Dr Cath Heinemeyer, York St John University Multi-artform storytelling and migration: a refuge from the limelight An introduction to the ‘Journeys We Make’ project Dr Cath Heinemeyer, York St John University Representing Dr Michalis Kakos, Leeds Beckett University, and Prof Matthew Reason, York St John University (in absentia)

“We often hear teachers frustrated because it’s so difficult to get refugee children to open up – how can we get them to open up?” Mandip Sahota, Warsi Foundation ‘A young refugee actor […] Playing the character of Wana she falls to the floor, visibly distressed, crying and pulling at her clothes, telling the court “the one thing I don’t want to say”’ Jeffers 2008: 218

There is undeniably a need… …for the experiences and viewpoints of new arrival children from countries in crisis to be heard, so that: Schools know how best to support them; Intercultural learning can occur, and evolving forms of identity can be explored. Interculturality entails a consciousness that there is always another standpoint from which to view a thing, and that we are always in a process of becoming (Arizpe et al 2014).

Michalis Kakos’ research with new arrivals in British schools: Children are not unwilling to tell their stories but: 1) don’t want these stories to subsume their other stories (“I am 13, I was only a refugee for one year of my life”); 2) don’t want to provoke unpredictable reactions or consequences; 3) wish to protect their listeners from hearing traumatic experiences. …problematising what we might call the ‘Christophe’s Story’ approach. Christophe’s Story a sort of parable or wish fulfilment for what schools feel they need from refugees.

And he is not alone Alison Jeffers (2008): ‘bureaucratic performance’ to authorities conditions every other telling refugees are asked to give of their stories. Arizpe et al (2014): desire to enable Freirian-style ‘culture circles’ (Freire 2014) emphasising refugees’ experiential expertise, BUT risks treating ‘refugee’ as an identity rather than a situation. Derrida (cited in Jeffers 2011): limitations of temporary empathy, its tendency to fix roles.

JOURNEYS WE MAKE aims: de-centralising new arrivals in the dialogue about experiences of journeys and migration, not assuming that their journey of migration is the most important journey they have travelled, and re-focusing on the intercultural issues of hospitality and identity raised by any journey. Thus….projecting all these journeys, through the filter of different artforms, onto a single shared story.

An apology! Project has not started yet. Paper more of a position statement and invitation for you to comment/counsel us. That is, we have identified our schools, artists, dates, starting story and artistic goals, but haven’t yet conducted workshops in…..

LAWNSWOOD SCHOOL Comprehensive with large percentage of new arrivals among its pupils, as well as pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. ‘School of Sanctuary’ since 2014.

BATLEY GIRLS HIGH Innovative all-girls’ school placing huge emphasis on arts, oracy and critical thinking Large majority of pupils of Muslim background; disadvantaged area.

Our canvas: Homer’s Odyssey Why? Common property of Eurasian land mass (already intercultural) Relatively well known – young people already initiated Orally accreted, and waiting for another layer (Nicolson 2014) Multiple entry points Rich ‘generative themes’ (Arizpe et al 2014) of migration, adversity, development, hospitality

Our chosen artforms: digi-animation and spoken word Why? Experience in ICAN workshops of different effects of different artforms on a story. Rapid and narrative forms – contemporary manifestations of storytelling

Our intended outcomes An exhibition in a place of ‘journeys’ – Leeds Railway Station and/or Leeds Bradford Airport A workshop with initial teacher training students at Leeds Beckett, & a booklet to use on their course. Papers at major educational conference ECER. A funding bid for a longer term development of approaches using storytelling and oracy to address complex questions of identity and citizenship in schools.

Oracy? Yes. We are operating at another interesting nexus here: between narrative knowledge and propositional knowledge – the desire to tell experience and the desire to categorise and name it. A so far unacknowledged tension in the resurgence of oracy (Heinemeyer 2017).

Previous adventures in multi-artform storyhacking • ICAN workshops (Reason and Heinemeyer 2016) – strategies of retelling: creative copying subversive/fantastical transformative Adolescent ‘knowingness’ and affinity for biography. • The Tale Exchange – an indirect dialogue between different groups through a story: meeting as already-initiates invitation but no compulsion to make the story be ‘about’ an issue of common concern (mental health) • The Holding Place – youth theatre devised play retelling Dido and Aeneas (which centres on problem of hospitality) in a refugee camp. Which allows them to meet as already-initiates, with shared, overlapping but different knowledges of a text. The choice of a ‘weird’ story that requires the participants – that ‘desires’ them. A process that can be about mental health, that is very aware of some participants’ mental ill health, but invites all their other resources and knowledges too. All the participants, as young people, shared a commonwealth, an intercultural shared possession of a perspective on the mental health crisis.

Potential pitfalls of myth The problems of epic (Bakhtin 1981): the desire of some young people to follow the teller’s ‘narrative arc’ (Reason and Heinemeyer 2016), particularly in a short-term project. The tone of divine retribution in myth Framing – the adolescent desire to know our purpose. Framing rather a solution than a problem.

Your good counsel?

References Arizpe E., Bagelman C., Devlin A.M., Farrell M. and McAdam J.E. (2014) ‘Visualizing intercultural literacy: engaging critically with diversity and migration in the classroom through an image-based approach’, Language and Intercultural Communication: 14:3, 304-321 Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981) ‘Epic and Novel’, pp.1-45, The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas. Cornwell N. (2007) Christophe’s Story. London: Frances Lincoln. Freire P. (2014) Pedagogy of Hope: reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Heinemeyer C. (2017) ‘Is narrative an endangered species in UK schools?’ Oracy Cambridge blog, 20th Dec 2017, http://oracycambridge.org/2017/12/10/is-narrative-an-endangered-species-in-uk-schools/ Jeffers A . (2008) ‘Dirty truth: personal narrative, victimhood and participatory theatre work with people seeking asylum’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 13:2, 217-221. Jeffers A. (2011) Refugees, Theatre and Crisis: performing global identities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nicolson A. (2014) The Mighty Dead: why Homer matters. London: William Collins. Reason M. and Heinemeyer C. (2016) ‘Storytelling, story-retelling, storyknowing: towards a participatory practice of storytelling.’ Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 21 (4): 558-573.