Volume 8

On Border and Identity: A Performative Reflection from an Applied Theatre Project

By Taiwo Afolabi

UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

INTRODUCTION

This research started as a way of positioning myself, thinking about my identity in the diaspora, and framing my theatre practice haven worked in different socio-economic, political, and cultural contexts. In this article, I engage roots and routes as a theoretical framework to explore the relationship between place attachment, identity, and mobility as an artist. I consider a complex relationship between these two metaphors through reflecting on the journeys of participating in and creating an applied theatre project with immigrants, refugees, and international students in Victoria, British Columbia especially as an African artist-scholar.

While researchers have largely focused on themes such as the relationship between border and security governance, migration and immigration policy, securitization, historicity, border control and visa regimes, borderland and culture (Dalby, 2020; Gunn, 2019; Luabe, 2019; Mau, Gulzau, Luabe & Zuan, 2015; Saldivar, 2006; Roots, 1996; Johnson & Michaelsen, 1997), there is a limit of artistic interventions in the contemporary landscape of border security and resistance (Amoore & Hall, 2010). There is also still knowledge base around the intersection of border and identity within applied theatre especially as it affects the facilitator/applied theatre practitioner. For instance, Sally Mackey, an applied theatre scholar, observes that ‘relationship between place (and space) and applied theatre has been interpreted simply, perhaps too simply, in applied theatre scholarship’ (2016, p. 107). Apart from the fact that works happen in non-traditional venues (Prentki & Preston, 2009), too often the focus on participants can exclude the practitioner, the practitioner’s identity, and the practitioner’s connection to the place and the culture. Thus, in this article, I explore the practitioner’s lived experience, identity and relationship to border. I draw on my personal life to investigate ways in which my experiences of migration and mobility shape my identity and find expression in my artistic practice. Through this autobiographical approach (Reed-Danahay, 2001; Stanley, 1992), I discuss the notions of ‘shifting identities’ (Bhavnani & Phoenix, 1994), ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1991) to better understand my roots and routes and how I conceive, perform and represent border in my practice. I focus on my performance in Onion Theatre, an applied theatre project with refugees, immigrants, and international students in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

As an artist-researcher of African descent, my reflection on border, identity and race is both personal and political. My intention does not only touch on the quest for a more just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive (JEDI) society, it puts the practitioner who is also a participant in the project at the centre of the discourse. I inquiry: in what ways does border perform, (dis)connect, alter, shift, dissolve and (re)imagine identity? I focus on some vignettes/stories from my performance to reinforce the routes I have taken to either assert, reposition (shift) or reimagine my identity and the impact of my root in the process of presenting myself as a mobile (or nomad) yet bordered artist. A critical examination of the cultural roots and routes I have taken to be who I perceive I am, who I am not and perhaps who I am becoming. Through these stories of personal journey, I argue that the process of identity construction is relational, contextual and ambivalent in which the discourses of race, nationality and culture are constantly emerging, altered, and renewed. These routes and their cultural roots (place-based and practice-based) are mutually intertwined in these processes because both create a rhizomatic inclination that is connected to any other, heterogeneous and multiple (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: ROOTS AND ROUTES

Root has been a symbolic metaphor for place attachment in different cultures. It is part of a metaphorical system that refers to people’s link to place (the soil, the land, etc.), territory, culture and even practice (Lefebvre, 1974; de Certeau, 1984; Malkki, 1992). It also signifies emotional bonds with the physical environment (space/place) and often contain the notion of local community, shared culture, and at times natural identities. More recently, some authors have suggested that the relationship between place, people, and culture may also be thought of in terms of routes taken in constructing identity (Clifford, 1997; Gilroy, 1993; Hall, 1995; 1996; 2003). According to Hall (2003), identity is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think. Perhaps, instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think of identity as a “production,” which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside representation (Hall, p. 222). Hall proposes dual perspective of thinking around identity—one refers to the “oneness” with a shared culture, history, ancestry and some other commonly shared codes; the other perspective recognizes the transience of “one identity”, “one experience” due to the ruptures, disruptions, and discontinuities caused by the ‘continuous play of history, culture and power’ (p. 225). In the second sense, identity is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’ (p. 225). Identity constructions and presentation for me as an artist-scholar from Africa therefore, is ‘a process of negotiation between sites of agency, locally and globally perceived, conceived, or lived spaces of possibilities for belonging and establishing cultural dialogues’ (Maguire, 2005, p. 1426).

The above notion of becoming resonates with Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities and shifting identities. Anderson’s idea of nation or nation-ness from a physical perspective to a cultural viewpoint provides a unique hermeneutic lens to conceptualize identity and nationalism. From an anthropological perspective, Anderson defines nation as ‘an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’ (1991, p. 6). Nation is imagined because:

1. the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion;

2. as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations;

3. as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm;

4. as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. (Anderson, 1991, p. 6)

Thus, if communities emerge through the roots and routes, then its identities can shift or its practices can evolve into something else. This unveils the constant change that characterizes our world and lend a voice to multi-layered, multivocal, complex, and constantly shifting performative contexts. This shows the intersection of arts and border as ‘an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones are yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense’ (Ziauddin, 2010, p. 435).

DEFINING BORDER: SETTING SOME PARAMETERS

The word border evokes some sense of movement, stasis, space, processes, policies, and changes. My experience constructed as fractures of human existence is framed within the context of border using root and route as reference point. First, border as a physical geographical location that is visible and territorial. It can be touched, and it occupies physical space. A physical, geographical, and territorial understanding of border can define one’s root because it grounds one in a place, that is place attachment. This also means that there is possibility for either stasis or physical mobility or both. The concept of place is commonly used to signify a spatial entity that is experienced and perceived as meaningful either by one person or by a group of people (Canter, 1997).

Secondly, beyond the physical border lies the invisible and intangible border. It resides in the sense of cultural epistemologies, ideologies and philosophies. It is responsible for socio-cultural, politico-economical differentiations. Although this seems to exist at the level of abstract but it translates into how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive with implications on politics and policies, and world systems and governance. Thus, in this sense, border can provoke multiple meanings and diverse implications—from physical to non-physical. The implications of physical and non-physical border whether from personal to political, socio-cultural, or economic deepen the discourse on roots and routes. For instance, culture that we produce originates from geographical spaces and the process of embodying such cultural practices can transcend physical spaces. This is why people take culture across different borders and borderland, in the context of my research, people in diaspora such as immigrants and refugees.

Within diasporic discourse, through the interplay of roots and routes, culture and cultural identity becomes something to preserve and cling onto in face of the migration of people, ideas, goods and capitals, and practices (Hall, 1990; 1996; 1997). Culture defines identity. Thus, the connection of roots and routes, border and culture reiterate how border alters culture, and how culture alters border. It reinforces ways in which roots alter routes, and vice versa, and the processes that shift identities. In the context of an artist, it positions the artist in its artistic expressions—both in presentation and representation. It further positions a hybridization of identities as it acknowledges the power of culture at the border and off the border. Culture in this context is viewed as both territorial and non-territory; a bounded system contained in a defined territory, homogenous, heterogeneous, and shared by members of society (Sterling, 2012). Roots and routes create both mobile and immobile understanding of cultural forms, cultural stereotypes hybridity, identity separation and polarization (Anzaldua, 1987; Rosaldo, 1989; Vila, 2000; 2003). The summit of the understanding of shifting identities through roots and routes is about finding commonalities and celebrating differences.

METHODS AND MATERIALS: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND APPLIED THEATRE

I have chosen to engage narrative identity as a methodological tool in this research. Narrative identity is a person’s internalized and evolving life story, integrating the reconstructed past and imagined future to provide life with some degree of unity and purpose (Singer, 2004). Narrative identity thrives on the notion that human beings are natural storytellers. In fact, people construct and share stories about themselves. They pay attention to particular episodes and periods in their lives and what those experiences mean to them. A person may construct and internalize an evolving and integrative story for life out of the episodic particulars of autobiographical memory. This is what psychologists today call a narrative identity (Singer, 2004). In essence, narrative identity reconstructs the autobiographical past and imagines the future in such a way as to provide a person’s life with some degree of cohesion, purpose, and meaning (McAdams & McLean, 2013). Thus, a person’s life story synthesizes episodic memories with envisioned goals, creating a coherent account of identity in time. Through narrative identity, people convey to themselves and to others their identity—who they are now, how they came to be, and where they think their lives may be going in the future. As an autobiographical piece, I reconstruct the autobiographical past, perceives the present and imagines the future’ in such a way as to provide a person’s life with some degree of unity, purpose, and meaning (Coffey, 2011). Thus, a person’s life story synthesizes episodic memories with envisioned goals, creating a coherent account of identity in time’ (McAdams & McLean, 2013, p.233). This methodology lends itself to applied theatre because it involves storytelling (Prendergast & Saxton, 2009), and engages performance to humanize experiences. The Onion Theatre (OT) is an applied theatre project for many reasons: It involved using theatre and drama skills for the purposes of teaching, exploring human experiences, creating space to discuss issues that can foster social change, and building a sense of community (Prentki & Nicola, 2021; Breed & Prentki, 2021; Taylor, 2006). OT is process-driven and I devised personal stories of participants in an ethical way to create a performance that focused on immigrants’ experience (Freebody, et al, 2018; Prendergast & Saxton, 2009).

ONION THEATRE (OT)

The Onion Theatre (OT), a three-year community theatre project in Victoria, Canada, sets out to create safe and positive spaces for youth—newly-arrived, international students, settlers, and migrants—where they can have diverse conversations about social justice issues in an ever-changing world and culture. Over the three years (2017-2019), the project involved more than 20 participants from over 10 countries with stories about their experiences now that they live in Canada. Specifically, it focused on three central ideas that participants identified as relevant in the resettling process in Canada: Arriving, Becoming and Belonging—what it means to arrive in a new place, settle in and belong (Balfour, et al, 2015). The subject matter also has broader implication in the ongoing conversation in North America around justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI), systemic racism, and social justice for minority groups. Participants shared their lived experiences and it inspired devised performances I directed and performed in the final performance. It was performed in community spaces with participants who wanted to perform. We did not perform in 2019 due to the needs of the group – many participants needed to attend to personal needs, and we had to stop the project when they felt they could no longer continue. In total, we performed 8 times for over 900 audience members in public spaces in Victoria. And we secured funding from different organizations.

Here are some excerpts from Onion Theatre.

Story One

Names. It starts from and always comes back to names. The one you call yourself, the ones that others call you. My name is... My mother once told me: “Your name is entirely yours. Your name was given to you for a purpose… it means something, not to you alone but to your place of birth… At times, it can summarize or even prophesy what’s ahead… Your name goes with you everywhere, anywhere, and will always connect you with your family.” I have gotten used to different versions of my name...Taiwo, Tiawo, Taiwu’… I have pondered many times. ‘Does it matter? I have also been asked ‘Why does it matter’?

I have heard stories from immigrants and how their names were misspelt, mispronounced and dismissed. “This does not matter we tell ourselves… we get used to it” I was told by many. “But what we can’t be used to is when our names decides whether we are called back for that job interview or not, if we are considered intelligent or dismissed as unintelligible, or whether we are racially being profiled or not. It is important we are seen fully… in every aspect…”

Story Two

Taiwo: Certain identities, constructs and ideas have been imposed on some countries due to moments in their history, and citizens of such countries are seen as terrorists, prostitutes, and poverty-stricken beggars… Among other things, where I come from is known for corruption… Trust me, I am not here to defend atrocities that some citizens (leaders and followers alike) from and in my country continually perpetrate. I am here to defend myself. I am from Nigeria but does that mean I am corrupt?

We make it look as if everything is perfect here [in Canada and other ‘developed’ countries] as if there is no corruption, marginalization, displacement and greed here… the list is endless… I think these inhumane attributes are part of human nature and are the cause of our problem in the world… In fact, every country has its own scum, we only need to be honest and address it.

[…]

The Other ENTERS.

Taiwo: (cont.)The first time an alibi said…

Me: Taiwu, you know I have heard that Nigerians are corrupt but you are truthful and honest.

Taiwo: To him it was a compliment, but to me, it was insulting and demeaning because I have been seen from the perspective of the Other just like some still think Africa is a country…

So I asked him, how would you feel if you were seen in the shadow of the other? Have you imagined how your life will be if I relate with you based on the assumption, I have heard about the region you come from?

By the way, my name is not Taiwu or Taiwooo, my name is Taiwo… It is a name given to the first child of the twins in Yoruba land. Get it right because it means so much to me.

Story Three

I am from another country. I was forced to leave because of the war… everybody knows about the crisis. Anyway, one day, I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus when someone asked me where I came from because I did not look or dress like I was from here… I told the person my country and we talked a lot about many things; apparently, the person has visited my country. It was a long conversation because the bus was late that day for some reason… I was advised on how to go around, and one of the things the person told me, which I found helpful, was that when I apply for jobs, I should find a shorthand version of my name that is easily pronounced so that I can get a job… I laughed and laughed because I have never heard that before… but you know what? I tried it and it worked. I am grateful someone told me that…

Story Four

Here’s an experience I had at an airport some years ago.

Me: ‘So tell me more about yourself’, the immigration officer asked me ‘I’m a Nigerian. Born and raised in Ile-Ife, (South West). From Yoruba tribe. I can speak, and arguably read and write in Yoruba. English language. A Christian. An artist. From a family of seven. I had my post-secondary education (undergrad/grad) in Plateau state and Kwara state and both states are in North Central. I don’t speak Hausa language but understand to some degree. I am an artist and I have my own theatre company – Theatre Emissary International…

Officer: Oh you are Yoruba. Back in college I had a colleague who was Yoruba and he introduced me to some Nigerian literature. Beautiful writings. He told me that Yoruba people are bookworm… you must be a bookworm with the conference you are going…

[he counts the number of visas on my passport]

You have been to many countries… over ten… [writes something on his paper… raises his head and continues] You studied in Jos, eh? So you know the Boko Haram people… I follow the news in Nigeria… not good at all man…

Me: [laugh] 'I've not seen anyone that knows Boko Haram people' I replied. [pause…and continue] 'I hope the war against Africans, Asians and other migrants in this country come to an end.'

He smiled and returned my passport. I asked myself… What would it mean to be seen in full?

Story Five

I have been asked the same question: ‘Where are you from?’ The first time I was asked that question, I was angry because I thought people asked that to get at me or make me feel uncomfortable. Later on, I realized this was not the case in all situations. Now, I try to understand the intention behind asking. For some, it is based on a honest curiosity while for others, it is because they want to profile you, and for some people, they ask out of courtesy and as part of an unspoken rule in human interaction. I think each reason for asking is legitimate; after all, I am not from here, I only moved here voluntarily a few years ago.

DISCUSSION

Performing Self

In many ways, my experiences shape my research. I centered my experience as a practitioner for the purpose of humanizing experiences and creating critical dialogue on diverse and multi-layered issues in our society. This aligns with Park-Fuller’s words that in autobiographical narrative performances,

the performer often speaks about acts of social transgression. In doing so, the telling of the story itself becomes a transgressive act—a revealing of what has been kept hidden, a speaking of what has been silenced—an act of reverse discourse that struggles with the preconceptions borne in the air of dominant politics. (2000, p. 26)

As a practitioner who participated in OT, presenting my experience provided me the opportunity to give a witness account of past experiences (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008). In this case, I am not presenting the other, or writing about or for the other. I am writing about myself and how my lived experience shapes my art. This creates the opportunity for me to be a reflective practitioner inquiring into actions and narrative of the past (Farrell, 2007). It is deeply rooted in the lived experiences and present realities of people’s culture and existence. Also like any ethnographical research, this research seeks to understand cultural experience (Harrison, 2018) in this context, my experience of migration and border. For instance, through my migration experience, I realized that my relationship with the physical place and cultural space is shifted and altered (Mackey, 2016, p.107). For instance, some of my experiences have been centered around my identity while some have given the rupture and displacement queries such as who am I? and where do I belong? if examined from a modernist perspective because issues of identity are considered part of the hallmark of modern consciousness.

OT involved more than myself. However, I interpreted the materials (personal stories), analyzed the social conditions in which the related actions and stories took place, reconstructed the subjective explanations and abstracted the results of the autobiographical research in individual case theories and generalization on comparison of the individual cases (Busse, et al, 2000). The stories are personal and through the reconstruction and analysis, the project creates knowledge as an embodied, critical, and ethical exploration of culture and experiences (Ellis, 1991). It is an investigative journey of personal discovery to understand cultural ethos. Similar to Jones, et al, 2013, I ‘locate[d] the personal in the field, in the writing, and in the political contexts of the research’ (p. 19). OT is rooted in self-reflexivity, an openness to honest and deep reflection about ourselves, our relationships with others, and how we want to live. It is a process of self-discovery and critically engaging daily experiences. It is a way of being in the world and knowing about the world. One that requires ‘living consciously, emotionally, and reflexively’ (Jones, et al, 2013, p. 10). It encourages me to examine myself and consider ‘how and why we think, act, and feel as we do’ (Jones, et al, 2013, p. 10). Similar to auto-ethnographers, I observed and interrogate what I think and believe, and challenge my own assumptions, defenses, fears biases, sentiments and insecurities, egos etc.

Moving in-between…

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Spoken by Juliet, Romeo & Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2

The language of reference and negotiating social interconnection and identity construction is central to the postcolonial and post-modern divide privilege the malleability, fluidity, hybridization of identities (Burke & Stets, 2009; Friedman, 1998; Hall & du Gay, 1996; Bhabha, 1994). The intersectionality or connection to multiple identities and realities—from race, age, abilities, sexual orientations, and spiritual understanding etc. These realities are portrayed by response to the way my names were mispronounced or how I present myself in a given time. The politics of representation plays out in the linguistic expressions to emphasize the similarities and the differences amongst an imagined cultural group—in my context as an African (Hall, 1996). On many occasions, I had to pretend my name was pronounced correctly.

Stories from the Onion Theatre Project reiterates how language is both a tool for personal and political bordering process (Afolabi, 2020). Through the interactions of participants, some ideological differences of the dominant cultures were shown. The politics of and the fight by the super-powers for the continent of Africa and some part of middle East was expressed as language is not only a barrier in the discourse on diversity and inclusion; it is a metric for measuring who belongs and who does not. For instance, some colonized countries had to neglect their indigenous language to adopt those of their colonizers. Considering the fact that you are gauged and measured by how you say what you say, that is, choice of words, grammatical structures, syntax and how you sound (accent), emphasis is on learning the foreign languages. Language is in the heart of people’s culture; no wonder there are diverse language tests to measure language competence and to determine who fits into the system and who does not. For instance, participants in the project shared stories about their journeys to improving their English language because language had impact on the quality of their lives. They could not get good jobs which could have helped their household. Language can define our identities, can create both shared and personal spaces with its political implications. Language includes, excludes and transverses border.

Furthermore, the politics of language is evident in the world. Linguistic border is flagrant in many former colonies. For instance, many countries in West Africa can be identified by its national language which connect them to their colonial ancestry. Nigeria and Ghana have English as national language (because they were colonized by Britain) while Cote D’Ivoire and Burkina Faso among others have French as national language (because they were colonized by France). Although their pre-colonial heritages did not have Britain or France, these countries have been defined by the colonized even from a language standpoint. The root is gradually shifting through its route of new forms of colonization and many indigenous languages are going into extinction. This is not peculiar to Africa, it is evident in other places such as the Balkans in Europe, Aboriginals in Australia and the Indigenous people in the Amazon, Canada and Latin America among others.

CONCLUSION: THE IMPLICATION FOR MY PRACTICE

As an applied theatre practitioner from Nigeria who now resides in Canada, my experience resonates with Hall’s idea that identity is contingent and not ahistorical or immutable because the ‘the continuous “play” of history, culture and power’ shapes identity (1996, pp. 111-112). For instance, while I did not live in the colonial era in Nigeria, neocolonial impact is evident in Nigeria. From cultural imperialism to economy interference and globalization etc. Also, this reality continues to provide me some historical context to many countries that experienced colonialism or imperialism such as the Commonwealth nations. For instance, although the methods and parameter used in Nigeria’s colonization was different from Canada, I could see some similarities between Nigeria’s colonial experience and that of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. The focus on the practitioner shifts the experience from a mere project to an opportunity to share similar experience with other participants. Working on issues that participants and the practitioners have similar experience can provide a reasonably straightforward understanding of the relationship between applied theatre, place and space and the familiar concept of safe space. Also, it can reduce ethical dilemma since there may be shared language, reference points and connections. From my experience this is one of the challenges many practitioners encounter on topics such as JEDI, cultural mis/appropriation and mis/representation. I have to state that I do not suggest that practitioners should only engage in project they have personal experience, rather, an awareness of ways in which the practitioner is connected or not connected to a topic is important and valuable. And the same way the practitioner is outward-facing by writing about or reflecting on the experiences of others (participants), the practitioner can be inward-facing by examining their own experience.

My stories have been constructed as fractures and fractions from human existence as framed in identifying root and route. Like many immigrants, my routes continue to mix or intersect with my root. My identity has become inseparably because both worlds carry the dichotomy between notions of being and becoming. My root and routes continue to shape and inform who I am becoming.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Afolabi, T. (2021). On border and identity: A performative reflection from an applied theatre project. ArtsPraxis, 8 (1), 64-82.

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Ziauddin, S. (2010). “Welcome to postnormal times.” Futures 42, 435-444.

Taiwo Afolabi, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is an applied theatre practitioner with a decade of experience working across a variety of creative and community contexts in over dozen countries across four continents. His practice and research interests include education, decolonization, socially-engaged creative practice, and research ethics. He is the founding artistic director of Theatre Emissary International, Nigeria and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

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