Global talk, local walk: Using radio drama Ninde for reshaping gender and power relations in Burundi
Main Article Content
Abstract
Gender is one of the global themes around which discourses are made, but various cultures address it in a local way. This paper aims at identifying the overarching vision of the radio drama Ninde in terms of gender and power relations as framed in selected Ninde and at examining how Ninde “authors” actualize that vision using the possibilities of the dramatic form. The empirical material on which the discourse is based is a sample of Ninde radio plays from Burundi. The paper attempts to answer this question: what do the particular Ninde narratives suggest as resolutions to the gender puzzle in the Burundian context of today? The discourse in this study is articulated on three ideas: the woman’s subjection, resistance and identities. In addition to Goffman’s idea of framing and Butler’s concept of performativity, I use the idea of change as envisioned in a proverb from two of the plays and also in the ideas of Connell (2009) to help me in reading how radio Ninde ‘visualizes’ the new gender ideology. The paper captures the vision of Ninde from the subjection of the woman, through the battle for self-assertion to the sense of gender consciousness within the modern Burundian family. The paper presents the denouement of Ninde plays, and denouement here is used as a discourse to present the different understandings of the proverb which proclaims instability and fluidity, and how Ninde reflects the home as a site to debate gender and reshape relations.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY-NC-SA) license.
You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
How to Cite
References
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex.’ New York: Routledge.
_______. (1997). Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge.
_______. (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York & London: Routledge.
_______. (2004). Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (1987). Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press.
_______. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
_______. (2009). Gender in World Perspective (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Doubleday.
_______. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, H Harper & Row: New York.
_______. (1977). The Arrangement between the Sexes. Theory and Society 4 (3): 301– 31.
_______. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Holmes, J., & Meyerhoff, M. (Eds.). (2003). The Handbook of Language and Gender. Blackwell Publishing Limited.
Kolmar, W. K., & Bartkowski, F. (Eds.). (2005). Feminist Theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Companies.
Ligaga, D. A. (2008). Radio Theatre: The Moral Play and its Mediation of Socio-Cultural Realities in Kenya (PhD). Johannesburg: University of Witwatersrand.
Mackinnon, K. (2003). Representing Men: Maleness and Masculinity in the Media. London: Arnold.
Mbogo, F. (2012). The ‘Comical’ in the ‘Serious’ and the ‘Serious’ in the ‘Comical’: A Reading of Vioja Mahakamani (Ph.D). Eldoret: Moi University.
Millett, K. (1977). Sexual Politics. London: Virago Press.
Mugambi, H. N. (2010). Masculinity on Trial: Gender Anxiety in African Song Perfomances. In Helen.N. Mugambi & T.J.Allan (Eds), Masculinities in African Literary and Cultural Texts. Oxfordshire: Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited.
Mugambi, H. N., & Allan, T. J. (Eds.) (2010). Masculinities in African Literary and Cultural Texts. Oxfordshire: Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited.
Ngara, E. (1990). Ideology and Form in African Poetry. Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya.
Nibafasha, S. (2014). Societal Construction of Masculinity and Femininity as Portrayed in Kirundi Proverbs. M.A dissertation. Kampala: Makerere University. URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10570/3405
_______. (2017). Framing Gender in Kirundi Radio Drama Ninde in Burundi. (Ph.D).
Eldoret: Moi University.
Okot, M. B. (1994). Gender Representation in Acoli Oral Poetry. Unpublished M.A. Thesis. Kampala: Makerere University.
_______. (2012). Striking the Snake by its own Fangs: Uganda Acoli Song, Performance and Gender Dynamics. Contemporary African Cultural Productions, 109-128.
Okpewho, I. (1992). African Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character, and Continuity. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Sambai, C.S. (2014). Framing HIV/AIDS and Sexuality in Television Dramas in Kenya: A Reading of Makutano Junction and Siri (PhD). Eldoret: Moi University.
Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., & Hamilton, H.E. (Eds.). (2001). Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Shirambere, M. (1984). Les fondements culturels du pouvoir dans le Burundi ancien. Mémoire, Bujumbura: Université du Burundi.
Singhal, A., & Brown, W.J. (1996). The Entertainment-Education Strategy: Past Struggles, Present Status, Future Agenda. Jurnal Komunikasi, Vol.12, 19-36.
Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (1999). Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
_______. (2004). The Status of Entertainment-Education Worldwide. In A. Singhal, M. J., Cody, E. M. Rogers., & M. Sabido (Eds.), Entertainment-Education and Social Change: History, Research, and Practice. Mahwah, New Jersey & London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Sullivan, S. (2000). Reconfiguring Gender with John Dewey: Habit, Bodies, and Cultural Change. Hypatia, Vol. 15, No. 1, 23-42. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810510 on 19-02-2016.
Tanganika, F.K. (2012). Using Radio Drama for Peace Building, Reconciliation and Trauma Healing in Rwanda: A Study of Musekeweya (PhD). Moi University, Eldoret.
Tannen, D. (Ed.). (1993a). Gender and Conversational Interaction. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
_______. (1993b). Framing in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tannen, D. (1994). Gender and Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
_______. (2005). Conversational Style: Analysing Talk among Friends. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tong, R. (2009). Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (3rd ed.). Perseus Books Group: Westview Press.
Wodak, R., (Ed.). (1997). Gender and Discourse. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.