Global talk, local walk: Using radio drama Ninde for reshaping gender and power relations in Burundi

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Spes Nibafasha

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.

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Nibafasha, S. (2021). Global talk, local walk: Using radio drama Ninde for reshaping gender and power relations in Burundi. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.58256/hjlcs.v3i3.710
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How to Cite

Nibafasha, S. (2021). Global talk, local walk: Using radio drama Ninde for reshaping gender and power relations in Burundi. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.58256/hjlcs.v3i3.710

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