Via its participatory model, the project looked to harness ‘participatory action research’ (Chevalier and Buckles 2019) to achieve its objective of a non-reductive cultural-mediation resulting from a self-reflexive,
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