Carcerality, theatre, rights

ABSTRACT

Threatened with ever-increasing levels of surveillance and confinement, this special issue attempts to extend the discussion of Prison Theatre to consider ‘carcerality’ as a pervasive neoliberal strategy. The issue aims to steer the discussion away from considerations of utility and the aesthetics of redemption, towards understandings of the arts in carceral spaces as a fundamental human right. What role can theatre and performance play in highlighting the rights of those experiencing state-sponsored control, confinement and exclusion? And what role can theatre and performance play in challenging the exclusionary structures of carcerality by enhancing freedoms, liberty and inclusion?

KEYWORDS:

• Carcerality
• theatre
• rights
• prison theatre
• applied theatre

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See ‘Systemic Entrapment’, The University of Wollongong, https://www.uow.edu.au/global-challenges/building-resilient-communities/systemic-entrapment/.

2 After shocking revelations of abuse and torture in a youth detention centre in the Northern Territory in 2016, Australia has recently ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) (see Naylor 2021).

3 In the New Zealand context, in December 2020, the Human Rights Commission released a new report ‘Time for a Paradigm Shift: A Follow Up Review of Seclusion and Restraint Practices in New Zealand’ (Shalev 2020). Among the report’s findings was that the use of seclusion remains disproportionality high with Māori and Pacific Peoples. The report also documented that disproportion use of seclusion within women’s prisons, where Māori women made up 78% of all stays in the most restrictive form of segregation in 2019 and were segregated for longer than European or Pacific women (2020, 8). In March 2021, New Zealand Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis ordered an urgent overhaul of Auckland Women's Prison following allegations of ‘degrading’ and ‘inhumane’ treatment of prisoners. The overhaul was triggered following allegations of unreasonable use of pepper spray and confinement cells (The Conversation, 23 March, 2021).

4 This has also coincided with SiPC4—the fourth annual Shakespeare in Prisons Conference 2020–2021, hosted by the University of Notre Dame USA. Moving away from more general discussions of prison Shakespeare as a tool for self-discovery and rehabilitation, conference organisers have for the first time adopted a ‘call to action’ approach in response to BLM and the renewed focus on racial injustice in the USA. Conference streams have included conversations about ‘prison reform,’ ‘Shakespeare as a scaffold for social justice’ and ‘antiracism in practice’ (https://shakespeare.nd.edu/about/news/2020-shakespeare-in-prisons-conference-information/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Woodland

Sarah Woodland is a researcher, practitioner, and educator in applied theatre, participatory arts and socially engaged performance. She is currently Dean’s Research Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, investigating how the performing arts can promote social justice and wellbeing in institutions and communities.

Rand Hazou

Rand Hazou is a theatre scholar and facilitator. His research explores theatre engaging with social justice across the fields of applied theatre, refugee theatre and decolonial theory and practice. In Aotearoa, he has led teaching and creative projects engaging with prison, aged care, and street communities.