Applied Social Theatre As Participatory Action Research: Experiences of Adolescent Depression

Introduction

            This participatory arts based action research project arose out of dialogues convened to address the need within the local school system on youth depression and adolescent suicide within a local school system.  Many of these questions explored included, what led to this tragedy? What are youth’s understandings and experiences of youth depression in the local community?  How can we work actively to amplify the voices of adolescents experiencing depression?  What can we do collaboratively to educate the community at large in partnership with youth, human services organizations, and academic institutions? 

           

Theory Base

Three primary theoretical perspectives guide the project.  Ecological systems theory, critical theory, and narrative theory each holding distinct assumptions associated with social order, knowledge, youth development, and social consciousness raising guide the inquiry.  Bronfenbrenner (1979) the forerunner of ecological systems theory analyzes childhood development as the interplay of various systems that directly impact the development of children and youth spanning individual level experience, the family, the community, to broader level institutional influences.  Critical theory moves a step further positing that knowledge, power, history and culture link inextricably to social institutions.  Concerned with their role within capitalist societies, it critiques society in order to change it (Shimei, Krumer-Nevo, Saar-Heiman, Russo-Carmel, Mirmovitch, & Zaitoun-Aricha, 2016).  Narrative Theory also serves an essential role in informing the project design and methodology. Influenced by post-modernist assumptions rejecting universal truths, grand narratives, and generalizability, it emphasizes deconstructing and reconstructing the story of the data based on the subjective experiences of participants (Claine, Estefan, & Clandinin, 2013; Walsh, 2013).  Essentially, it honors participants as experts of their own social world.     

 

 Project Design

Adolescents aged 14 to 22 from local high school and university systems shared their stories in a series of interviews.  Concurrently, youth performers began conducting research on adolescent depression while learning techniques of documentary theatre, critical performance ethnography, and moment work facilitated by consultants from the Tectonic Theater Project and adult mentors.  Researchers shared interview transcripts with the youth ensemble, which they then analyzed in order to capture stories, identify emergent themes and develop a performance from the voices of youth experiencing depression.   It incorporated narrative play-building, action research methodologies, and social consciousness raising within the local community for the purpose of discovery, public education, and to build dialogue toward collective problem solving and social change .

Results, Findings, and Discussion

Findings situate the narrative in the lived experience of the youth themselves through four chapters.  The first defines depression through youth experiences.  The second chapter focuses on stigma in families, in the media, and in social systems.  The third chapter centers on unique implications of depression, and the final chapter hones in on treatment.  Split into three sub-episodes it covers treatment, support, and hope for the future.  This chapter discusses the project as an applied integrative participatory research project from inception to results, and as a dynamic social consciousness raising tool with various implications for practical knowledge building, therapeutic ends, and public education.