College Composition and Communication Sep 2023

Stories and/as Civic Pedagogies: Toward Participatory Knowledge-Making in Cultural Rhetorics

Stephen Kwame Dadugblor

Abstract

This essay argues for attention in cultural rhetorics scholarship to stories as effective civic pedagogical tools informed by participatory knowledge-making practices. Drawing on a multiyear “mobile cinema democracy project” based on the physical circulation across Africa, Europe, and North America of a successful African democratic story told in the multi-award-winning documentaryAn African Election, I attend to both the documentary and its larger contextual project, “A Political Safari: An African Adventure in Democracy Building.” I demonstrate the ways that the African storytelling traditions of collaboration upon which this project rests offer us cultural rhetoricians key opportunities to reimagine inclusive knowledgemaking practices in using stories as civic pedagogies. My analysis reveals how such knowledge-making practices might orient our work against the grain of hierarchical, exclusionary, colonial practices and toward decolonial approaches that are truly participatory and inclusive.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2023-09-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202332671
Open Access
Closed
Topics
race and writing multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (3)

  1. Cobos et al. (2018)
    Interfacing Cultural Rhetorics: A History and a Call
    Rhetoric Review
  2. Cushman (2013)
    Wampum, Sequoyan, and Story: Decolonizing the Digital Archive
    College English
  3. Powell (2012)
    2012 CCCC Chair’s Address: Stories Take Place: A Performance in One Act
    College Composition and Communication
Also cites 7 works outside this index ↓
  1. Chattoo (2020)
    Story Movements: How Documentaries Empower People and Inspire Social Change
     ↗
  2. Crick (2019)
    Dewey for a New Age of Fascism: Teaching Democratic Habits
     ↗
  3. Gyimah-Boadi (2009)
    Another Step Forward for Ghana
    Journal of Democracy  ↗
  4. Jockers (2010)
    The Successful Ghana Election of 2008: A Convenient Myth?
    The Journal of Modern African Studies  ↗
  5. Labouba (2014)
    An African Election directed by Jarreth Merz
    African Studies Review  ↗
  6. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018)
    Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization
     ↗
  7. Okpewho (2009)
    Storytelling in the African World
    Journal of the African Literature Association  ↗
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