Telling tales in and out of school: youth performativities with digital storytelling

Abstract

This article examines the performativities of three marginalised ‘at risk’ youth who participated in a longitudinal digital storytelling project undertaken in formal and informal settings in Singapore. Seeking to foster young people's agency, identity and multiple literacies, the three and one half year project developed a range of digital storytelling workshops to engage young people's creativity and expressions of self within a community of authors of digital texts. This article articulates the ways in which the project provided three young people with a platform from which to explore and play with a range of performative identities through the construction of digital and virtual personas and considers some of the possible implications for educators.

Keywords:

• agency
• digital storytelling
• identity
• performativities
• marginalised youth

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by Singapore's National Research Foundation, grant number NRF2008-IDM001-MOE-018. I would like to thank my co-researcher Kate T. Anderson of Arizona State University and our research team - Wing Ho, Masturah Aziz and Ysa Cayabyab, Ida Binte Abdullah, Puay Ho Chua and Denise De Souza.

Notes

1. I apply the term ‘at risk’ to youth who were seen as not succeeding in school in ways that could disadvantage their future or who were likely to leave school early; or to youth engaged in illegal activities and/or who had fallen under the gaze of the judicial system.