Thickening citizenship

This dissertation lies at the intersection of Applied Theatre/Drama, Youth Citizenship, and Education. It examines a summer high school applied theatre program that focused on the theme of justice and aimed to foster youth civic engagement. The dissertation analyzes the particular perspectives and narratives shared by the youth participants regarding citizenship. Contextualizing these discourses within the context of the theatre program, it makes that the spaces created by the processes of the theatre program provided a context for the youth participants to share thicker discourses of citizenship. It combines methods of discourse analysis (e.g., Boyatzis, 1998; Davies & Harré, 1990; Harré & Langenhove, 1991; Haste, 2004; Linde, 2003; Riessman, 1991; 2003) to study the meanings embedded in the discourse of the youth actors. Drawing on the disciplines of applied drama and theatre (e.g., Nicholson, 2005; Prentki & Preston, 2009; Taylor, 2003) on one hand, and that of anthropology, philosophy, and sociology (e.g., Arnot & Dillabough, 2000; Nussbaum, 1997; Rosaldo, 1994; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) on the other, it uncovers a language of thickening citizenship in youth talk. The discourse of thickening citizenship is critical; embodied in narratives, cultural practices, historical connections, interpersonal relationships, and emotions; and engaged with action for the sake of social justice. Engaged in these discourses, the teenaged participants of the theatre program positioned themselves as social critics and civic actors in the interview, claiming a thicker citizenship as youth. This dissertation has the potential to ignite afresh further conversation about drama as a civic activity and the theatre as a site of civic action and social change.

It is argued that attending to the discourse of the youth actors of the theatre program has significance for the theorizing of youth and youth citizenship. By positioning youth actors at the center, this study reenvisions teenagers as critical, civic agents who desire and imagine social change and take action for justice, working with other state actors and agents to positively contribute to their communities. By privileging the critical eye of the drama learner, it aims to inform drama pedagogy and performance from a fresh perspective.