James and Ruth came to talk about their recently completed In Place of War (IPOW) research project and the follow on project Humanitarianism 2.0. This project is in partnership with the Centre and I’ll talk more about this a little later.
In Place of War was an AHRC funded research project and was driven by Professor Thompson’s background in theatre and drama performance and studies, and in particular his work in the UK prison service working with violent offenders using drama and theatre practices and methods.
In 2000, James was contacted by the Unicef unit, Children Affected by Armed Conflict, who were working in Northern Sri Lanka, which at that time was a civil war zone. Unicef asked James to provide training for community organisations who were interested in using theatre as a way of engaging with young people affected by the war. Before leaving the UK , James did some research on theatre in Sri Lanka and was astonished to find a) very little literature about this subject, b) that what he did find claimed there was no theatre in the north of Sri Lanka because of the war.
Upon reaching Sri Lanka though, James discovered a rich, vibrant and diverse theatre and arts community who were programming a range of activities across a number of places and spaces in the city of Jaffna. Jaffna was also home to the only university Theatre Studies course on the whole island.
This was to be the seed for the In Place Of War project and the central research questions; Why do people continue to make art in war zones? Why do academics assume they don’t?