Figurations of working-class subjects in UK theatre practice and policy.

当英国戏剧业在COVID19疫情之后开始重建活动时，至关重要的是，它将进一步推动政策制定者和艺术家最近采取的行动，以挑战社会经济不平等，目前这种不平等现象在社会各个领域都因疫情而加剧。这一研究、发展和参与奖学金将回答一个支持这样一个项目的关键问题：戏剧学术中阶级话语的重新定位如何为未来的艺术实践和政策提供信息，使该行业努力挑战戏剧和更广泛的社会中的阶级歧视？为了解决这个问题，该奖学金将对英国戏剧实践、政策和学术中目前广泛构思的“工人阶级主题”的表现方式进行政治分析。现有的研究表明，为扩大工人阶级对艺术的参与和提高工人阶级在戏剧业中的代表性而提出的可喜的新的行业倡议本身并不足以挑战目前不公平的文化力量平衡。有证据表明，由于一个长期存在的意识形态神话，即工人阶级主体缺乏文化资本，在所有入口点进入戏剧业仍然依赖于对现有(分类)文化规范的同化。因此，工人阶级出身的艺术家在整个职业生涯中都在与冒名顶替综合症作斗争，他们挑战文化规范的机构受到他们必须遵循的现有游戏规则的限制，以及他们自己缺乏文化自信。通过这种方式，文化力量和意识形态(分类)规范保持不受干扰，并继续传播，无论人口结构如何变化。出于这个原因，对工人阶级文化赤字的神话进行分析、曝光和挑战是至关重要的。该研究金建议，这样的项目必须从检查当前工人阶级主题在戏剧实践、政策和学术方面表现出来的局限性开始。初步研究将主要通过对工人阶级主题在选定的专业制作和参与性方案中的表现进行社会学分析。这项研究还将绘制2022-23年期间旨在使艺术生产多样化和民主化的项目中授予工人阶级社区和参与者的准入、代理和作者资格。上述分析将受到对阶级和分层的社会学研究的持续研究的推动，国际戏剧学会将利用这一时期启动戏剧研究中阶级话语的重新定位，从目前关注最不稳定的工人阶级主题转向考虑更广泛的工人阶级身份。这项研究活动将通过两次研讨会、一次为期三天的会议和一份特刊杂志，努力影响和促进戏剧艺术家与社会学、文化政策和戏剧研究学者之间持续的跨学科对话。这种跨学科的学术研究还将通过三个地区性讲习班进一步与来自戏剧行业的更广泛的艺术家、制片人和政策制定者进行对话，这些讲习班将旨在使行业专业人员能够就他们自己的政策和实践参与该项目的研究问题和见解。这些讲习班的目的是审查受这些见解启发的项目和政策可能取得的实际和实质性成果，以及迄今为止研究的见解可能在哪里受到质疑或发展。

When the UK theatre industry begins to rebuild activity in the wake of COVID19, it will be critical that it furthers recent moves by policy makers and artists to challenge socio-economic inequality, now exacerbated in every part of society by the pandemic. This research, development and engagement fellowship will respond to a critical question in support of such a project: How might a re-orientation of class discourse within theatre scholarship inform future artistic practice and policy in the industry's efforts to challenge class discrimination in theatre and wider society? To address this question the fellowship will engage in a political analysis of the ways in which a broadly-conceived 'working-class subject' currently manifests in UK theatre practice, policy and scholarship. Existing research suggests that welcome new industry initiatives to widen working-class participation in the arts, and improve working-class representation within the theatre industry, will not be sufficient on their own to challenge the inequitable balance of cultural power as it currently stands. There is evidence that access to the theatre industry, at all entry points, remains reliant on assimilation into the existing (classed) cultural norms due to a long-standing ideological myth that working-class subjects are deficient in cultural capital. Consequently, the working-class origin artist struggles throughout their career with imposter syndrome and their agency to challenge cultural norms is limited by the existing rules of the game by which they must play, and their own lack of cultural confidence to do otherwise. In this way, cultural power and ideological (classed) norms remain undisturbed and continue to be propagated, regardless of demographic change. For this reason it is critical that the myth of working-class cultural deficit is made subject to analysis, exposure and challenge. This fellowship proposes that such a project must begin with an examination of the limitations of current manifestations of the working-class subject in theatre practice, policy and scholarship. The initial research will primarily be undertaken through sociological analysis of representations of the working-class subject in selected professional productions and participatory programmes. The research will additionally map the access, agency and authorship granted to working-class communities and participants within selected activity during 2022 - 23 of projects aimed to diversify and democratise artistic production. The above analysis will be driven by a sustained period of research into sociological studies of class and stratification, which the PI will use to kick-start a reorientation of class discourse within theatre studies away from its current focus on the most precarious working-class subjects towards consideration of a much broader spectrum of working-class identities. This research activity will seek to influence and invigorate sustained interdisciplinary dialogue between theatre artists and scholars from sociology, cultural policy and theatre studies through two symposia, a three-day conference and a special issue journal. This interdisciplinary scholarly research will also be further placed into dialogue with a wider field of artists, producers and policy makers from the theatre industry through three regional workshops that will be designed to enable industry professionals to engage with the research questions and insights from the project in relation to their own policies and practice. The aim of these workshops is to examine what the practical and material outcomes for projects and policy informed by these insights might be and where the insights of the research so far might be contested or developed.