The paper co-developed with Alda Terracciano explores the interstices of the COVID-19 pandemic on racialised minority communities in the development of a theatre play based on testimonies of ‘care, caring and carers’ gathered through research by the Consortium on Practices of Wellbeing and Resilience. Otherwise known as Co-POWeR, this interdisciplinary consortium investigates the combined impact of the COVID-19 virus and racial/ethnic discrimination to develop a holistic understanding of vulnerabilities among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) families and communities in UK while seeking to redress inequalities through social science research, the arts and policy impact.
The social science research formed the basis for a fictional script to be further enriched by formative feedback from research participants in a reading of the draft and post-show discussions with audience members. The project offered researchers the opportunity to co-create the play with community participants, expanding the scope of their lived experiences of care during the pandemic, viewing them as agentive change-makers with vested interest in the wellbeing and resilience of their families and communities. They did so by employing a ‘performative research paradigm’ during the dramaturgical development of the work, which recognises the researcher body as affected and resisting clear-cut definitions and positionalities in relation to the ‘object’ of the research. These findings were then channelled into policy that was disseminated in governmental, arts, health and social care sectors. The paper explores the productive tensions that emerged in the cumulative processes from practice to performance to policy.
Raminder Kaur’s Academia page: https://sussex.academia.edu/RaminderKaur
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