Decolonizing play through the digital in Sub-Saharan Africa
DlalA is a network of researchers from academic institutions and civil society organisations.
Main Research Question
Objectives
Methods
Project Members
Dorcas Wepukhulu
Dorcas is an experienced, passionate educationist, creative professional with a deep understanding of inter-ethnic work, marginalized and different age-range learners, and experienced in humanitarian assessment and educational program development.
For 16 years (1990-2009), Dorcas taught in different Kenyan high schools and for three years (2012-2014) taught at Tangaza University College, a constituent College of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) Nairobi, Kenya.
Dorcas is a Ford Foundation Scholar with an MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University, USA, with a focus on educational and humanitarian issues, in particular early literacy and completion rates of learners. She also holds a B. Ed Phil from the University of Warwick, a B. Ed in Literature and English from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) and a Diploma in Education from Siriba College.
Dorcas is the East and West Africa Partner Development Coordinator for Saide’s African Storybook (ASb) early literacy initiative. Her role involves identifying and engaging with other early literacy development partners working in east and west Africa as well as keeping an active relationship with global initiatives to develop collaboration with ASb, supporting them to effectively use the ASb website, its storybooks and apps; manage the story development processes; support the M&E process and participate in the day-to-day administrative and planning aspects of the initiative. The ASb has the Reader and Maker Apps that enable offline storybook reading and publishing respectively.
Peter Msaka
Peter Kondwani Msaka is a language expert and lecturer in the African Languages and Linguistics Department at the University of Malawi. Peter has a PhD and MA in General Linguistics from Stellenbosch University in South Africa, a Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Science and Bachelor of Education Humanities from the University of Malawi. He teaches courses in Bantu morphosyntax, corpus linguistics, translation and literature in Malawian languages. Besides his academic pursuit in linguistics, Peter is passionate about empowering local languages through technological localisation, terminology development and community engagement. Some of his efforts have a digital footprint here: http://unima-cls.org/terminology-dictionary/home/. He is also a commentator and promoter of literature and literary craftsmanship in Malawian local languages. Since 2021, he is the representative for Saide’s African Storybook (ASb) Early Literacy Initiative in Malawi. He is actively engaged in the production and promotion of children’s literature that depicts the African context. He desires to read the many untold Malawian stories.
Mezemir Girma
Mezemir Girma teaches English Literature at Debre Berhan University, Ethiopia. He is the founder and owner of Ras Abebe Aregay Library, which is a privately-owned library that gives public service free of charge. In addition to this initiative which is new to the country, Mezemir works as the Ethiopian representative of the Africa Storybook Initiative and the Advancing Library Visibility in Africa projects. He is also highly interested in innovative and educational endeavors that change the lives of Ethiopians and Africans. He has published three books in Amharic. The first one is a translation of a book on the Rwandan Holocaust and the reconciliation process. The second one is on the health benefits of fasting. His memoir which covers stories of his literacy activities and his travel accounts is the recent one.
Theresa Giorza
Theresa Giorza is a lecturer in Foundation Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. She combines her considerable experience and expertise in the arts with an interest in early years education. An important element of her practice at all levels and ages is Philosophy with Children (P4C) –often using picture storybooks – foregrounding the power of stories and images to inspire and enhance learning-with both ‘word’ and ‘world’. Theresa’s research focuses on creative, multimodal and enquiry-based approaches to early learning that establish the foundations and motivations for literacy and learning more broadly. She completed her PhD in 2018 and Springer published her monograph entitled: Learning with Damaged Colonial Places: Posthumanist pedagogies from a Joburg Preschool, in 2021. Theresa is part of a growing international community of Feminist New materialist scholars who refuse to separate education and knowledge-production from the political and ethical choices we face in a world plagued by inequality and eco-cide.
Rose-Anne Reynolds
Rose-Anne Reynolds has a PhD in Education from the University of Cape Town (UCT). Rose-Anne is a Foundation Phase/ Early Childhood Education lecturer in the School of Education, at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is primarily involved in initial teacher education with postgraduate students. Rose-Anne’s PhD thesis is entitled, A posthuman reconfiguring of philosophy with children in a government primary school in South Africa. Her research interests include Philosophy with Children (P4wC), the Philosophy of Child and Childhood, Pedagogies of Enquiry, Early Childhood Education, Postqualitative Research and Inclusive Education including Disability Studies. Rose-Anne is a Level 1 Philosophy with Children trainer and co-ordinates the Southern African P4wC network. Some of Rose- Anne’s publications can be found here: http://www.education.uct.ac.za/rose-anne-reynolds
Jayne Osgood
Jayne Osgood is Professor of Childhood Studies at the Centre for Education Research & Scholarship, Middlesex University. Her work addresses issues of social justice through critical engagement with policy, curricular frameworks, and pedagogical approaches in ECEC. She is committed to extending understandings of the workforce, families, gender and sexualities, ‘the child’, and ‘childhood’ in early years contexts through creative, affective methodologies. She has published extensively within the post- modernist paradigm with over 100 publications in the form of books, chapters and journal papers, her most recent books include Feminists Researching Gendered Childhoods (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Postdevelopmental Approaches to Childhood Art (Bloomsbury, 2019). She has served on the editorial boards of various journals and is a long-standing board member at Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. She is currently editor at Gender & Education Journal and Reconceptualising Education Research Methodology Journal. She is also Book Series Editor for both Bloomsbury (Feminist Thought in Childhood Research) and (Keythinkers in Education) Springer.
Karin Murris
Karin Murris is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Oulu (Finland) and Emerita Professor of Pedagogy and Philosophy, University of Cape Town (South Africa). She is a teacher educator, grounded in academic philosophy and a postqualitative research paradigm. Her main interests are in posthuman child studies, philosophy in education, digital play, ethics and democratic pedagogies.
Jenny Glennie
Jenny was appointed by the Minister in 2013 to oversee the establishment of Sol Plaatje University through chairing the five person Interim Council set up for this purpose. She has received honorary awards from both Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) for her significant contribution to distance education and the University of Pretoria for her contribution to education in South Africa.
Kerryn Dixon
Kerryn Dixon is affiliated to the University of Queensland and is a visiting scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand. Kerryn does research in Primary Education with a focus on language and literacy education. Her interests are in Critical Literacy in the early years, childhood literacies and the impact of space and time in educational contexts. Her work is framed by her interest in the ways in which histories of regulation, power, oppression, and resistance shape literacy and schooling.
Archive
Rather than a static repository with predetermined categories and precise descriptions, this archive invites engagement, flexibility and play. Some of the games included here are ‘represented’ through stories (via the African Storybook Storyteller App) and Youtube videos of actual enactments of games in particular contexts and time. Contact us if you have games, stories about games or videos to share.
String Figuring
String figures are made with a piece of string, the ends of which must be tied together to form a single loop. All string games begin with an opening, the goal of which is to get the original loop arranged on the hands so that a number of secondary loops cross from the fingers of the one hand to the fingers of the other, when the hands are held with the palms facing each other, and the fingers directed upward.
Kgati
Kgati is a rope-skipping game that requires three of more people. Two people swing the skipping rope and the third jumps in different ways, usually while singing or chanting. This game is also known as Ugqaphu/Kgadi/Ntimo in Southern Africa.
Baanda
Baanda also known as Banoo is a game popularly played in western Kenya. Players use marbles and play on the ground with a small hole at centre of the court. Banoo can be played by two or more players.In the past, the game was played while boys herded cattle. Today, it is played any time for leisure. Before starting, players bet, each suggesting the highest score they can get. Once the targets are set, all players place their balls around the hole. The one whose target is the highest, starts the game. The first player flips their ball with the finger aiming to hit their opponents’ balls. One scores by successfully hitting the ball(s) of other players, followed by one’s own ball landing into the hole.
Mehareben Yayachihu
This children’s game called ‘Mehareben Yayachihu’, literally meaning ‘have you seen my handkerchief’ in the Amharic language, is played in Ethiopia. It is played by young children. First, they sit in a circle. Then one of them goes around the circle holding a piece of cloth and enquiring ‘have you seen my handkerchief?’ The ones sitting respond that they have not seen. Later, the one running around the circle hides the piece of cloth behind one of the children who are sitting. The others inform that child about this. Then that child holds the cloth and runs to touch the one who put the cloth behind him/her before the latter sits down at her/his place. If he fails to touch him/her, he goes to the middle of the circle. The game continues like this until one person remains outside the circle.
Moraboraba
This game is played in South and East Africa. The game is referred to by many names in many languages such as Mlabalaba, Mmela, Muravava and Umlabalaba. The game is played on a specially produced board, or it can be drawn in the sand, with stones or even bottle tops known as cows.
This is a three-row board game that is played by two individuals in three stages. Each gamer starts with an empty board and 12 marbles/stones/bottle tops of identical colour that they may lose or gain at different game levels.
In the first stage of the game players place one cow at a time on the board with an intent to be the first to place three in the row in a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal position. Cows can be placed on empty/unoccupied holes/circles on the board and each time a row of three cows is formed, a cow of the opponent is taken.
Only one cow can be captured/shot at a time and the same ones will not be played again in the game. When a player has three cows in a row, they cannot be gained or shot by the opponent if the cows are available on the board.
In the second stage of the game, cows which have already been placed on the board can be moved from one hole/circle to an adjacent circle/hole to create a row of three, which can be broken by players to either create new line or reposition their cows. Cows can be moved to the same hole/circle, a players row of three can be captured/shot.
When a player has three cows left, they can move this cow to any unoccupied hole on the board which is not adjacent to the current hole, without worrying about the lines. Applying this rule means that the game is at its third stage: Victory is achieved when an opponent cannot move any cows, or when an opponent has lost all but two cows.
Kisara
Kisara in Amharic means a loss. It is played using flat stones or coins. To begin, players stand behind a line and take turns throwing one coin/stone into a hole. The one whose piece was closest to the hole in the first round is the first thrower in the next round. That person collects all the pieces and throws all of them together toward the hole. If any go into the hole they get to keep them.
Amagende
This game is played in South Africa and Lesotho. It is also called Magave, Upuca, Puca, Ndonde.
This game can be played by two or more players. Each player comes with an equal number of pebbles (10-30).
Each player also keeps a bigger stone sometimes referred to as “mokinto” which is the stone that is thrown in the air. The game requires that players throw the larger stone in the air, while concurrently removing pebbles (as many pebbles as a player would like to remove, but not one pebble) from the drawn circle or dug hole and catching the stone with the same hand. The player is meant to throw the mokinto in the air while returning all stones but one while in turn catching the mokinto before it falls. With each round the player is meant to leave one stone outside the circle when returning the stones into the drawn circle or dug hole. This process continues until said player is left with more than one stone after returning the stones or if they drop the mokinto in the process. If this happens the next player gets an opportunity to play. The winner of the game is the individual with more stones outside the circle at the end of the game.
Masekitlane
This is a form of storytelling game played across Southern Africa. This game is also called Ukuxoxa or Isqendu. This game encourages children to express themselves freely by storytelling. Children may play it when alone or play it in the presence of others. Observers of the game may ask questions or ask for more clarity on the content of the story being told. Children use stones or pens to narrate their stories and stones are hit against each other or pens are hit against paper.