Abstract
During the Radical Hope Project, I worked as the lead UK researcher-collaborator. This chapter details the findings from two practice-led case studies conducted during 2016–2017 in partnership with The Belgrade’s Canley Youth Theatre (CYT) based in Coventry, UK. I reflect upon the interrelationships between the creative methods used to produce original youth performance (Case Study 1: oral history performance and Case Study 2: devising) alongside the research methodologies used to evaluate these collaborative theatre-making processes. Fundamental to The Belgrade’s practice is a desire to enable youth to become civic storytellers. CYT had so much to say about the world but translating their ideas into performance was often challenging. As a practitioner-researcher working alongside the youth theatre director, I was positioned to observe, listen, sense and respond imaginatively to their ideas, hopes, and fears. Drawing on ethnographic data captured using conventional methods such as participant-observation, video and photographic documentation, and participant interviews, this chapter turns towards the Radical Hope Project’s more experimental, collaborative, and artistic ways of generating and performing data, namely the research processes used to co-create theatre with youth. Specifically, I consider what Practice-as-Research (PaR) with youth involves. How do practitioner-researchers engage reflexively with the ethical demands of using data from our ethnographic encounters to co-create theatre that is simultaneously about youth, for youth and made with youth? How can ‘care’ be prioritized in our research processes of listening, collaborating, and creating performance? Following Sarah Pink’s discussion of the ‘sensory turn’ in ethnography (Pink, 2015), I retrace the data in search of the sensual, intangible and esoteric qualities of collaborative theatre-making with youth.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
‘Austerity’ was initiated by the Conservative-led UK government of 2010–15. It involved a series of cuts across the public sector, with local authority budgets particularly affected.
- 2.
Case 1: Emily Temple and Hanzhi Ruan; Case 2: Duncan Lees.
- 3.
In this volume, Wang gives vivid descriptions of her own students’ work and process in Taiwan, accessing felt truths about their own lives through an “ethics of care” (pp. 103–104).
- 4.
According to Bright et al. (2018), “in a little over six years (2010–2017), some £387 m has been cut from Youth Service budgets” resulting in “the loss of some 600 youth centres” (p. 318).
- 5.
Britain First is an anti-EU, anti-multiculturalism, anti-Islam organisation claiming to be interested in ‘the maintenance of British national sovereignty, independence, and freedom’ (Britain First, 2019). Journalist Polly Tonybee’s headline on the day of Cox’s murder read: “An MP is dead and the mood is ugly” (Toynbee, 2016).
- 6.
Lisa was in the care of a foster family.
- 7.
Figure 3 shows Lisa’s first draft. Angela worked with Lisa to write an email which was sent to the PM.
- 8.
Donald Trump fought a divisive Presidential election campaign, advocating for a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ (BBC, 2015).
References
Ackroyd, J., & O’Toole, J. (2010). Performing research: Tensions, triumphs and trade-offs of ethnodrama. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.
Barrett, E., & Bolt, B. (2007). Practice as research: Approaches to creative arts enquiry. London: I. B. Tauris.
BBC. (2015, December 8). Donald Trump urges ban on Muslims coming to US. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35035190.
BBC. (2016, June). Jo Cox MP dead after shooting attack. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36550304.
BBC. (2017, February). Trump’s executive order: Who does the ban affect? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35035190.
BBC. (2019a, April). Brexit: Police warn MPs and campaigners not to inflame tensions. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47806365.
BBC. (2019b, April). Brexit blamed for ‘poisonous’ atmosphere in the Senedd. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-47840953.
BBC. (2019c, February). Climate change: UK Students have walked out of school in protest. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/47250004.
Bille, M., Bjerregaard, P., & Sorensen, T. F. (2015). Staging atmospheres: Materiality, culture, and the texture of the in-between. Emotion, Space and Society, 15, 31–38.
Bright, G., Pugh, C., & Clarke, M. (2018). Youth work, agonistic democracy, and transgressive enjoyment in England. In S. Pickard & J. Bessant (Eds.), Young people re-generating politics in times of crisis (pp. 315–332). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Britain First. (2019). Principles of the Britain first movement. Retrieved from https://www.britainfirst.org/principles.
Cahnmann-Taylor, M., & Siegesmund, R. (Eds.). (2018). Arts-based research in education: Foundations for practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education. New York: Routlegde.
Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies: Interventions and radical research. The Drama Review, 46, 145–156.
Culhane, D. (2017). Imagining: An introduction. In D. Elliot & D. Culhane (Eds.), A different kind of ethnography: Imaginative practices and creative methodologies (pp. 1–21). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Davies, B. (2019). Austerity, youth policy, and the deconstruction of the youth service in England. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
De Freytas-Tamura, K. (2017, January). George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is suddenly a bestseller. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/books/1984-george-orwell-donald-trump.html.
Elliot, D., & Culhane, D. (Eds.). (2017). A different kind of ethnography: Imaginative practices and creative methodologies. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Frank, A. W. (2010). Letting stories breathe: A socio-narratology. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Gallagher, K. (2007). The theatre of urban: Youth and schooling in dangerous times. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Gallagher, K. (2014). Why theatre matters: Urban youth, engagement, and a pedagogy of the real. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Gallagher, K. (2018). Love, time, reflexivity, and the ethical imaginary. In K. Gallagher (Ed.), The methodological dilemma revisited: Creative, critical and collaborative approaches to qualitative research for a new era (pp. 91–110). New York, NY: Routledge.
Gallagher, K., Cardwell, N., & Rodricks, D. J. (2018). An ecology of care: Relationships and responsibility through the constitutive and creative acts of oral history theatre-making in local communities shouldering global crises. In A. Harris, P. Thomson, & K. Snepvangers (Eds.), Creativity policy, partnerships and practice in education (pp. 307–329). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave-MacMillan.
Gallagher, K., & Jacobson, K. (2018). Beyond mimesis to an assemblage of reals in the drama classroom: which reals? Which representational aesthetics? What theatre-building practices? Whose truths? Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23(1), 40–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1396209.
Gallagher, K., & Turner-King, R. (forthcoming). Performing a museum of living memories: Beholding young people’s experiences and expressions of care through oral history performance. In J. Thompson & A. Stuart-Fisher (Eds.), Performing care: New perspectives on socially engaged performance. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Greder, A. (2008). The island. Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Greig, N. (2008). Young people, new theatre: A practical guide to an intercultural process. London: Routledge.
Hanne, M., & Kaal, A. A. (Eds.). (2019). Narrative and metaphor in education: Look both ways. London: Routledge.
Heddon, D., & Milling, J. (2005). Devising performance: A critical history. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Heron, J., & Kershaw, B. (2018). On PAR: A dialogue about performance-as-research. In A. Arlander, B. Barton, M. Dreyer-Lude, & B. Spatz (Eds.), Performance as research: Knowledge, methods, impact (pp. 20–31). Oxon: Routledge.
Hughes, J., Kidd, J., & McNamara, C. (2011). The usefulness of mess: Artistry, improvisation and decomposition in the practice of research in applied theatre. In B. Kershaw & H. Nicholson (Eds.), Research methods in theatre and performance (pp. 186–209). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hurley, K. (2018). Mouthpiece. London: Oberon Books Ltd.
Kershaw, B., & Nicholson, H. (Eds.) (2011). Research methods in theatre and performance. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Lather, P. (2007). Getting lost: Feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. Albany: State of University of New York Press.
Mashek, D., & Aron, A. (2004). Handbook of closeness and intimacy. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Massey, D. B. (2005). For space. London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
NBC News. (2017, January). Conway: Press secretary gave ‘alternative facts’. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/conway-press-secretary-gave-alternative-facts-860142147643.
Neelands, J. (2009). Acting together: Ensemble as a democratic process in art and life. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 14(2), 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569780902868713.
Nelson, R. (2013). Practice as research in the arts: Principles, protocols, pedagogies, resistances. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicholson, H. (2005). Applied drama: The gift of theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicholson, H. (2015). Affective atmospheres: Performative pedagogies of space. In A. Babayants & H. Fitzimmons Frey (Eds.), Theatre and learning (pp. 166–184). Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Norris, J. (2009). Playbuilding as qualitative research: A participatory arts-based approach. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc.
O’Toole, J. (2006). Doing drama research: Stepping into enquiry in drama, theatre and education. City East, QLD: Drama Australia.
Perry, M., Wessels, A., & Wager, A. C. (2013). From playbuilding to devising in literacy education: Aesthetic and pedagogic approaches. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 56(8), 649–658.
Pink, S. (2015). Doing sensory ethnography. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Pugh, C. (2019). Death of a Service. Youth & Policy. Retrieved from https://www.youthandpolicy.org/articles/death-of-a-service/.
Saldaña, J. (2011). Ethnotheatre: Research from page to stage. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Schön, D. A. (1995). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Farnham UK: Ashgate Publishing.
Schroer, S., & Schmitt, S. (Eds.). (2017). Exploring atmospheres ethnographically. Oxon: Routledge.
Smith, H., & Dean, R. T. (2009). Practice-led research, research-led practice in the creative arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sumartojo, S., & Pink, S. (2019). Atmospheres and the experiential world: Theory and methods. Oxon: Routledge.
Thompson, J. (2015). Towards an aesthetics of care. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 20(4), 430–441.
Tiller, C. (2017). Creative people and places: Power up. Retrieved from http://www.creativepeopleplaces.org.uk/sites/default/files/Power_Up_think_piece_Chrissie_Tiller.pdf.
Toynbee, P. (2016, June). The mood is ugly, and an MP is dead. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/16/mood-ugly-mp-dead-jo-cox.
Turner-King, R. (2018). Creating welcoming spaces in the city: Exploring the theory and practice of ‘hospitality’ in two regional theatres. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23(3), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2018.1477583.
University of Warwick. (2015). The Chancellor’s Commission: The future role of the University of Warwick in Coventry, Warwickshire and the wider region Coventry. Retrieved from http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/chancellorscommission/report/warwick_commission_-_chancellors_commission_final_report_2016.pdf.
Wang, W.-J. (2010). An exploration of the aesthetics of an oral history performance developed in the classroom. Research in Drama and Applied Theatre: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 15(4), 563–577.
Wilson, N., & Gross, J. (2019). Caring for cultural freedom: An ecological approach to supporting young people’s cultural learning. Retrieved from https://www.anewdirection.org.uk/asset/3299/download?1508337726.pdf.
Winston, J. (2010). Beauty and education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Turner-King, R. (2020). “Listen! We Have Something to Say!” Researching Collaborative Co-creation with Youth Using Oral History and Devising in a Disunited Kingdom. In: Gallagher, K., Rodricks, D., Jacobson, K. (eds) Global Youth Citizenry and Radical Hope. Perspectives on Children and Young People, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1282-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1282-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-1281-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-1282-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)