My Country, A Journey: A Research-Based Drama on the Irish Migrant Experience in Britain

该项目旨在利用研究型戏剧的潜力，以满足爱尔兰总统迈克尔·d·希金斯博士在最近的演讲中强有力地阐述的一种特定的非学术文化需求，即从我们的移民历史经验中汲取对我们这个时代移民到来的适当伦理回应。为了实现这一目标，建议将广受好评的书的研究见解（原项目的关键产出）转化为更易于访问的格式，超越传统上为学术界服务的传播形式。根据他的书中丰富的经验，PI将与非学术合作伙伴、第三部门组织和慈善机构合作，创作和巡演一个定制的戏剧，这将全面参与并鼓励新的观众探索自1700年以来爱尔兰人在英国的不同经历和身份。这部特别委托的戏剧，由著名的社区剧作家兼导演马丁·林奇（Martin Lynch）撰写，将以原项目的中心论点为前提，即回忆录作家的证词动摇了爱尔兰移民同质性的假设，并与将移民视为国家悲剧的陈词滥调相矛盾。因此，重点将是在英国成为爱尔兰人的多种方式，以及移民身份在多大程度上是在差异和分裂中构成的，就像在共性和团结中一样。通过将这些个人叙述转化为移情戏剧，这种创新的合作将提供一个令人兴奋的机会，让更广泛的英国和爱尔兰公众了解原始研究的核心知识问题，此时爱尔兰再次流失移民，其中许多人已经开始在英国定居。因此，该剧将在英国和爱尔兰的社区和文化中心进行为期三周的巡回演出，它将通过引发经验、具体和情感的反应，而不是简单的认知反应，提供一种获取社会相关知识的替代表演方式。该项目将以丰富的戏剧节目为特色，其中包括对剧作家兼导演的采访，以及演出后的小组讨论，观众可以向PI、剧作家和演员提出问题并进行讨论。项目亦会配合一项创新的教育及外展计划，以参与的非牟利戏剧公司绿芽制作公司（GSP）以往成功举办的同类计划为蓝本。该计划将采取六个两小时的讲习班的形式，在四个选定的地点：贝尔法斯特，卡斯尔巴，曼彻斯特和伦敦，为期六周。每个讲习班将由一名当地协调员协调，该协调员将与来自这些地方当地社区的c.15名参与者合作，使他们能够塑造和写下他们对移民的记忆和看法，其中的一部分将在戏剧表演中朗读，并以小册子的形式出版。其中五场研讨会将在戏剧访问这些场馆之前举行。第六次会议将在不久之后举行，因此提供了一种宝贵的额外手段，通过在重点突出的后续会议中与听众样本一起工作，来捕捉听众的影响和反馈。尽管将个人叙事转化为表演有着悠久的历史，但从未有过一个关于爱尔兰移民的项目以这种方式有意戏剧化地展示研究成果。因此，拟议的项目构成了一种新颖的方式，使原始研究及其成果以一种充满活力、引人入胜和具体化的方式向非学术受众开放，从而通过改善社会和智力资本、社会网络、社区认同和生活质量来创造社会和经济效益。

This project seeks to exploit the potential of research-based theatre in order to address a specific non-academic cultural need - powerfully articulated in recent speeches by the Irish President, Dr Michael D. Higgins - which is to draw from our historical experience of migration an appropriately ethical response to the arrival of migrants in our own times. To achieve this, it is proposed to transform the research insights of the critically acclaimed book that was the key output of the original project into a more accessible format which goes beyond the forms of dissemination that traditionally serve academic communities. Drawing on his book's experientially rich testimonies, the PI will work collaboratively with non-academic partners, third sector organisations and charitable bodies to create and tour a bespoke play that will holistically engage and encourage new audiences to explore the diverse experiences and identities of the Irish in Britain since 1700. This specially commissioned play, written by renowned community-based playwright-director Martin Lynch, will be premised on the central arguments of the original project, which are that the testimonies of memoirists unsettle assumptions of Irish migrant homogeneity and contradict clichéd views of emigration as a national tragedy. Consequently, the accent will be on the multiple ways of being Irish in Britain and on the extent to which migrant identities have been constituted in difference and division as much as in commonality and solidarity. By translating these personal narratives into an empathic drama, this innovative collaboration will provide an exciting opportunity to acquaint the wider British and Irish public with the central intellectual concerns of the original research, at a time when Ireland is once again shedding emigrants, many of whom are have begun to settle in Britain. As such, the play, which will tour community and cultural centres in Britain and Ireland over a three-week period, will offer an alternative performative way of accessing socially relevant knowledge, by eliciting responses that are experiential, embodied and affective, rather than simply cognitive. The project will feature an informative theatre programme, which will include an interview with the playwright-director, and post-performance panel discussions, which will allow audience members to ask questions and discuss the issues raised with the PI, playwright and cast. The project will also be accompanied by an innovative education and outreach programme, which will be modelled on previous successful programmes of this kind run by the participating not-for-profit theatre theatre company, Green Shoot Productions (GSP). This programme will take the form of six two-hour workshops delivered over six weeks in four selected venues: Belfast, Castlebar, Manchester and London. Each workshop will be co-ordinated by a local facilitator who will work with c.15 participants drawn from local communities in these places to enable them to shape and write down their memories and perceptions of emigration, a selection of which will be read at performances of the play and published in booklet form. Five of these workshops will precede the play's visit to these venues. The sixth will happen shortly afterwards, thereby providing a valuable additional means of capturing audience impact and feedback by working with an audience sample in a focused follow-up session. Although the reworking of personal narrative into performance has a long history, there has never been a staging of a project on Irish migration that purposefully dramatises research outcomes in this manner. The proposed project thus constitutes a novel way of making original research and its outcomes accessible to non-academic audiences in a dynamic, engaging and embodied way, thereby creating social and economic benefits through improvements in social and intellectual capital, social networking, community identity and quality of life.