Putting participation on stage: examining participatory theatre as an alternative site for political participation

Mark Chou, Jean-Paul Gagnon and Lesley Pruitt

Policy Studies, 2015, vol. 36, issue 6, 607-622

Abstract: Participation, it has been said, is a central lynchpin of citizenship and democracy. Unfortunately, studies have shown for some time that political participation is on the decline in most Western democracies. Particularly for scholars and policy analysts who define political participation in democracy purely as voting, party membership or in terms of a narrow ‘arena’ definition of politics, the conclusion is clear: levels of political illiteracy are rising, while political participation is declining. Yet, the turn away from formal democratic politics and conventional forms of political participation is only one part of the picture. There is now an extensive literature suggesting a proliferation of new developments and alternative forms of political participation. But even as scholars have become more attuned to these new forms of political participation, the focus remains too narrow. Responding to Iris Marion Young's call to encourage alternative communicative forms in political participation, this article explores the capacity of participatory theatre to be an alternative site of political participation. By surveying three applications of participatory theatre, Jana Sanskriti, Journey of Asylum – Waiting and Betrayed – the article shows how theatre premised on spect-actors set against a communal backdrop can prefigure a more participatory political community.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01442872.2015.1095281 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cposxx:v:36:y:2015:i:6:p:607-622

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cpos20

DOI: 10.1080/01442872.2015.1095281

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Studies is currently edited by Toby James

More articles in Policy Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().