What Should the Rules Be – or Should There Be Rules? Embodied Popular Education and the Production of Facilitated Space

Abstract

Drama facilitation takes place in “social world” spacetimes that are governed by hegemonic norms. These are created by a complex interplay of global historical processes, the specifics of local factors in the present, and the experience of participants. In Merseyside, UK, these processes create intersectional oppression, which, despite a rhetoric of “inclusion,” renders engagement in creative work either uncomfortable or unobtainable for diasporic and working-class communities in the area. These communities also continue to disproportionately experience various forms of violence. Our response is a trauma-informed “conscientization through the body,” using an eclectic mix of emergent methodologies that intentionally co-create emancipatory spacetimes.