Theatre and citizenship: Young people’s participatory spaces

Abstract

This chapter considers the ways young people’s citizenship can be performatively conceptualized and methodologically operationalized using theatre techniques. It highlights how geographers’ theorizations of young people’s political agency are in tandem with current theatre research that champions alternative spaces of citizenship expression. Young people’s citizenships can be allegorically scripted and the ways in which they respond expresses the contradictions of a discourse of citizenship through statecraft. Despite the wealth of successful examples, there are important considerations when employing theatre methods under the participatory action research framework. In addition, the debates and issues within theatre itself should also prompt social science researchers who are contemplating to employ such methods to not reduce theatrical techniques to a set of tools. Hence, the chapter concludes by discussing the ways in which theatre can be an alternative space for young people to circumvent stifling political geographies and express ideas and opinions about being a Singaporean and its potential benefits in future geographical research.