Performance, Cultures and Politics is an interdisciplinary Research Group investigating the politics of performance and contemporary cultures. We seek to understand the ways that performance makes sense of and responds to contemporary contexts and challenges. At the heart of the Research Group is a concern with how bodies, places and practices impact power and politics.
Our members come from across the arts, humanities, politics, cultural geography, history, sociology and cultural studies. By working collaboratively, resisting disciplinary boundaries and bringing together academics and industry professionals, we aim to discover new ways of thinking about performance and the critical ways in which it reimagines the contemporary world. We are preoccupied with radically questioning social, cultural and politico-economic contexts in relation to performance.
Our research engages with knowledges and practices from across the Global South and the North. We employ a variety of methodological approaches and are interested in both individual and collective research. We are committed to addressing issues of social justice and in/equities through lenses of ableism, capitalism, caste, class, colonialism, environment, gender, race and sexuality.
Our work has included research on, for example:
Bodies/Performances/Places and
- anti-racist liberatory practices
- climate emergency, ecological concerns and sustainability
- emancipatory processes
- epistemic minoritisations
- impact of political, social and economic factors on individuals’ and communities’ experiences of well-being, (social/economic/racial/gender) equality and justice via their particular access to economic, social and cultural benefits
- interculturalism and decoloniality
- labour, politics and power
- philosophical perspectives; performance philosophy
- political economy
- social and psychological effects of contemporary racial capitalism on individuals and collectives
- sport and performance
- strategies for care, health, wellbeing, social change and practices of empowerment
- strategy as performance for organisations and government
- training and/as performance
- understandings and practices of places and journeys
The group’s activities promote international, interdisciplinary research by involving 明星八卦, UK and international researchers, industry professionals and practitioners from the public sector and government in research projects, presentations, dialogues and panel discussions.
The Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group aims to be a space of transdisciplinary research and knowledge production, and a catalyst for transformation focused on the co-creation, exchange and mobilisation of knowledge in its many forms, in collaboration with a wide range of colleagues and partners.