The Struggle for Space : Youth Participation in 'Ngoma' groups in Globalizing Tanzania

This study is an attempt to answer the question how young people use ngoma to gain access to space based on the main argument that they are denied access. Consequently, youth use ngoma to search for alternative space. Striving to achieve this, the study uses field data collected between July 2011 and January 2014 from young people in ngoma groups, audiences, teachers and theatre professionals from both Iringa and Dar es Salaam. Focus group discussions (FGD), participant performing researcher (PPR), questionnaires, documentary review and key informants interviews (KII) were the methods chosen for collecting data. Moreover, the concepts of globalization, gender, authenticity, hybridity, space and participation are used to unpack the findings of this study. What is significant in this thesis is how young people are portrayed in this study. Many of the previous studies carried out on youth present youth negatively as victims, stubborn, violent, perpetrators and pathologies who require state intervention (Tienda and Wilson2002: 8). Worse still, their trivial position socially, economically, politically and culturally, which cause them to behave the way they do is often unmentioned. This is why this study devotes one of its chapters to bringing to light the predicament young people encounter in all dimensions of their lives. To accomplish this, the study begins by exploring literature from diverse sources about youth in Tanzania. Information from the literature is then put together to give a wider picture of youth in all dimensions of their lives. As for politics, from the literature the study argues that Tanzanian youth are denied access to political space. Since independence most of the political positions are still in the hands of wazee (older people) whereas the little amount of space left for the youth is constantly occupied by watoto wa vigogo (children of big-shots). As result, youths’ voices are neither heard nor incorporated in the national agenda. All decisions about matters which affect their lives are often made without their input. Economically, the study reveals the deprived state of youth financially. From the literature gathered about youth, the vulnerability and hopelessness of Tanzanian youth in the national economy is made clear. In cultural terms, the study shows how young people are thought of as transgressors of national culture, whose intention is more about corrupting culture rather than constructing it. Scholars like Bayat and Konig (2005: 60) insist on a change of attitude from viewing young people pessimistically as a threat to the development of culture to viewing them as active agents and ambassadors of their culture. Their creativity should be regarded as renewing culture from within and its purpose is to modify culture to suit their changing realities rather than demolishing it. Turning attention to the findings, the study has demonstrated almost similar results to those explored in the literature above. The findings have shown that Tanzanian youth are denied space, and so they use ngoma as a gateway for alternative space. As a political pursuit, ngoma seems to be used by youth to challenge hypocrites and corrupt leaders, who have been elected to work for the country’s good, but because of their greed they use their positions to indulge in corruption. Apart from using ngoma to fight corruption, young people appear to use ngoma to reclaim for their rights as citizens who entitled to all civil liberties. Not only do youth reclaim their own rights, but also the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves such as children, wazee (old men and women), prisoners and pregnant women. Bellino (2014: 4) reveals that no matter how tricky the participation is, taking part in politics makes youth feel that they have regained a sense of control over their lives. Young people are not always opposed to the government, as the study noted that they are sometimes supportive, especially regarding issues they consider make sense of their lives and the lives of many. The developmental policies young people appeared to support ranged from those aimed at the environment and health, to education and the like. Another issue appearing in this study is that of young people using ngoma as social space through which they share their private lives which would be difficult to do otherwise. Jansen (2010: 10) reveals “Tanzania is a patriarchal society which does not offer room for young people to discuss their private lives with parents.” The study shows how young people use ngoma to serve this end. Matters like new and broken relationships and dilemmas relating to their health, including pregnancies, are all shared in ngoma groups. Hopefully, possible solutions are found. Subira, for example, who at the time this study was carried out had a three-month-old baby, claimed the first people to share her condition with were friends from the ngoma group. Being aware of her condition, these friends gave her whatever support was within their reach. She added that these friends gave her a great deal of social and emotional affection without which she would have suffered a lot. At this point the study argues that although ngoma groups have emerged as ‘youth’s own space’ through which they engage in discussion about their private lives, something more has to be done about this. The study revealed that some of the issues young people share with friends in groups are so sensitive that they require parents’ intervention. A portrait of young people as individuals who use their initiative to regain access to denied economic space is another matter covered by this thesis. The study shows how young people use ngoma to gain financial power, which in turn helps them to fulfil their dreams and goals. For instance, Mzuri’s dream was to marry and establish his own family, and this came true through his commitment to the ngoma group. The self-help scheme known as Vikoba is also elucidated by this study and how it enables youth to regain financial control. In addition, the study shows how young people use ngoma in times of social and economic downturns. As for culture, what is new in this study is the way in which youth are displayed as active participants in and producers of national culture. The study demonstrates how young people use ngoma groups to reinvent ngoma performances which later assist them in establishing unique identities and furnishing them with ownership and control of their culture. Forging space in the production of culture, youth steadily transform their status from being passive receptors of adults’ culture into active agents and owners of society’s culture. Lumumba youth, who reinvented the style of blowing a whistle through their nostrils, claimed ownership of the style, for they alleged it was reinvented by them. Being able to claim ownership, ngoma can best be described as a platform that offers the possibility of redistributing power from adults to the youth. Despite ngoma emerging as a solution to young people denied space, the study brings to light several challenges young people often come across as they foray for space via ngoma. The study underscores that the low status of a dancer, donors’ challenges, theatrical infrastructure, apolitical stance, the use of intoxicating substances, gendered participation, dilemma of the English language, educational structure, diminished number of social events and the explosion of the media are the things that challenge youth in their endeavour for space. The study argues that the low status of a dancer, as mentioned above, is due to the myth that dancing is a career that can be pursued by anyone, unlike nursing or engineering. Being a dancer is perceived as normal, and so there is nothing special about being a dancer. Donors are one of the matters raised in this study. This is particularly the case of youth whose groups operate under the umbrella of NGOs. The study underscores the pressure from donors and how it impacts young dancers’ venture for space. The lack of theatres and halls for rehearsing in is another concern of this study, which shows how theatres owned by the government are turned into bars, whereas Mikole trees used for ritual dances are given to investors. Alongside this, the study reveals that to hire the proscenium theatre, which was built by president Kikwete to fulfil his promise of creating thousands of jobs for the youth, is unaffordable. Accordingly, it is hardly used by the youth, but is used by those who can afford to pay the charges, most of whom are older people, including government officials and affluent individuals. Government officials use it for their meetings, while the affluent use it for weddings, parties and the like. Gendered participation is another issue raised in this study. The study reveals that while female dancers taking part in ngoma is regarded as advocating sexual promiscuity, to male dancers, ngoma is viewed as a woman’s career and a metaphor for homosexuality, all of which deter young people from taking part in ngoma. In line with this, the use of intoxicating substances is another issue the study came across. Through PPR it became obvious that some of the youth use intoxicating substances to combat the plight of inadequate rehearsals and performance anxiety. Young people, who were against their fellows’ behaviour of using intoxicating substances in ngoma performances, equated it with their lack of seriousness, because some youth fail to make a distinction between leisure and work. Another distinctive finding of this study is the global influences on Tanzanian ngoma performances performed by young people. The study explores the global influences on musical instruments, ngoma movements and songs, costumes, make-up, props and organization of the groups. The overall observation was that globalization has caused cultures to come into contact with one another. Dynamics like media, migration, and recorded music appear to facilitate cultures in one corner of the world to influence cultures in another corner of the world. Nevertheless, the way cultures influence one another seems to be asymmetrical. A trend shows clearly that cultures of the global north influence cultures of the global south. In a country like Tanzania, where TV stations produce only 20 percent of the programmes, whereas 80 percent of the programmes are imported from transnational television stations such as CNN, BBC, and Deutche Welle, to name just a few, such an imbalance is bound to have an influence (Ekiström 2010: 168). An offshoot of depending heavily on transnational TV stations is that Tanzania has been labelled a passive receiver of global culture rather than an active contributor. The diminishing number of social events, such as funerals, weddings and initiation ceremonies, which were initially used as primary sources from which material for ngoma was drawn, has made matters worse. This thesis makes a significant contribution to an appreciation of ngoma as ‘youth’s own space’, which enables them to regain access to denied space. Given the fact that young people are portrayed in this study as creative actors and heroes who search for alternatives without shattering the peace, this can serve as a mechanism for transforming society’s perception towards youth as trouble makers and perpetrators, to gifted and innovative individuals, who require space to prove their potential. By giving space to young people, Tanzania may hopefully benefit from its demographic bonus.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Bayreuth

Year

2015

Author dc:creator

• Sanga, Daines Nicodem

Contributors dc:contributor

• Khamis, Said Ahmed

Repository record source_url

https://epub.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/2655/

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:epub.uni-bayreuth.de:2655