The reflective facilitator: Navigating practice, ethics, and community in theatre for development (TfD) in Ghana

Résumé

Reflective practice is widely recognised as central to professions marked by relational complexity, ethical risk and situated professional judgement. However, its role in Theatre for Development (TfD) facilitation remains insufficiently theorised, particularly within community-based practice in Ghana. This study examined how TfD facilitators understand and use reflective practice before, during and after community interventions. Guided by Schön’s reflective practice framework, the study adopted a qualitative interpretive research design. The target population comprised TfD facilitators in Ghana, including university-based student facilitators, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO)-based professional practitioners and experienced academic facilitators. Twelve participants were selected through purposive sampling across three tiers of professional formation. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically through an inductive–deductive process. The findings show that TfD facilitation creates a dual reflective demand comprising individual reflexivity about artistic, pedagogical and facilitative choices alongside communal ethical accountability to the communities whose experiences are theatricalised. Two major dilemmas emerged, namely securing meaningful community consent and managing the unintended consequences of participatory performance. The study further identifies reflection-beyond-action as a temporally extended ethical concern that persists after formal project closure. This paper recommends that TfD training programmes must embed structured ethical reflection into facilitation pedagogy, supervision and post-project accountability.