The body speaks: Theatre as an embodied decolonizing methodology

• In Event: The Role of the Body in Indigenous and Decolonizing Research Methodologies

Abstract

We are a research team working in a in a multi-year research project. with Aboriginal youth using theatre and the arts to develop youth health leaders. We work with a variety of approaches (particularly Theatre of the Oppressed [Boal, 1979]) that encourage youth to identify problematic issues in their community while clarifying the historical, oppressive relationships of colonizer-colonized.
Our research showsthat Aboriginal youth who are embedded in community and family systems damaged by colonialism find it difficult to see themselves as agents of change. Lack of agency leads to loss of volition, and, for these youth, following the crowd can appear to be a better choice than living in isolation. We will examine the processes, pedagogies and content of a workshop completed in 2010-2011: “The Story of the Mask.” What were the processes, pedagogies and content and the embodied processes, pedagogies and content that challenged negative effects of colonization and created the necessary ‘decolonial imaginary’ (Perez, 1999), a space where different kinds of relationships and dilemmas can be negotiated? How did these processes flow from Aboriginal and tribal knowledge systems including relational and holistic ways of knowing? How might we have naively perpetuated Western binaries of mind and body, colonizer and colonized?
Our work is informed by theories of colonization-decolonization (Smith, 1999), Indigenous research (Kovach, 2009), and embodiment (Fay, 1987; Boal, 1979) in the contexts of the arts, education, and health. Driskill (2008) argues that colonization is an act “done to bodies and felt by other bodies” (p. 155).
Violence is not something abstract, but rather a knowledge “that is known because of the damage done to our skin, flesh, muscles, bones and spirits” (p. 155). If this is a process of wounding on our bodies, then decolonization requires a healing of our bodies. Therefore, decolonization involves both resistance to colonization and the reclamation of new ways of relating to co-create new possibilities and transform political and personal histories.
We have planning and journalled notes from members of the research team and workshop facilitators. We have photographs and other artefacts from the workshop and community events surrounding it. Interviews with participants and community members involved will be completed by late August 2011.
Colonization has seriously affected First Nations peoples as is evident by the health issues facing First Nations communities and First Nations youth in Canada (RCAP, 1996). This research will build researcher and community knowledge about effective decolonizing processes, pedagogies and content in arts-based workshop settings.


Boal, A. (1979) Theatre of the oppressed. (A. Charles & M. O. Leal McBride, Trans.). London, UK: Pluto Press.
Fay, B. (1987) Critical social science: Liberation and its limits. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kovach, M. (2009). Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Perez, E. (1999). The decolonial imaginary: Writing Chicanas into history. Bloomington: Indian University Press.
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). (1996). Gathering strength (Vol. 3). Ottawa, ON: Canadian Communication Group.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books.

Authors

• Warren S. Linds, Concordia University

• Linda M. Goulet, First Nations University of Canada

• Heather Ritenburg, University of Regina

• Jo-Ann Episkenew, Indigenous People's Health Research Centre

• Karen Schmidt, File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council