Access through the shadows: lessons from applied performance practice research at the borderlands

ABSTRACT

Drawing from applied performance practice research that examined the experiences of eight queer Desi/South Asian young adults in Toronto, this paper specifically uses micro-encounters to extend the idea that creative methods offer openings that facilitate different kinds of access for different participants. This paper also challenges the assumption that insider knowledge renders more access, and encourages researchers to ‘work the shadows’ and (re)consider the tensions and possibilities of using applied performance practices without reproducing normative visions of bodies and deficit social identity discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Desi/South Asian
• drama methodology
• queer people of colour
• borderlands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dirk J. Rodricks (he/him) is a PhD Candidate in Critical Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Identifying as transnational queer Desi, Dirk’s research interests include critical race theory, de/colonial pedagogy, and exploring issues of multiply marginalised ‘South Asian’ diasporic identity through drama research.

Notes

1. Desi refers to the peoples indigenous to the precolonial Indian subcontinent, which is now comprised of several nation states that include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives. The construction of a singular ‘Desi’ or ‘South Asian’ identity is complicated by global circuits of colonisation including the subjugation of the Indigenous peoples on the Indian subcontinent, and the independence movements that partitioned the land into new nation states.

2. I view applied drama or applied theatre as a general category or a ‘kind of shorthand’ as Helen Nicholson (2005, 3) describes it, for forms of dramatic activity with an intent to ameliorate the lives of individuals, communities, and society at large (Also see Ackroyd 2000). Applied performance practices, as described in this article, seeks to go beyond this definition.

3. Participants determined their level of ‘outness’ in this self-identification. No prescribed definition was presented.

4. These are pseudonyms selected by the participants. Participants also self-selected their demographic identifiers.

5. This research has received the necessary ethics approval from the University of Toronto.

6. The author identifies as a queer, male, Desi with ancestry in India.