Navigating Expertise

Partners balance multiple concerns on a complex tightrope when it comes to knowledge and expertise. In this chapter I consider three examples to further demonstrate how power imbalances regarding knowledges are navigated, suggesting that neat distinctions between success and failure are hard to arrive at. First, with attention to my own experience working in Uganda in 2015 and research interviews undertaken with TfD practitioners since, I consider the ways in which the ‘global’ knowledge Northern partners are perceived to contribute is differently, and unevenly, regarded in contrast to the ‘local’ knowledge of Southern partners. Here, I argue from my own experience that embracing failure and dwelling on discomfort is an important strategy towards finding more equal partnerships. Second, with attention to the Stepping Stones HIV/AIDS drama-based programme, I consider how handbooks provide a starting point for practitioners to set about their work, but that these must be framed as flexible and adaptable. Finally, these concerns are brought together in an analysis of the influence of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in Kenya. As I will show, methodologies like TO, which have become global in scope and reach, are both dominant and enabling.