Drama and Social Justice

Theory, research and practice in international contexts

Kelly Freebody, Michael Finneran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317628774
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

"This text offers a cohesive framework for exploring social justice through drama and drama from a social justice perspective. Research based examples of practice from a range of international contexts link theory and practice. Connecting chapters raise key critical questions in an engaging dialogue format. An important addition to the literature on social justice education." - Lee Anne Bell, author Storytelling for Social Justice (2010) and co-editor of Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice (Routledge, 2007)

Much has been written within the tradition of drama education and applied theatre around the premise that drama can be a force for change within both individual lives and society more broadly. However, little has been published in terms of charting the nature of this relationship. By combining theoretical, historical and practical perspectives, this book unpacks and explores drama's intrinsically entwined relationship with society more comprehensively and critically.Chapters gather together and develop a range of theoretical understandings of social justice in applied drama in the first part of the book, which are then used to frame and inform more focused discussions of drama research and practice in the second. Contributors move beyond practical understandings of drama for empowerment or development in order to engage with the philosophy of praxis – the interconnected and symbiotic nature of theory derived from practice, and practice derived from theory. Including concrete examples from current research and practice in the field, the book opens up a conversation on and counter-narrative to perceptions of the nature and impact of applied theatre and drama education on social justice. Drama and Social Justice will be key reading for postgraduate students, academics, researchers and field-based practitioners in the areas of applied drama and theatre, education and youth work, and social justice and the social sciences.

Part I

Critical, historical and theoretical explorations of drama and social justice

Chapter 1

Critical issues and intersections

Part 1

Kelly Freebody and Michael Finneran

This is the first of two framing chapters aimed at drawing out and making connections between some of the main themes in this book. We are placing these chapters at the beginning, rather than the end of each section to highlight what we believe to be some of the key themes as readers move through the volume. Each framing chapter is formatted differently in order to capture some of the continuing dialogue between us, the editors. This chapter, is essentially the distillation of an ongoing email conversation between us over the last number of months in which we discussed aspects of the different author contributions that interested us and which we felt resonated with each other.

The purpose of this initial conversation is to provide a more coherent and personalised exploration of the really broad concept of drama and social justice for those readers that plan to read the book cover to cover (rather than focus on the individual concepts or practices explored in each of the chapters). We also aim to use these chapters to highlight potential debates and, what we feel to be, significant gaps in the discussions presented in this section of the book. The hope is that this can assist the field to focus further writing and research in the area to add to a (hopefully) ever expanding understanding of the relationship between drama and social justice.

Kelly Freebody (KF): In Chapter 4, Bundy, Dunn and Stinson talk about a need to narrow the discussion in order to ultimately expand our understanding of drama and social justice. It seems that idea speaks to the purpose of this section of the book. Each chapter in this section is really concerned with one or two aspects of drama and social justice – emotion, democracy, the ecology of ‘our times’ – a narrowing of the discussion – yet taken together, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, they create a more extensive picture of the relationship between applied drama work and social justice.

Michael Finneran (MF): That idea of narrowing is true and is very important given the diverse nature of the field, as we have tried to describe it. Of course, it also resonates with Heathcote’s (1991) assertion that the universal is always drawn from the particular in drama work: the foundational idea that in looking at small snippets of life, we understand more about the world. It also strikes me that within Chapters 2–5, each also offer us differing temporal/spatial perspective of the challenges in describing work at the intersection between drama and social justice: our chapter takes the over-view perspective, Neelands looks back, Bundy, Dunn and Stinson look inward, and Gallagher looks forward. What is also really apparent in reading them is the extent to which drama and society have always been inextricably linked and difficult to disentangle from each other. As we now view the chapters in this section together, something else that is apparent for me is the complexity of the relationship and the gaps in our knowledge-base that have become almost more glaring through the completion of this book.

KF: I agree. Some really obvious and some more subtle gaps in the discussion and we’ll talk a bit more about that later in this chapter. We see four very different chapters in this first section but in the midst of a lot of overlap of ideas and form, complexity was the main common idea. In our chapter we talk a lot about the tensions in drama work for social justice; we really use tension as a framing concept. However looking over Chapters 2–5, perhaps complexity is really the key idea connecting these chapters; the sheer complexity of doing drama work for or about social justice.

When I say that it’s an idea that connects the chapters, I don’t necessarily mean that each chapter oriented to it in the same way or for the same reasons. The chapters talk about the complexity of drama work as a social, emotional intellectual, physical and political activity. These complexities are discussed as existing both inside and outside the work, but they are always discussed as having impact in the work – through decision making and planning, attention to outside forces, or as an analytical tool with which to understand the impact of the work.

In terms of complexity inside drama practice, and the role of complexity in creating and understanding social development, Bundy, Dunn and Stinson talk about in-role and out-of-role emotions creating a layering effect. This provides participants with encounters in drama that allow them to experience emotions from different perspectives. Being in role one might, for example, become angry about something that would not make them angry in the ‘real world’. Therefore gaining insight into what it must feel like for someone else. This complexity aligns with our understandings of metaxis (O’Toole, 1992) and empathy (Gallagher, 2000). I think this is a really useful discussion. We mention that people often make claims about ‘what drama is good for’ without really unpacking why or how it works to be good for these things. Looking inward to the craft and unpacking the particular practices that allow for opportunities for different kinds of experiences and learning/development is important for understanding outcomes of the work. Similarly, Neelands, in Chapter 3, discusses the roles of argument and play in drama and how these inform the complex relationship between democracy and drama practice.

Others talk about complexity from an outside perspective – complexity in the way drama work for/about social justice relates to the context it is undertaken in. In Chapter 2 we highlight and problematize the complexities between the work itself and the purpose of the work for funders, participants, and facilitators – the uncomfortable relationship between work that is socially just and work that is useful for those involved. Gallagher similarly explores the relationship between context, institutions, and art. At one point she questions whether a theory of drama and justice is even possible in these times.

MF: This argument is getting more complex by the second! What’s critical for me in wading through these issues of complexity is not the worry of Gallagher’s suggestion that a theory is not possible, or indeed the comfort of Neelands’ implicit argument that the very history of the theatrical form demands a relationship between the work and a better world. It is actually the fact that it is the journey into complexity which is of itself necessary, for two distinct reasons. Firstly, in order that the theoretical base of the applied drama field is broadened, deepened and becomes more connected, thus preventing isolation and intellectual putrefaction on the periphery. And secondly, in order to avoid something else that Gallagher highlights very well: the ‘moral exhaustion’ that she argues has become characteristic of contemporary times, whereby the neoliberal emphasis on individual responsibility disregards what she calls ‘the crucial features of community and communication’. This is the clincher for me. Despite the suggestion that we are in a ‘post-dramatic’ age (Lehmann, 2006), drama and theatre remain fundamentally about people, the places they live and their efforts to understand and overcome the problems they face. Even in a time when individualised existence reigns supreme, drama forces us to engage in communal endeavour. Making or participating in drama is, in itself, an act that has at its core, the effect of making the world more socially just. The hard part is understanding how that happens, and indeed disentangling the layers of social justice intent that the making of the work may engender (the ‘process’), or that its appearance (the ‘content’) may have, from the essential nature of the dramatic form. For me, this is what is so potent about Gallagher’s challenge to those of us involved in work of this nature, to change our focus to that of dealing with how the ‘temporary’ space and culture brought about through drama work can be a space of expansive imagination oriented to critical questions of social justice.

KF: I love that idea – the importance of the temporary space of drama – it is a lovely nod to the combination of our practical knowing and our philosophical and theoretical knowing. It is at the same time an exploration of form and process (in that it is about what drama is as a practice, a temporary fictional space) and a comment on our theoretical understandings of the relationship between metaxis, role and learning.

Another idea that I come to in many of the chapters in this section is the implications of understanding the effects of our work. We talk about it in Chapter 2 – the need to find ways of understanding the complex phenomenon of effect. Bundy, Dunn and Stinson also talk about the fact that drama work induces different outcomes in different people: ‘different people can and do make different appraisals of the same situation and therefore experience different emotional responses’. Maybe this is why Gallagher questions whether a theory of drama and social justice is possible. How do we understand notions of change, value, and effect in the work when every single participant in the one project may have different interpretations of what the work is for, and whether it is ‘good’? The notion of ‘good drama’ is hugely problematic in itself, but it becomes even more so when we also layer in notions of ‘quality drama’ (as in drama that achieves e/affects), and then layer in different understandings of quality from participants, artists, audiences, funders, and so on.

MF: Getting to grips with questions of value and worth is always going to be difficult in a field (or community? – another debate!) that values participation, process and the individualised experience so highly. And all that encased within a form that necessitates aesthetic achievement (in order to keep the participants and spectators engaged and entertained), and values artistic skill and achievement.

And yet, some progress on this question of effective measurement is necessary in order that we promote the values of the work we do and garner greater funding, access and status for it.

But there’s two things to note in this. Neelands’ tracing of the roots of empathy, togetherness, public argument and democracy tells us that we are at yet another small point in the lengthy history of drama and its relationship with social justice. There is a case to be made that we should (to some degree, at least) resist the current imperatives for outcomes, evaluation and efficacy, safe in the philosophical knowledge that drama too will survive this time. And as Bundy, Dunn and Stinson elaborate so eruditely for us, so much of what is good about applied drama work is buried so deep within the emotional and imaginative self, it is surely impossible to assess in any standardised manner.

So, the move towards greater understanding of what are good social justice outcomes, from good drama work is fraught, but ultimately necessary. Chapter 5 captures the litany of possible questions really well, to the point that it’s almost overwhelming:

what justice outcomes are we generating? Is hope, for a better world or for a particular kind of justice for a particular disenfranchised community, a means or an end? How does the resource of a good conscience weigh up against the resources of educational attainment and employment? Does theatre ask the questions or posit the answers? Is asking the questions enough anymore?

(pp. 53–54)

KF: You’re right, these questions Gallagher provided us with can act as a guide for readers as they engage with the book, particularly as they read the descriptions of praxis in Part II.

So where are the gaps? Bundy, Dunn and Stinson briefly mention issues of distance in drama work but don’t (for reasons of brevity) expand on them. When we talked about the complexity of drama work earlier, distance, role and metaxis are major factors in this. Distance is such a key element of facilitating successful drama work but not an area that any of the authors refer to in any depth. I’m reminded of John Carroll and colleagues’ (2006) excellent work on the importance of role protection and the ways in which the ‘performance frame’ delineates the difference between real life and the representation of reality that is being created within drama work. It’s this performance frame that allows people to physically and emotionally explore controversial and personal issues in drama whilst maintaining distance.

MF: The ‘other’ is a group and concept we haven’t spoken about very much so far in this section, but they are heavily alluded to in Gallagher’s contribution, and indeed she challenges us to understand better how we know the ‘other’.

‘Self’ and ‘other’ are terms heavily reliant on post-colonial literature for their intellectual meaning, and as an Australian/Irish team of editors, it’s appropriate that we use them in that vein. It’s appropriate in another way because of the fact that the applied drama tradition has largely emanated from British origins and spread in the first instance to her former colonies, which remain where they are found in greatest concentrations. Many applied drama practitioners from the Western European tradition have been responsible for the spread of the work to other parts of the world, but also for taking work of this nature into deeply disadvantaged settings, such as developing countries. Furthermore, some discussion of ‘self ’ and ‘other’ is necessary because of the inherent ‘missionary’ stance that is implied in applied drama work for and about social justice. That being, the explicit belief on the part of the artist, teacher or facilitator, that they can work with a group of people in order to, in some way, shape or form . . . ‘fix’ them of a problem, inequality or injustice.

The final point in particular is a significant generalisation crudely stated. But collectively and individually within all three aspects of this postcolonial inheritance lies a challenge for further theoretical and philosophical examination. As theorists, how do we enable a framing of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in our work that enables us to better understand our own practice, and allows us to come to a more critically framed awareness of the issues of colour, ethnicity, class, power, gender, money and language that inevitably but unknowingly permeate and shape any of our work? As much as we ourselves might want to be socially just in our work with others, what are the things that are we are just not aware of that impinge upon our good intentions?

So, as readers begin their quest to engage with this initial section of the book, either sequentially or sporadically, in a linear or haphazard fashion, we send them on their way with four guiding motifs in mind in deciphering purpose and intent in this work: embrace complexity, recognise the gaps in the knowledge-base, foreground the small and particular in order to understand the big and global, and recognise the temporal and spatial contexts within which the work takes place. Just like a good drama lesson really!

References

Gallagher, K. (2000). Drama education in the lives of girls: imagining possibilities. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Carroll, J., Anderson, M., & Cameron, D., (2006). Real players? Drama, technology and education. ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Drama and Social Justice
• Routledge Research in Education
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I Critical, Historical and Theoretical Explorations of Drama and Social Justice
• PART II Contemporary Research and Praxis in Drama and Social Justice
• Index