The construction of drama worlds as literary interpretation of Latina feminist literature

Abstract

The author presents an instrumental case study from an ethnographic research that examined how George, a student in one diverse fifth grade classroom, participated in a series of drama engagements to respond and construct meaning from the picture book Friends from the other side/Amigos del otro lado by G. Anzaldu´a (Children's Books Press, California, 1993). Using notions such as multiple social voices and ideological bodies as theoretical frameworks, it is possible to understand how George used the context and content of the text, his social reality and the drama to perform meanings and examine multiple positions from where to speak. The framework for the data analysis of the case study is grounded in Latina feminist literary theory. Codes and categories were created to relate George's construction and performance of discourses in the drama to notions explored by Latina feminist writers such as border crossing, women as ‘sheroes’, spirituality and social justice. By using this framework the researcher situates her work in recent critical and post‐structural feminist approaches to research that look at data from race, ethnic, and gender specific interpretative criteria and its implications for research in drama.