Davies, A. orcid.org/0000-0001-7421-419X, Boehmer, E. and Kawanu, Z. (2021) Interventions in adolescent lives in Africa through story. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 24 (6). pp. 821-840. ISSN 1369-801X
Abstract
This essay sets out to show how stories can help shape and change people’s understanding of their environment and how it impacts upon them. We report on how these ideas of storytelling informed a March 2020 UKRI GCRF funded Accelerate Hub workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, on narrative and adolescence in Africa, and point to related examples of storytelling interventions from elsewhere on the continent. We then explore questions that the workshop raised about the kinds of storytelling available to young people on the continent today and how understanding people’s stories is important for social policy design. The essay draws on the work of the Black Consciousness thinker and activist Steve Biko (1946–77), and of Kenyan writer and activist Binyavanga Wainaina (1971– 2019), to outline the significance of storytelling to projects of individual and collective emancipation. We build the case that there is an uneven geography of stories: that different people have different access to narrative making and therefore to self-envisioning. The essay closes by exploring how better access to infrastructures of storytelling might provide grounds for transformation in young people’s lives in Africa, and so might condition our approaches to policy intervention in African contexts. We suggest that linking storytelling, agency and social context to the field of social development and intervention can have important practical benefits for young people across Africa.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | Adichie, Chimamanda; adolescent health in Africa; Biko, Steve; Black Consciousness Movement; geographies of story infrastructure; storytelling; Wainaina, Binyavanga |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Geography (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Jul 2021 16:01 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2024 13:46 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis (Routledge) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/1369801X.2021.1931936 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175880 |
Download
Filename: Interventions in Adolescent Lives in Africa Through Story.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0