No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Who is Responsible? Neoliberal Discourses of Well-Being in Australia and New Zealand
Abstract
Policy proposals about social change and well-being shape the implementation of applied theatre projects through technologies such as evaluation practices and funding applications. Representations of projects can, in turn, effect public discourse about who participants are and why they are or are not ‘being well’. Like public policy, applied theatre for social change has to establish a problem that needs to be solved. Drawing on debates about change in applied theatre literature, we consider how funders, governments, and communities call on applied theatre practitioners to frame particular issues and/or people as problematic. We then examine discourses of well-being in Australia and New Zealand, drawing on policy documents and funding schemes to discuss the politics of change in applied theatre in each country. We consider how the field might navigate policies, technologies and public understandings of well-being, change and social good to produce work with and for participants in neoliberalised contexts.
Link to free downloads: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SpFY4MVcKEw2HtBn6JBJ/full?target=10.1080/14452294.2019.1572432
Over the last few decades, both New Zealand and the intergovernmental organisation of UNESCO have widely spread the rhetoric of safety through a broad range of educational issues. This notion, in vogue since the neoliberal turn, has raised little opposition in educational debates. In this article, we use a Foucauldian lens to analyse the assumptions that underlie the discourses of safety of UNESCO and the New Zealand’s education policy, and to what extent they align or differ. The findings show a general alignment between the safety discourses of UNESCO and the New Zealand Ministry of Education, and three main assumptions were identified that frame the problem, the solution and those responsible for solving safety issues in education. In the texts analysed, safety operates as a neoliberal mechanism to manage student behaviour and individualise social risk in the guise of altruism.
Te Rito Toi is an online open access educational resource designed to help teachers respond to the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic and provide all children with opportunities to engage with the arts. Central to the Te Rito Toi project was the concept of well-being, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SGD 3). The study reported in this article delved into the perspectives of a group of New Zealand educators who used Te Rito Toi after the Covid-19 lockdown to explore the ways in which this resource helped them to engage their students in both individual and collective recovery. The analysis of the interviews revealed the following four themes: 1) building relationships and a sense of belonging; 2) enhancing communication and empathy; 3) connecting with wider social issues; and 4) contributing to community recovery.
There has been a longstanding concern about the relationships between policy, funding and theatre practice in educational and community settings. Past scholarship has made evident the varied ways a relationship with policy can manifest and play out in the political, pedagogic, aesthetic and ethical values, approaches and outcomes of applied theatre practices. This includes the ways theatre can play a part in producing the problems it intends to address. This article argues for the use of critical theories to interrogate and rethink the policy-funding-practice relationship, to generate nuanced understandings and open up a space of possibility.
Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island, including what is known as Canada, have experienced the traumatic effects of colonisation that have deeply impacted the ability to share language and culture with younger generations. While funding and who it is from is an ongoing struggle for many arts-based practitioners, it is particularly problematic in offering ‘solutions’ for Indigenous communities in Canada with the ongoing colonial violence and injustice perpetuated by the government and funding institutions. In this article, a collective of Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors discuss decision-making processes, consensus-based policies, and document the ways performance creation assists these processes through protocol and policy.
Individuals with intellectual disability are often left out of and overlooked in discussions on sexual health and sexuality. Given this, we undertook a participatory theatre research project to better respond to the needs of the individuals with intellectual and developmental disability regarding their sexual agency and sexual citizenship. The project, entitled Romance, Relationships, and Rights arose when the executive director of a community living agency approached researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship to learn about how they, as an agency, could better support their community. To disrupt sexual ableism and traditional theatre hierarchies, we collaboratively turned to participatory and disability theatre with the aim to advance and promote the sexual citizenship of individuals with intellectual and developmental disability, who refer to themselves as self-advocates - those who speak and act with agency. The challenges of equitable co-creation arose throughout the theatre process; the themes of deconstruction/co-construction and uncertainty and liminality reveal the iterative process of centering self-advocate voices.
INTRODUCTION: Emerging from a flourishing field of practice overseas, the growing evidence base on participatory arts engagement demonstrates numerous benefits for young people’s health and wellbeing. In Aotearoa New Zealand, participatory arts engagement is under-valued and under-resourced despite local practice examples suggesting it deserves further attention.METHODS: Focusing on a case example of an Auckland-based creative arts participation project geared to promote positive mental health and wellbeing of marginalised young people, two focus groups were conducted to explore how participants felt arts engagement contributed to their wellbeing. Participatory arts activities were integrated within the focus group process to enable creative expression of their voices.FINDINGS: The youth voices unearthed through this research indicate that an arts based approach can be used as a powerful tool in promoting youth wellbeing and offers significant promise to address local policy priorities.CONCLUSION: We suggest that participatory arts engagement deserves further investment and research to explore further application in social practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Issue addressed
Rates of sexually transmissible infections among young people are high, and there is a need for innovative, youth‐focused sexual health promotion programs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Sharing Stories youth theatre program, which uses interactive theatre and drama‐based strategies to engage and educate multicultural youth on sexual health issues. The effectiveness of using drama‐based evaluation methods is also discussed.
Methods
The youth theatre program participants were 18 multicultural youth from South East Asian, African and Middle Eastern backgrounds aged between 14 and 21 years. Four sexual health drama scenarios and a sexual health questionnaire were used to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes.
Results
Participants reported being confident talking to and supporting their friends with regards to safe sex messages, improved their sexual health knowledge and demonstrated a positive shift in their attitudes towards sexual health. Drama‐based evaluation methods were effective in engaging multicultural youth and worked well across the cultures and age groups.
Conclusions
Theatre and drama‐based sexual health promotion strategies are an effective method for up‐skilling young people from multicultural backgrounds to be peer educators and good communicators of sexual health information. Dramabased evaluation methods are engaging for young people and an effective way of collecting data from culturally diverse youth.
So what?
This study recommends incorporating interactive and arts‐based strategies into sexual health promotion programs for multicultural youth. It also provides guidance for health promotion practitioners evaluating an arts‐based health promotion program using arts‐based data collection methods.
Ideas of responsibility pervade social life, underpinning forms of governance, subjectivities,and collective relations. Inspired by current analyses of neoliberal projects of ‘responsibilisation’ , this paper examines modes of responsibility that extend, challenge,or co-exist with neoliberal ideals. Our aim is twofold: first, we wish to broaden current scholarly understandings of how neoliberal ‘responsible’ subjects are nested within multiple frames of dependencies, reciprocities, and obligations. Secondly, we articulate a framework for conceptualising responsibility that places responsibilisation alongside relations of care and social contract ideologies
—three modes of inter-relationship that we see as underlying the ‘competing responsibilities’ inherent in contemporary social life.
This paper focuses on the fifth dimension of social innovation—i.e. political governance. Although largely neglected in the mainstream 'innovation' literature, innovative governance arrangements are increasingly recognised as potentially significant terrains for fostering inclusive development processes. International organisations like the EU and the World Bank, as well as leading grass-roots movements, have pioneered new and more participatory governance arrangements as a pathway towards greater inclusiveness. Indeed, over the past two decades or so, a range of new and often innovative institutional arrangements has emerged, at a variety of geographical scales. These new institutional 'fixes' have begun to challenge traditional state-centred forms of policy-making and have generated new forms of governance-beyond-the-state. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality, the paper argues that the emerging innovative horizontal and networked arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are decidedly Janus-faced. While enabling new forms of participation and articulating the state – civil society relationships in potentially democratising ways, there is also a flip side to the process. To the extent that new governance arrangements rearticulate the state-civil society relationship, they also redefine and reposition the meaning of (political) citizenship and, consequently, the nature of democracy itself. The first part of the paper outlines the contours of governance-beyond-the-state. The second part addresses the thorny issues of the state –civil society relationship in the context of the emergence of the new governmentality associated with governance-beyond-the-state. The third part teases out the contradictory way in which new arrangements of governance have created new institutions and empowered new actors, while disempowering others. It is argued that this shift from 'government' to 'governance' is associated with the consolidation of new technologies of government, on the one hand, and with profound restructuring of the parameters of political democracy on the other, leading to a substantial democratic deficit. The paper concludes by suggesting that socially innovative arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are fundamentally Janus-faced, particularly under conditions in which the democratic character of the political sphere is increasingly eroded by the encroaching imposition of market forces that set the 'rules of the game'.
The paper provides a review of some of the terminologies and definitions of applied theatre, critiques the 'transformative principle' argued for by some applied researchers, and extends this to a discussion on the complex relationship between donor agendas and the politics of intention that contribute to the shaping of applied discourse. (Taylor 2003, 1) The paper goes on to propose a theatre of 'little changes' which eschews big claims of social efficacy, and suggests the need for a discourse which can better articulate an interdependence between the aesthetic imperatives and the possibilities of social engagement. Yes Yes
Traditionally drama in schools has been seen either as a learning medium with a wide range of curricular uses or as a subject in its own right. This paper argues that the importance of drama in schools is in the processes of social and artistic engagement and experiencing of drama rather than in its outcomes. The paper contrasts the pro-social emphasis in the ensemble model of drama with the pro-technical and limited range of learning in subject-based approaches which foreground technical knowledge of periods, plays, styles and genres. The ensemble-based approach is positioned in the context of professional theatre understandings of ensemble artistry and in the context of revolutionary shifts from the pro-technical to the pro-social in educational and cultural policy making in England. Using ideas drawn from McGrath and Castoriadis, the paper claims that the ensemble approach provides young people with a model of democratic living.
In the past 30 years there have been significant shifts in the way Australian public health policy has problematized the role of leisure, recreation and physical activity in relation to the WHO identification of lifestyle disease risks to individual and social wellbeing. This article offers a cultural analysis of the way discourses of leisure and healthy lifestyles have been produced through the governmental objectives of health policy and promotion aimed at the body (Foucault, 1991; Rose, 1999). Two campaigns (1970's Life be in it! and 1990's Active Australia) are examined in relation to the rationalities and ethics through which individuals are encouraged to govern their own healthy lifestyle practices in the name of freedom. Yes Yes
As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global contexts and regions. Divided into three parts: histories and cultural memories; place, community and environment; and poetics and participation -the chapters interweave cutting-edge theoretical insights with examples of innovative creative practice that traverse different places, spaces and times. Essential reading for researchers and artists working within applied theatre, this collection will also be of interest to those in theatre and performance studies, education, cultural policy, social history and cultural geography.
As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global contexts and regions. Divided into three sections - histories and cultural memories; place, community and environment; and poetics and participation - the chapters interweave cutting-edge theoretical insights with examples of innovative creative practice that traverse different places, spaces and times. Essential reading for researchers and artists working within applied theatre, this collection will also be of interest to those in theatre and performance studies, education, cultural policy, social history and cultural geography.
A key aim of the research project reported on in this volume was to broadly explore texts related to applied theatre and map the intentions, values, understanding of success and references to change. In exploring the recruitment of these themes in 139 documents related to applied theatre, there emerged a repetition of key discourses – social justice, community, education, and participation. The repetition suggests orthodoxy in certain ways of thinking about applied theatre. It is clear that contemporary rationales for applied theatre have developed and depend upon these kinds of ideals. In this chapter we take stock of these repetitions in order to ask critical questions and interrogate the logics at play in the field. Essentially, we are interested in how and why dominant ideas in applied theatre make sense. The discussion presented here attempts to understand the ways representations of applied theatre work in public documents (evaluations, academic papers, websites and so on) produce ‘truths’ and therefore, in turn, exercise power (Ball, What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes, The Australian Journal of Education Studies, 13(2), 10–17, 1993).
This article aims to raise new questions for the field through the analysis of a set of applied theatre programme evaluation documents. The analysis of these three documents was undertaken using Bacchi's (2009) 'What's the problem represented to be?' (WPR) approach. This approach is increasingly being used for the critical analysis of public policy and social programme documents in a wide range of policy fields, but is not commonly utilized in the field of applied theatre. The WPR approach, it is argued, enables critical scrutiny of taken-for-granted representations of what applied theatre does, or can do, about social 'problems'. Analysing applied theatre programme evaluation documents as representations of social 'problems' provides an opportunity to explore some of the deep-seated logics at work in the field.
Theatre of Good Intentions examines limitations of theatre in the creation of social and political change. This book looks at some of the reasons why achieving such goals is hard; examining what theatre can and can’t do. It examines a range of applied and political theatre case studies, focusing on theatre’s impact on participants and spectators.
This book offers a novel, refreshing and politically engaged way to think about public policy. Instead of treating policy as simply the government’s best efforts to address problems, it offers a way to question critically how policies produce “problems” as particular sorts of problems, with important political implications. Governing, it is argued, takes place through these problematizations. According to the authors, interrogating policies and policy proposals as problematizations involves asking questions about the assumptions they rely upon, how they have been made, what their effects are, as well as how they could be unmade. To enable this form of critical analysis, this book introduces an analytic strategy, the “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR) approach. It features examples of applications of the approach with topics as diverse as obesity, economic policy, migration, drug and alcohol policy, and gender equality to illustrate the growing popularity of this way of thinking and to provide clear and useful examples of poststructural policy analysis in practice.
Carol Bacchi is Professor Emerita of Politics at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Her work over the past forty years has encouraged rethinking of taken-for-granted truths about women’s history, equality policy and public policy generally. Major publications include: Same Difference: Feminism and Sexual Difference (1990), Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (1999) and Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (2009).
Susan Goodwin is Associate Professor of Policy Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on social policy and gender, and she contributes to policy processes at local, national and international levels. Recent publications include Markets, Rights and Power in Australian Social Policy (2015), Schools, Communities and Social Inclusion (2011) and Social Policy for Social Change (2010).
Experiencing positive and healthy youth development may be particularly challenging in the face of abrupt, major, rapid, or nonnormative ecological changes. Aligning individual youth strengths and ecological assets may promote youth thriving in the face of these changes.
Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce important social norms. Indeed, the increasing popularity of the ideal of wellbeing appears to reflect shifts in perceptions and experiences of individual agency and responsibility. In particular, dominant discourses of wellbeing relate to changes in subjectivity; they manifest a move from subjects as citizens to subjects as consumers. In a consumer society, wellbeing emerges as a normative obligation chosen and sought after by individual agents. This article is informed by social theories of subjectivity and critical analyses of selected newspaper reports from 1985 to 2003.
This paper considers the new discourse of applied theatre and suggests that ‘applied theatre’ has
moved from being an umbrella term to refer to a range of particular forms of theatre practice
sharing specific common features, to become a term referring to a specific form itself. It suggests
that the discourse now delineates a restricted and exclusive type of radical practice, enshrined in
an evangelical frame. The new discourse acts to exclude a range of other practices that might
once have been deemed appropriately placed under an applied theatre umbrella. Consideration is
given to why the term was introduced, whether it serves a useful function, and to its subsequent
trajectory. Furthermore, the paper suggests that one of the forms that has been pushed out into the
rain is drama in education.
Aesthetics, Instrumentalism and Ethics in Health and Wellbeing
- Baxter
- Freebody K.
Submission To: Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction Oranga Tāngata, Oranga Whanāu
- D Pannett
Government press release
- J Ardern
The Poverty Industry: Do Governments and Charities Create the Poor?
- T Funiciello
Improving the Transition: Reducing Social and Psychological Morbidity during Adolescence.” A report from the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor
- P Gluckman
Tackling the Unmarked in Youth Development: Why Setlle for the West When a New Dawn Brings New Possibilities.” Paper Presented at the Symposium of the Centre for Applied Youth Research (CAYR)
- F Beals
Governing through the Healthy Body: Discources of Leisure and Lifestyle within Australian Health Policy.” Health: an Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health
- S Fullagar
The Arts in Health: Evidence from the International Literature
- S Bidwell
Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education
- C Bacchi
Department of Communiation and the Arts
- Commonwealth
- Australia
Recognising the importance of our arts, culture and heritage. Government press release
- J Ardern
Resiliency.” In Improving the Transition: Reducing Social and Psychological Morbidity during Adolescence, A report from the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor S. P. Gluckman edited by
- S Bagshaw
Values Education for Australian Schooling: Building Values through Drama and Dance with a Wellbeing Focus
- Commonwealth
- Australia
The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. London: Verso
- W Davies
Values Education for Australian Schooling: Building Values through Drama and Dance with a Wellbeing Focus
- Australia Commonwealth Of
Department of Communiation and the Arts
- Australia Commonwealth Of