Profile
I am a community theatre practitioner and academic working with communities and collectives since 2008. Bringing together my training in drama (BA in Drama and Theatre Arts, Goldsmiths University of London) and in Development Studies (MA Participation Power and Social Change, IDS Sussex), I have worked across rural and urban contexts in the UK, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, generating practices and performances from the exciting cross-fertilisation of these fields.
My focus is creative and reflective methods for communities to explore, express and conduct research in ways which are meaningful and useful to them. Among the groups I have worked with are unhoused and at-risk young people, school children, refugees, activists and artists in the UK; incarcerated people, people with disabilities, refugees, widows, young people and university students in Malawi; queer activists, feminist movements and rural young people in India; and feminist and queer collectives in Uganda, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
My PhD (University of Sussex) focused on the use of theatre as a research method in collaborative decolonial work with groups of women in Malawi and the UK, to explore and transform how we think about power. This research was part of a longer collaboration with Khamalathu Arts and Research, a women’s group in Malawi and received the Adam Weiler Impact Award for Arts and Humanities.
I have taught undergraduate drama students at the University of Sussex and at Goldsmiths, University of London, postgraduate students at the Institute of Development Studies and as a visiting lecturer at various institutions.
Creating together requires care, time and appreciation of lifeworlds. My working style is thus characterised by long term collaborative relationships. A decade long partnership, ‘RAPT’ (Research Activism Performance and Theatre) with anthropologist akshay khanna and others, has developed and applied theatre as an adaptable and effective research method that illuminates the slippery realm of affect and the ephemera that escape traditional methods of research. We are currently working with SuPWR - a five-year, four country project with feminist movements in South Asia. In addition to this I have several other projects in development alongside ongoing work as research advisor to Khamalathu Arts centring on climate justice.
Areas of Expertise
Applied theatre and performance practices
- Participatory research methods
- Arts and the Criminal Justice System
- Creative, queer and decolonial research methods
- Reflective Practice
- Queer theory, feminism, sexuality and gender
Key Publications
2021. ‘Theatre is knowledge: Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and participatory research’ in The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry. eds Danny Burns, Jo Howard and Sonia M. Ospina (London: SAGE)
2021. ‘Einblicke in die Theaterarbeit in Gefängnissen in Malawi’ in Theater im Strafvollzug: Reflexionen und Praxis. eds. Magdalene Schaefer, Christoph Nix and Denis Ponomarenko. (Berlin: Theater der Zeit)
2021. Phiri, M., Makepeace, E., Nyali, M., Kumwenda, M., Corbett, E., Fielding, K., Choko, A., McPherson, P., McPherson, E. ‘Identification of barriers to tuberculosis care-seeking and co-creation of interventions to improve diagnosis with communities in an informal settlement in Blantyre, Malawi’, BMJ Open, DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-044944.
2017. ‘Women’s Drama Group in Malawi targets mothers and children for burns prevention’ in Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing. eds. Veronica Baxter and Katherine Lowe (London: Bloomsbury)
External Practice
2019. (Performer/Artist) ReMarkable, CHASE Feminist Network conference.
2019. (Project lead/facilitator/performer) ReMarkable, Camden People’s Theatre.
2018. (Co-director with Mphundu Mjumira) Mapiri ndi Moyo, touring production in Malawi.
2012. (Co-playwright/director with Dipo Katimba) The Secret Life of Us Act Now festival, Malawi.
Register of Interest
None