Who am I? Who can tell me who I am? The Importance of the Social and Political in Children¿s and Young People¿s Drama

Abstract

‘Who Am I? Who can tell me who I am?’ is an international panoramic of voices, all of whom are speaking from within their praxis contexts, that is the social and the political in the personal when working with children and young people, through drama and theatre in education. Each contributor illuminates how they are working within the socio-political contexts as it resonates and influences the personal experiences of their participants. This collection emerged from a conference of the same name, which took place at Trinity College Dublin in March 2019. The conference was organised by the Arts Education Research Group in the School of Education, in association with ADEI (the Association for Drama in Education in Ireland). As organisers, we took great pleasure in inviting participants from across the globe to attend this once in a lifetime event, centred as it was on celebrating the life and contribution of David Davis to the field of Drama and Theatre in Education. The conference was an opportunity for many of David’s former students, collaborators, friends, and colleagues, to appreciate anew his passion and drive for drama in education. It was also a chance to celebrate David’s lifetime contribution to a field whose work has never been so necessary as it is now, at a precipice of deepening social, political, and environmental uncertainties across the face of the world. For many too, who had encountered David’s thinking and practice only through his writing, this was an unmissable event, to experience for the first time the depth of his convictions and the passion and commitment he brings to his teaching and drama facilitation. It was unsurprising then that the conference brought together a rich array of voices from around the globe and from different traditions and perspectives in drama and theatre in education. We gathered to discuss the central theme of the conference, that of the importance of the social and political in children’s and young people’s drama to ask, ‘Who am I? Who can tell me who I am?’ The conference became that rare thing, a useful sharing of ideas and practices across national and international borders; a celebration of the common ground amongst us, and an opportunity to discuss the challenges we face now and for the future, where hope is still at hand. And as can happen from sharing, from those illuminations, from the commonality and differences of experience, there emerged a holistic and organic latticework of praxis voices. Strong and fragile simultaneously, that latticework, underpins this collection. At its heart, David’s original and ground-breaking ideas on drama and theatre in education threads through all chapters here, the stitches well-wrought from a lifetime’s labour, they strengthen and protect. Always challenging, often controversial, David’s work not only enriches our field, but his ideas also remain with us for much longer than the immediate impact of the event. This book was always going to be written.