Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAn interactive ethnographic performance: ethnography, theatre and drama pedagogy for a professional learning context( 2015)This thesis investigates the practice and efficacy of performance ethnography within a professional learning context of women in research leadership. Performance ethnography is a form of research that creates a theatrical representation of ethnographic inquiry. It is valued for its ability to represent ‘the rich array of cultural practices’ within ethnographic findings to audiences as a dynamic and immediate form of dissemination (Pelias, 2008, p. 189). Researchers have used performed research as an educational tool in the fields of teacher training and healthcare education. This study aims to investigate whether an ethnographic performance text is an effective professional learning tool while concurrently investigating the practice of the performance ethnographer when constructing such a text. A performance ethnography investigating the lived experiences of women working in university research leadership was conducted. Across four phases of research, the performance ethnographer’s practice of fieldwork, analysis and interpretation, foundations for scriptwriting and theatrical representation was documented and analysed. A six-scene ethnographic performance text was constructed and then performed by professional actors to an audience of senior female researchers from university-based research environments. The responses of the workshop participants to the ethnographic performance text and accompanying drama activities, in the LH Martin ‘Women in Research Leadership’ professional learning course were analysed. Emerging from this study is a form of performed research defined here as interactive ethnographic performance - an ethnographic performance text intersected by drama activities to enhance the learning experience. The research found that the complementary ethnographic and artistic processes combined with drama pedagogy produced an authentic, engaging and pedagogically effective interactive performance text for an audience of senior research women. In this study, the ongoing role of the performance ethnographer throughout each phase of the research enabled the evolving understandings of the research participants’ lived experiences to be infused and synthesised into a multilayered performance text. This study showed that the interactive ethnographic performance text communicated the findings of the inquiry into research leadership issues. For the audience of female research leaders, strategies for managing complex relationships and interactions in the workplace were central areas of exploration that heightened the learning experience. Points of inquiry into the nature of leadership within a research workplace focused on negotiation, mentoring and strategic decision-making. This study reveals four central elements that are critical to learning through an interactive ethnographic performance: firstly, the workshop participant’s engagement in the fictional framework; secondly, the workshop participant’s identification (emotional and embodied) with the characters and situations; thirdly, the opportunities for embodied problem solving; and finally, shared and individual reflection. This model of interactive ethnographic performance applied to professional learning provides opportunities for deep engagement and critical reflection, provoking new insights and generating new knowledge. The dialogue set up between the audience as workshop participants and the ethnographic performance with the intersecting drama activities creates a site for powerful collective learning. This study of the practice of constructing and presenting an interactive ethnographic performance demonstrates its potential to generate effective learning experiences in professional learning environments.