This qualitative research study explores prisoner and rehabilitation staff perspectives (N=26) on the phenomenon of 'change' as a mode of enforced performance in a work release programme in Illinois. Research questions were developed on the basis of a prolonged encounter with re-entering ex-offenders during a project that combined theatre and research. Bringing together two distinct disciplines-Performance Studies and Critical Social Policy-we explore the extent to which re-entering prisoners and rehabilitation staff conceive of their work release programme as enforcing a performance of change into a rehabilitated self. Our results show that all participants feel that the programme enforces such a performance. However, some saw this performance as truly transformative, while others considered it politically oppressive and instrumental. Language performance in particular was considered a strictly imposed demand on prisoners, mostly black, who were advised not to use Ebonics outside of the facility. Implications for policy are outlined.
The criminal justice system constrains social workers’ ability to practice critical social work. Given the increased rates of re-entry from prison into disenfranchised, minority communities in the USA, knowledge about re-entry should be made available to social workers wishing to assist those who suffer from extreme marginalisation and oppression during re-entry. In this qualitative research study, we interviewed American male halfway house residents (N = 21) in the lead-up to their release about their perspectives on returning to their communities of origin, settling into other communities and meeting individuals from outside of their immediate social networks. Our results demonstrate that research participants anticipated experiencing social alienation in all three domains. Our discussion contextualises these findings within two dimensions of critical social work: critical consciousness and critical social policy.
When the Berlin Wall came down, Berlin had no fewer than sixteen public theatres, five in the West, and eleven in the East. It would be the task of the municipal government to integrate these into some kind of unified cultural program for the new German capital. My article investigates the implementation of this governmental agenda through the lens of its arguably greatest success: the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Led by Frank Castorf – whose term as artistic director will conclude in 2017 – this theatre quickly became the hotspot of artistic experimentation and political contestation in unified Berlin. Through a close-reading of Castorf’s Clockwork Orange (1993), I demonstrate how the Volksbühne ensemble’s theatre practice made visible social antagonisms both on the stage and within the audience. This contestative or – to borrow Chantal Mouffe’s term – agonistic mode of theatre earned the Volksbühne a unique position in the Berlin public sphere, which it has struggled to maintain through Berlin’s transition to a cosmopolitan, European capital city.
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