Intersectionality and Solidarity in Curriculum-Making Theatre Encounters with Marginalized Youth Researcher-Artists

Abstract

In this article, drawn from my doctoral study, I argue that applied theatre encounters can serve as methods of Deweyian social inquiry and as curriculum-making events that illuminate how youths perceive their roles in social resistance and that offer them an opportunity to serve as artists, researchers, activists and public pedagogues. I situate the study in the field of curriculum studies by placing the research project itself in relation to a William Doll’s 4Rs model of curriculum principles: Richness, Recursion, Relations and Rigor. I posit that the research-based applied theatre practice of ethnodrama can potentially serve as an educational space wherein marginalized youths can integrate qualitative research and experiential knowledge as facilitators of a more just society. The 12 racialized, socioeconomically under-resourced youth participants in Toronto focused on intersectionality and solidarity in their ethnodrama action project. I explore the pedagogical, political and artistic choices these youths made in the process of both devising and presenting their original theatrical piece.