Teaching Ontology in the Performing Arts: An Ethno-Epistemic Pedagogical Framework to Postgraduate Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37134/juraisembah.vol6.2.6.2025Keywords:
cultural epistemology, embodied knowledge, ethno-epistemic pedagogy, ontology of performing arts, postgraduate teaching, reflective learningAbstract
This article proposes an ethno-epistemic approach to teaching ontology in the performing arts at the postgraduate level. Ontology is often introduced to students as an abstract philosophical concern, detached from artistic practice and cultural experience. This article reframes ontology as an interpretive inquiry grounded in cultural knowledge, embodied encounters, and reflective analysis. Drawing on scholarship in the anthropology of knowledge, cultural cognition, linguistics, and adult learning theory, the article develops a pedagogical approach that treats students’ cultural backgrounds, artistic lineages, and experiential histories as epistemic resources rather than contextual noise. The discussion does not present an empirical evaluation of learning outcomes. Instead, it offers a theoretically informed articulation of course design, assignment structure, and reflective sequencing that operationalize ethno-epistemic principles in teaching practice. Ontological understanding is framed as emerging through cycles of observation, field-based engagement, analytical writing, and formative feedback. These pedagogical processes support students in identifying and interrogating the cultural assumptions that shape how performance meaning, action, and presence are interpreted. The article positions the proposed approach as context-dependent and provisional rather than universally generalizable. Its contribution lies in clarifying how ontological inquiry can be pedagogically organized in culturally diverse postgraduate settings, where performance traditions carry distinct epistemic and ontological logics. The ethno-epistemic approach advances discussions in performing arts pedagogy by shifting ontology from a static conceptual domain toward a culturally situated practice of interpretation.
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