Acting on the edge – a transdisciplinary study into the experiences of actors with learning disabilities constructing professional identities in the contemporary UK

Abstract

People with learning disabilities continue to be stigmatised and de-humanised despite government policies aimed at facilitating social inclusion. While it is widely accepted that stigmatisation obscures the breadth of social identities a person may have in addition to their stigmatised identity, little attention has been paid to how people with learning disabilities construct ‘other’ identities against a backdrop of pervasive stigmatisation. Theatre-making and acting in professional theatre companies is one site at which to explore learning-disabled people’s diverse identity construction. This thesis seeks to attend to a lack of research in this area by exploring the experiences of professional actors with learning disabilities and articulating actors’ construction of professional identities as members of the theatre companies Lung Ha and Hijinx. This is a transdisciplinary thesis, using insights from drama, education, and social psychology. The researcher is located as a former support worker previously employed in the social care context. Initially envisaged as a participatory action research project within the social care context, professional theatre companies became the focus due to constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The research takes a qualitative approach and sits within the broader theoretical frameworks of critical disability studies, feminist care ethics and stigma research conducted within the field of social psychology. It applies inductive thematic analysis to semi-structured interviews conducted with actors with learning disabilities, company directors and volunteers, and one parent. The analysis highlights theatre companies as spaces of resistant care. The thesis foregrounds how the companies’ care-full practices not only erode stigma in a micro context but produce scope for belonging and mutuality between company members with and without learning disabilities. The discussion of findings leads to the complex conclusion that the companies create heterotopic spaces that support the emancipation of people with learning disabilities, even as they operate within a wider system that disadvantages people with learning disabilities. The thesis concludes with an overview of factors that enable and disable learning-disabled actors’ construction of a professional identity.