The Possibilities and Limits of Participatory Theatre: Exploring Belonging and Resistance with Second-Generation Black and Muslim Dutch Youth in the Netherlands

Abstract

Grounded in a collaborative theatre project with Black and Muslim second-generation Dutch youth in the Netherlands, this paper critically examines the use of participatory theatre as a method of knowledge production. Drawing on vignettes from the theatre project, I investigate the possibilities and limits of theatre as an embodied research method for practicing resistance to, and fostering public dialogue about, Islamophobia and racism. I argue that theatre can be a citizenship practice by prefiguring alternate futures, rehearsing resistance to oppression, and facilitating cross-racial and public dialogue.