Department of Creative Arts

Permanent URI for this collection

https://repository.udsm.ac.tz/handle/123456789/32

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 67

Some Problems of Child-Rearing In Tanzania: A Contribution to the International Year of the Child (Iyc)
(1979) Mlama, Penina O.
This paper discusses the history of child-upbringing practices in Tanzania and how these have changed with the historical changes that the country has undergone. After a look at the pre-colonial societies where child-upbringing was a collective responsibility of the society, the paper shows how this pattern changed with urbanization and individualisation of society through colonial days to the present. The author comes to the conclusion that the breakdown of that collective child-upbringing is at the root of the social problems that face the children, and that it also has laid unnecessary burdens on the biological parents She poses the question as to whether there is anything that can be done to restore this collective responsibility, even though it will not be in its original form. But the author also notes that no substantial changes can be made to the existing situation without altering the socio-economic conditions in the society at large. Notes.
Digubi: A Tanzanian Indigenous Theatre Form
(1981) Mlama, Penina O.
The Performing Arts And Development
(1985) Lihamba, Amandina
This paper tries to link two dynamic processes which exhibit a dialectical relationship. Development means changes, a re-alignment of forces to improve man's lot and enable him to come to full realisation of himself. It aims at his total freedom through the exploitation of his powers and potential, a historical process which is economic, political and cultural. All man's activities are manifestations of growth or retardation within the process of development. The perfoming arts, dance, mu&ic and theatre, are cultural activities which contribute towards and at the same time manifest socio-economic development. These are social historical phenomena which embody man's expressive capacity at each moment of his development. An understanding of the proper role of the performing arts, therefore, calls for an analysis of these elements not only as political and ideological phenomena but as aesthetic processes as well.
Tanzania's Cultural Policy and its Implications for the Contribution of the arts to Socialist Development
(1985) Mlama, Penina O.
Art has always been an important tool for man's socio-economic development. Man of the pre-scie'ftific age, for instance, discovered how to use dance and music, as well as masks, in rituals that he hoped would bring rain and improve his crops or game.1 Art was, to him, an effective medium of communication with the supernatural powers which he believed controlled some aspects of his well-being
Health and The African Theatre
(1986) Lihamba, Amandina
This article explores the representation in performance and theatre of three contrasting approaches to our understanding of disease causality -- explanations that invoke material and non-material forces in a traditional cosmology where all phenomena are interrelated, contemporary biomedical explanations that situate causation in material forces alone and that isolate individual responsibility, and socialist explanations that seek underlying economic and political causes of community ill health. Written by an active performer, the article is based on her observation of workshops and performances, on interviews, published and unpublished reports, and an analysis of contemporary plays by Soyinka, Hussein and Muhando. Different approaches to health, disease and cure are reflected in different infrastructures created to deal with them, which are informed by political, economic and social structures and attitudes. These attitudes and structures find expression within general culture and within specific cultural expressions such as theatre. This paper looks at attitudes towards health, disease and cure manifested in traditional and contemporary African performances. It is argued that traditional performances reveal attitudes that arise from an understanding of interrelationships among universal phenomena, whereas most contemporary theatre carries attitudes that have a limited socio-political framework or that remain symbolic representations of interrelationships.
Lauluja Tansaniasta [Songs from Tanzania]
(1996) Sanga, Imani
How is art and art education relevant for the construction of a Tanzanian national cultural identity within the context of a hegemonic globalism?
(University of Alberta, 1998) Mwenesi, Leonard Charles
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq29084.pdf
African Perspectives on Programs for North American Students in Africa: The Experience of the University of Dar es Salaam
(2000) Mlama, Penina O.
The University of Dar es Salaam' has a long history of links with universities in different parts of the world. Cur- rently it has formal link agreements with 61 universities in Africa, Asia, and Europe, including 12 in North America (11 in the United States and 1 in Canada). Seven out of the 12 include student exchange at undergraduate or graduate levels. These universities include Carleton, Brown, Connecticut, Hampton, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina (Chapel Hill), uni- versities in the consortium of American Lutheran colleges, and a number of others organized under the International Stu- dent Exchange Program (ISEP) and the International Recip- rocal Student Exchange Program (IRSEP).
Popular Theatre and Development‐Challenges for the Future: The Tanzanian Experience
(Taylor and Francis, 2002) Mlama, Penina O.
Popular Theatre or Theatre for Development created much excitement in the 1970s and 1980s. Theatre practitioners all over Africa were attracted by the potential in Popular Theatre to effect qualitative grassroots participation in the development process. Various versions of Popular Theatre were put into practice in the rural areas of Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania. These practices have been extensively documented in a number of studies including Kidd (1979), Kamlongera (1987), Eyoh (1986,1991), Kerr (1981), Mlama (1991), Abah (1994), Bakari and Materego (1995).
Gender Equity in Commonwealth Higher Education: Emerging Themes in Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Uganda
(2004) Gunawardena, Chandra; Kwesiga, Joy; Lihamba, Amandina; Morley, Louise; Odejide, Abiola; Shackleton, Lesley
This paper is based on interim findings from a research project on gender equity in higher education in Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. The project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and co-ordinated by the Centre for Higher Education Studies at the University of London Institute of Education, is investigating interventions for change in relation to access, curriculum transformation and staff development. It is also searching and analysing published and unpublished literature from low-income Commonwealth countries on gender equity. Themes are emerging in the research. These include the international policy drivers for gender equity, representation of women in senior academic and management posts; access as a redistributive measure, gender violence, organisational culture, micropolitics and the gendered division of labour in academia. There are concerns about the current distribution patterns of women in universities as students, academics and managers and the qualitative experiences of women in Commonwealth universities. The research project offers the opportunity to gain comparative insights across the Commonwealth. It aims to contribute to multilateral dissemination and scholarship in an area that has not been traditionally researched.
Pressure from within: the Forum for African Women Educationalists
(2005) Mlama, Penina O.
The provision and quality of girls’ education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have attracted increasing attention over the past decade. The World Conference on Education For All (EFA), held in Jomtien in 1990, set the year 2000 as the target for reaching its goal. The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), created as a response to this challenge, has been at the forefront of promoting girls’ education on the continent. This chapter illustrates how FAWE has proceeded to fulfil its mandate, the challenges that it has faced, and the crucial role played by partnerships in the implementation of its programmes.
Road User Education and Road Safety in Tanzania
(Utafiti Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UDSM, 2005-12) Mwenesi, Leonard Charles
People have to work so as to get the means to enable them to live a meaningful life. Central to this human action for survival there is movement from place to place and most frequently than not such movement uses the road. Motorized and non-motorized vehicles use the road to transport people and their goods. However, this so dependable road is increasingly becoming unsafe to use. The vehicles that ply along roads are more and more involved in accidents that cost many innocent lives. In Tanzania, traffic accidents are on the increase and the lives of road users are endangered. To project some sense of the impact of such accidents in Tanzania, the paper looks into some available key statistics that help to portray a meaningful picture concerning the growing impact of road traffic accidents in the country. Towards the end, the paper attempts to relate the frequent occurrence of fatal road traffic accidents with peoples’ sufferings and the possible perpetuation of poor health, unfavorable living conditions and poverty among the victims, their relatives and the nation at large. In this way the growth of the national economy is also retarded. The paper ends by emphasizing the need for concerted and in-depth research into the possible causes of road traffic accidents in the country Hence, among other things, the paper’s special contribution is on emphasizing the need for proper knowledge on the place, essence and meaningful use of road traffic signs. This knowledge is not comprehensive within the Tanzanian community. Proper road sign interpretation and correct instantaneous response to road sign communication is essential for serving lives and property. Due emphasis is thus directed towards proper design and installation of relevant and meaningful traffic signs that is to be followed by scientific and comprehensive public education. Public education needs to be centered on the meaningful understanding of road traffic signs and proper use of the roads and the vehicles that ply along them.
The Challenges of Affirmative Action in Tanzanian Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
(Elsevier, 2006) Lihamba, Amandina; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie; Shule, Lucy
This article discusses affirmative action programmes introduced and designed to increase female students' enrolment at the University of Dar es Salaam. The assessment of the interventions is made within the context and perceptions of their implementation. A key finding of this study is that affirmative action programmes have succeeded in increasing female enrolment generally and in traditionally male-dominated specializations such as Engineering, Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics specifically. For example, as a result of affirmative action female enrolment in the Faculty of Science rose from 16% in 1996 to 27% in 2003/2004 and from 7% in 1996 to 13% in 2003/04 in the Engineering Faculty. However, as this article shows, there is much more to gender equity than just numbers. Qualitative factors such as participation in academic life as students or staff within and outside the classroom, the living environment, pedagogy and institutional micro-politics continue to pose challenges for gender equity and equality. Limitations in programme scale, infrastructure and resources also raise important questions regarding the sustainability of these affirmative action programmes. Therefore, while affirmative action can be seen as positive efforts to offset a historical imbalance, it still is confronted with and opens up new debates on privilege and discrimination amidst concerns with sustainability in a third world context.
Rock Art and The National Curriculum in Tanzania
(Utafiti Journal of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UDSM, 2006) Mwenesi, Leonard Charles
Tanzania is among those countries in the world, which are so blessed by having very rich rock art sites with extraordinary prehistoric rock art creations. Dodoma, Singida and Bukoba are presently the best-known places with the highest concentrations of these precious creative works of Tanzania’s long gone ancestors. Tanzania’s rock art sites were first seen and reported by foreign travelers more than a century ago. In 1891, Karl Peters reported about Tanzania’s precious rock art sites, though Sonia Cole (1963) relates that Tanzania prehistoric art treasures were known to the outside world long before Karl Peters’ recount. Research on the history and cultural relevance of Tanzania’s rock art has to some extent been going on since the 1920s. Despite such research undertakings and frequent visits to the sites by foreign tourists, it is surprising to note that very few Tanzanians even know of the existence of such rock art sites. Rock art doesn’t have a place in the curricular of Tanzania’s institutions of learning and hence its history and its present cultural relevance are not taught in schools and colleges. The paper questions as to why this is so and hence forth goes on to suggest possible ways of making this art heritage from our time immemorial ancestors become known and valued by Tanzanians and the world at large. The writer suggests the introduction of comprehensive rock art curricular in Tanzania’s institutions of learning. That curricular will enable meaningful teaching and learning of the various disciplines that are related to rock art. The discussion concludes by recommending ways through which the general Tanzanian public can be well introduced and informed of the presence and social economic and cultural importance of their country’s vast rock art sites and the incredible art treasures so found in them. The human being is created to be creative. And through such endless creative involvement this being struggles to term the environment for a safe and meaningful leaving. In the process of this relentless struggle for a meaningful living the human being finds the aspirations, inspirations and reasons for meaningful artistic rendering The people of East Africa, and Tanzania in particular, who lived from about 40,000 years ago (Anati 1986, Masao 1982) very well evidence this inherent artistic creativity. These pre historic inhabitants of Tanzania developed complex means, manner, and style to paint and in rare cases engrave pictures on rather very hostile surfaces of rocks. These rock art works which age several millennia, still survive to the present date, proving the intelligence and artistic mighty of their creators. In Tanzania, rock art was apparently first seen and reported by Europeans about 110 years ago. Anati (1986) reports “The earliest Europeans to have reported Tanzanian rock art appears to have been Karl Peters about one century ago (1891).” However, Sonia Cole (1963) relates that Europeans first saw Tanzanian rock paintings at an earlier date. Cole states “One of the first discoveries of rock paintings in Tanganyika was made by missionaries in 1908 near Bukoba.” Of these earliest documentations, the most significant was that made by F.B. Bagshawe in 1923 when he first reported of the Kolo rock paintings near Kondoa and “those of Kangeju Bushment, west of lake Eyasi.” Cole adds that other earliest documentations of rock art sites in Tanzania were those near Dodoma by Culwick in 1931. From the time of these early studies, Tanzanian rock art has attracted many researchers who have come out with significant information. To date, around 370 rock art sites have been identified (Anati 1986). Some of the notable researchers who have
Kumpolo: Aesthetic Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation of Bird Sounds in Tanzania
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2006-08-19) Sanga, Imani
This article deals with the aesthetics of the sounds of ring-necked doves and African ground hornbills among the Wawanji people of the Iringa region in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The Wawanji composed tunes by imitating the sounds of these birds. The essay argues that an aesthetic value was culturally attributed to the natural sounds of the birds, in so far as the lyrics set to these tunes and tales about the birds or their sounds concerned human experiences such as fear, work, joy, and hope.
Composition Processes in Popular Church Music in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2006-11-24) Sanga, Imani
Popular church music is one of the newer musical genres in Tanzania. It is characterized by incorporating improvisation, by the use of electric guitars, keyboards and drum machines, and by the body movements which accompany its performance. This paper shows that composition processes in this style are collaborative and take place in multiple stages.
Setting the Scene
(2007) Morley, Louise; Leach, Fiona; Lugg, Rosemary; Lihamba, Amandina; Opare, James; Bhalalusesa, E. P.; Forde, Linda D.; Egbenya, Godwin; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie
Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard
(2007) Lugg, Rosemary; Morley, Louise; Leach, Fiona; Lihamba, Amandina; Opare, James; Mwaipopo, Rosemarie
This three and a half year ESRC-DFID funded project (RES-167-25-0078) ‘Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard’ is a new evidence base contributing to making higher education more socially inclusive in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wphegt). It is a mixed methods study of one public and one private case study university in each country, combining: 200 student life history interviews, comprising interviews with 119 students from public universities and 81 from private universities, registered on different programmes and with a diversity of backgrounds including under-represented groups such as women, mature, low socio-economic status and disabled students. Students were asked about their experiences of primary, secondary and higher education, with questions about their motivations, transitions, support, decision-making and first impressions of higher education, its impact on them and their future plans. 200 key staff and policymakers interviews, comprising 172 semi-structured interviews with senior academics, lecturers and staff working closely with students in the four case study institutions and 28 interviews with policymakers. Academic staff and policymakers were asked about policies, interventions, strategies and challenges for widening participation, and the part that their universities had played in working towards the Millennium Development Goals. 100 Equity Scorecards compiled largely from raw data on admission/access, retention, completion and achievement, for four programmes of study in relation to three structures of inequality: gender, socio-economic status (SES) and age. The research questions included: investigating which social groups are currently and traditionally under-represented as students in the case study institutions and whether these correlate with wider national and international patterns of social exclusion; how the case study institutions are interpreting and responding to the Millennium Development Goals; and if there is a relationship between learners’ prior experiences of education, their socioeconomic backgrounds and their experiences and achievement in education. Questions have also been posed about what mechanisms for support have been put in place for ‘nontraditional’ students to facilitate retention and achievement and how ‘non-traditional’ students might experience these interventions (see Appendix 1). Diverse stakeholders have been asked about their perceptions of the main barriers to participation for under-represented groups and what strategies the case study institutions can develop to improve the recruitment, retention and achievement of students from non-traditional backgrounds. Via the field work and its analysis, the project has produced statistical data on patterns of participation, retention and achievement and has aimed to build theory about socio-cultural aspects of higher education in Ghana and Tanzania.
Effective Poster Design for Information Dissemination: the Ethics Promotion Project
(University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal, 2007) Mwenesi, Leonard Charles
This article is written with an understanding that information communication posters are very frequently prepared and used in all types of educational campaigns, but their planning, design and production rarely takes into consideration their effectiveness for the purpose they are prepared. The paper is thus aimed at discussing the essential and crucial design elements that when adhered to, can help in the production and dissemination of posters that are audience or target group centered. Incidentally, appropriate, well discussed and analyzed information on the key elements of design – and for this matter poster design is not readily available as complete whole. The need for such information is even more marked in developing countries, where there are innumerable upcoming governmental, non-governmental and civil society organizations that are involved in educating people using printed visual materials. This treatise contributes towards bridging this gap. In support of the rationale of this theoretical contention the paper presents and briefly discusses how ethics promotion information dissemination posters for Tanzania’s civil service were planned designed and disseminated. This poster production was organized and implemented through a collaborative design project between Tanzania’s President’s Office and the University of Dar es Salaam. The project’s time spine was from January 2004 to February 2005. The theoretical analysis presented in the paper was of great help in guiding the whole process of planning, designing, production, proper distribution and placement of the posters. This analysis on poster design factors and procedures helped in facilitating very profitable, well informed dialogue with stakeholders that included secondary school students - who did the designs. The discussions centered on analyzing what it takes to produce and disseminate appropriate audience centered posters for effective education. The project involved previously untrained (in design) school going, mostly teenage, children. Subsequent to the well organized preliminary discussions and execution of the project, high quality posters were designed, produced and rightly distributed to their intended sites. Monitoring and evaluation of the impact of the project is however yet to be undertaken. In this regard the paper concludes by recommending that a deliberate and thorough monitoring and evaluation of the impact of the project be done. The paper does as well suggest that a traveling exhibition of all the produced posters be shown all over Tanzania to emphasize and broaden the project’s impact.
Gender Perspectives in Arts and Cultural Education
(2007) Lihamba, Amandina

Browse

Browsing Department of Creative Arts by Issue Date

Results Per Page

Sort Options