The Place Of Indigenous Theatre In Early Childhood Development In Ugenya Sub-County Of Kenya

ABSTRACT

Children’s righ

t to participate in cultural and artistic life is enshrined in policy documents yet

in practice, it is only considered when other basic rights have been fulfilled. Theatrical genres

in ECD are privileged mainly for their functional values rather than artis tic merits. Analyses

of literary genres dominate scholarly works with less regard for the dynamics of performance

which characterize indigenous theatre and children’s artistic culture. With a focus on Ugenya

Sub County, the study sought to analyze the plac e of indigenous theatre in ECD by

determining theatrical genres employed by children and caregivers, analyzing how children

and caregivers engaged with indigenous theatre genres and establishing factors that enhanced

or inhibited engagement with indigenous theatre. The study was guided by postcolonial

theory as advanced by, Bhabha (1994), Spivak (1990) and Said (1978). Postcolonial theory

facilitated the study in interrogating mainstream views on theatrical genres in ECD to

conform only to Western models an d literary aesthetics. This study is a descriptive study

anchored on an ethnographic research design to capture the lived theatrical experiences of

children and caregivers in ECD centres. The population of the study was children and

caregivers in ECD centr es and key informants from government departments. Single stage

cluster sampling was used to draw a sample of 33 out of 111 ECD centres: a sample of 30%.

All the children and caregivers in the sampled clusters were participants. 1,110 children were

engage d through participant and non participant observation and 78 caregivers were engaged

through FGD aided by audio visual recordings. Purposive sampling was used to identify 2

key informants from government departments who were engaged through in depth face to

face interviews. Content analysis was applied in analyzing the data which was processed by

generating categories, themes and patterns relevant to the research problem. From the

analyses, interpretations were made, gaps identified and conclusions drawn. The data was

mainly represented in narrative prose and visually displayed in tables. The findings of this

study revealed that theatrical genres depicted a wide range and dynamism in their

construction during performance thus deviating from mainstream ways regarding the

classification of theatrical genres. Strengths such as the capacity of indigenous theatre to act

in synergy with other interventions, adapt to contemporary ways and resilience in children’s

play culture were compromised by a combination of fa ctors such as poor implementation of

policies, the dominant Western, Christian narrative on ECD and the privileging of academic

curricular.