Tales and plays in the flames: How stories and theatrics converge fire disaster knowledge and action in marginalized contexts

Abstract

Traditional disaster epistemologies are significantly limited in reflecting and confronting the intricate realities of everyday disasters. Technocratic voices are too often privileged while indigenous praxis and ways of knowing are subordinated and critical nuances overlooked. A holistic understanding of everyday disasters and how they are governed in their inherently complex and multifaceted nature demands that we inquire differently. Drawing from a post-structural community-based participatory research, this paper confronts this gap by exploring how storytelling and participatory theatre diversify disaster knowledge and accelerate disaster risk reduction at the grassroots. The paper discusses the theoretical frontiers and individual applications of these tools, makes a case for their combined value prospects, and empirically integrates them to investigate fire disaster governance arrangements in underserved urban poor communities in Nairobi, Kenya. The findings demonstrate how this methodological convolution enriched understanding of everyday fire disasters, fostered transformative learning, and stimulated collective fire disaster risk reduction at the grassroots. The analysis is presented alongside a critical self-reflection discussing how the approach transformed positions of both the researcher and participants in the study. Integration of these participatory tools offers multiple value possibilities through diversity of knowledges, convergence of voices, fluid research identities, and collaborative praxis pathways. The paper contributes academic insights on deepening disaster knowledge whilst elevating research experiences and catalyzing societal change. It further offers pragmatic solutions to embrace all-of-society and all-of-knowledge approaches towards disaster risk governance.