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.