The Politics of Care in Indifferent Times: Youth Narratives, Caring Practices, and Transformed Discourses in Greek Education Amid Economic and Refugee Crises

Abstract

My role in the Radical Hope Project was dual, as researcher and as drama facilitator. In terms of the research, I acted as principal investigator for the Greece site and as drama facilitator, I collaborated with my very experienced colleague, Nikos Govas, to carry out the majority of the workshops in Greece. The data illuminated in this chapter derive from two different schools in Attica (a suburb of Greece), with two different groups of students (a 13-year-old group and a 12–15 year-old group) who took part in the first year (Verbatim Theatre practices) and the third year (Collaborative Devising practices) respectively. My chapter analyzes the function and the impact of the Radical Hope Project, focusing specifically on the ways in which the theatrical, pedagogical and methodological practices of the project allowed two pressing social issues, namely Greece’s financial and the refugee crises, to find their way into the classrooms through the students’ own narratives and theatrical work. In this context, I demonstrate how the project enacted a methodology that invited students to disclose their perspectives and experiences, gaining both new knowledge and new relationships as a group in order to address the crises bearing down upon their daily young lives in unyielding ways.