Walking the Talk, Oral Techniques & Satyagraha

Reconstructing the Memory of John Mararo Gachoki (1948-2021)

Abstract

This article sets out to celebrate the lifetimes of John Mararo Gachoki (1948-2021), an educationist turned cleric and scholar. As a scholar, he employed oral techniques in theo-socio-scholarly discourses, and stands out as a narrating public theologian. Mararo-Gachoki who died after a motor accident on Monday evening, 3 May 2021, was a fine scholar with at least four major publications. In these publications, the article argues, he appealed to the power of memory in his socio-scholarly works. With oral history methods coming in form of autobiographies, biographies, festschrifts, memoirs, novels playbooks, satire, caricature, mimicry, oral speeches, and in literary works that mock certain unpleasant communal realities, Mararo-Gachoki’s publications are a clear demonstration that modern scholarship has to factor on oral discourses. In its methodology, this article analyses critical materials that are relevant in reconstructing the memory of Mararo-Gachoki, as we focus on his pet theme: Walk the talk. In our socio-scholarly world, how can we demonstrate the challenge of walking the talk? How did Mararo-Gachoki walk the talk, in his service to God and humanity, and how does it inform the twenty-first century? What vital lessons can we draw from his lifetimes?