You are welcome on stage Examining artistic theatre practice as ‘a radically participatory communication process’

Sammanfattning: This degree project is situated in the crossing between communication for social change, theatre and disability studies. It is an attempt to merge these three fields of study and practice. In the thesis I apply theories of communication for social change by Thomas Tufte to the artistic work of actors with intellectual disabilities. Central to the analysis is the concept of citizenship and an understanding of theatre as a non-instrumental relational communication practice. Through exploring whether theatre practice can be considered what Tufte calls ’a radically participatory communication process’ I investigate the possibility for actors with intellectual disability to access citizenship through their artistic practice. My study shows that it is possible to apply Tufte’s concepts of a radically participatory communication process to theatre, and that this method reveals the possibilities of theatre to create social change through its relational communicative practice. The analysis supports a non-instrumental approach to theatre as social change. The study also shows, that if citizenship is to be understood in the light of voice and agency, defining what is needed to claim that citizenship cannot be done by anybody else than the citizenship-claimer him- or herself.