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

当英国戏剧行业在2019冠状病毒病之后开始重建活动时，至关重要的是，它必须进一步推动政策制定者和艺术家最近采取的挑战社会经济不平等的行动，这种不平等目前在社会的各个方面都因疫情而加剧。这个研究、发展和参与奖学金将回应一个支持这样一个项目的关键问题：戏剧奖学金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，以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，该奖学金将对广泛构思的“工人阶级主题”目前在英国戏剧实践、政策和学术中体现的方式进行政治分析。现有的研究表明，欢迎新的行业举措来扩大工人阶级对艺术的参与，并改善工人阶级在戏剧行业中的代表性，这些举措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，由于工人阶级缺乏文化资本这一长期存在的意识形态神话，进入戏剧行业的所有入口仍然依赖于对现有（分类）文化规范的同化。因此，工人阶级出身的艺术家在他们的职业生涯中与冒名顶替综合症作斗争，他们挑战文化规范的能力受到他们必须遵守的现有游戏规则的限制，他们自己缺乏文化自信，无法做到这一点。这样，无论人口结构如何变化，文化力量和意识形态（分类）规范都不受干扰，并继续被传播。因此，对工人阶级文化赤字的神话进行分析、揭露和挑战是至关重要的。该奖学金建议，这样一个项目必须从检查工人阶级主题在戏剧实践，政策和学术方面的当前表现的局限性开始。初步研究将主要通过对选定的专业作品和参与性节目中工人阶级主体的表现形式进行社会学分析来进行。该研究还将绘制2022 - 23个旨在使艺术生产多样化和民主化的项目中选定活动中工人阶级社区和参与者的准入、代理和作者身份。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，PI将利用这些研究来启动戏剧研究中的阶级话语的重新定位，从目前对最不稳定的工人阶级主题的关注转向对更广泛的工人阶级身份的考虑。这项研究活动将通过两次专题讨论会、一次为期三天的会议和一期特刊，寻求影响和激发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。这项跨学科的学术研究还将通过三个区域研讨会进一步与更广泛的艺术家、制片人和戏剧行业的政策制定者进行对话，这些研讨会将使行业专业人士能够参与研究项目中与他们自己的政策和实践相关的问题和见解。这些研讨会的目的是检查这些见解可能对项目和政策产生的实际和物质结果，以及迄今为止研究的见解可能受到质疑或发展的地方。

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.