In your hands (Ezandleni Zakho): A theatre-based approach to engaging embodied indigenous knowledge towards collaborative social action

This article describes an adaptation of forum theatre as it was reimagined to guide collaborative participatory research into gender-based violence in an Indigenous South African rural community. While Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed and its variants form the core of this approach, the integration with other narrative techniques and the cognitive A-B-C model makes this amalgamated method a powerful research tool that allows for community-driven collective exploration of possible paths, mechanisms or links to specific social issues. In many cultures, the creative arts have long been integral to expression of values, emotions, folklore and Indigenous ways of knowing, thereby giving important and sometimes visceral insights into societies. Social scientists, anthropologists, and behavioural scientists have found performative expression provides a deeper and broader scope in conjunction with the spoken word. Likewise, arts-based approaches involving group participation, particularly when collaboratively co-created, can be used for inquiry, comprehension, and interpretation of social phenomena. Storytelling through traditional practices such as dances, acting, ceremonies, and crafting are powerful tools that transmit ancestral wisdom, and social values. These activities encode collective memory and identity and are powerful in communicating and healing from historical and intergenerational trauma, particularly in contexts with colonial pasts. Through facilitated theatre, participants are able to engage in conscious and unconscious expression of themes while in role. The non-verbal postures promote deeper mindful engagement in the communication of embodied experiences and knowledge.