Unveiled: interrogating the use of applied drama in multiple and specific sites

Abstract

This article examines a view of site through postcolonial feminism to suggest that multiple and contradictory discourses of culture, location, gender and context are all vital in an understanding of a specific site when working with a community. These views are applied to a project undertaken with a group of Asian women in Britain exploring issues surrounding self-harm, highlighting the importance of taking multiple positionings into account when using drama exercises. In addition, the author's own location as researcher/facilitator within the project is seen as ‘site-specific’, questioning motivation and position within the project. Through the lens of postcolonial feminism, the idea of a fixed boundary of ‘site’ is re-located to suggest a place where identity is continually in process within the local and the global.

Notes

1. In India today, there have also been instances where women have set fire to themselves as a sign of resistance to the abuse they are experiencing.