Beyond testimony: rethinking narrative, agency and trauma-informed practices in the UK asylum process through the lens of applied theatre

Abstract

This thesis explores how personal narratives – stories of the self – are shaped, held, and treated across two contrasting systems: the creative, dialogic spaces of Applied Theatre and the bureaucratic structures of the UK asylum process. Drawing on empirical research conducted through one-to-one creative narrative workshops with refugees and asylum seekers, the study investigates how participants articulate their identities, reflect on experiences, and express their hopes for the future within imaginative, collaborative settings.

At the core of this project lies a critical interrogation of how institutional systems – particularly the asylum system – receive and respond to personal stories, and the extent to which these systems constrain narrative expression and, in doing so, the ability to truly respond to the questions they are being asked. In contrast, Applied Theatre offers culturally responsive, ethically engaged, trauma informed methods that can create space for nuanced, relational understandings of identity and lived experience to surface – both for participants and facilitators.

The research is guided by two central questions: first, how do personal stories function and get treated within Applied Theatre practices, and how does this compare to their treatment within the UK asylum system? And secondly, the study asks what an interdisciplinary approach – grounded in the ethical, reflexive, trauma informed methodologies of Applied Theatre – might offer to the asylum process. In particular, it explores how theatre might inform more humane and contextually sensitive frameworks for engaging with individual narratives in bureaucratic settings.

Through this interdisciplinary analysis, the thesis places Home Office policy and asylum procedures in conversation with the principles and practices of Applied Theatre. Though these systems often appear to operate in fundamentally different languages, both revolve around individuals sharing deeply personal, often painful, stories. By facilitating a dialogue between them, this work envisions the potential for more just, compassionate, and inclusive approaches to the treatment of personal narratives in asylum contexts.