Abstract
In the previous chapter, I explored the empathic labor of acting, arguing that this labor is both frightening and pleasurable because through it we experience other ways of being in the world. I advocated, further, for a recognition of theatrical labor that often goes unmarked. If, as Erin Hurley argues, “‘feeling-labour’… is the most important aspect of theatre’s cultural work,” then it is vital to acknowledge who performs that labor, under what circumstances, and for what forms of compensation. In this chapter, I expand on the feeling labor of performance, of which empathy, as both a cognitive and an affective process, is a part. As I have argued throughout this book, empathic labor is not (or should not be) simply the purview of those secure in their subject positions—the comfortable engagement of majority subjects with minority ones. Empathy is most effective at fostering greater understanding when it involves an equal exchange between all parties involved. Of course, our ability to meet one another as equals—in the space of performance or elsewhere—is always complicated by a host of factors. When empathy is imagined as a one-sided affair, the one who empathizes is generally understood to hold the position of privilege and power, but this assumption overlooks the fact that, frequently, minority subjects must engage in empathy as part of the process of interpreting and negotiating the worldview of the majority. For them, empathizing with majority culture is not an act of privilege, but may rather be one of survival, while eliciting the empathy of that culture means making oneself legible to those in power.
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Notes
- 1.
Erin Hurley, Theatre & Feeling (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 4.
- 2.
See, for example, Amy Shuman, Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005 and Doris Sommer, Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999).
- 3.
Dwight Conquergood makes the point that minority and disenfranchised subjects “must and can learn how to perform cultural scripts and play roles that do not arise out of one’s own culture.” From my point of view, this requires a certain degree of empathy, learning to understand how the majority culture sees the world. Dwight Conquergood, “Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance,” Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 74.
- 4.
Alison Jeffers, Refugees, Theatre and Crisis: Performing Global Identities, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Web. 14.
- 5.
Hurley, Theatre & Feeling, 9.
- 6.
Sara Ahmed, “Affective Economies,” Social Text (22.2): 117–139.
- 7.
Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, 20th anniversary edition, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1983, rev. 2003): 9.
- 8.
Paul Woodruff, The Necessity of Theatre: The Art of Watching and Being Watched (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4.
- 9.
Nicholas Ridout, Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 32.
- 10.
In 2013, Germany received the highest number of new asylum claims, followed by the USA, South Africa, France, and Sweden. In pre-2013 data, the USA does not even make the top ten list; nor do the UK or Australia. See “The Facts: Asylum in the UK,” http://unhcr.org.uk.
- 11.
The same is not the case in the USA, where the conversation about migration remains largely fixed on the USA/Mexico border.
- 12.
Similar fears are present in the USA, but, as suggested by the previous footnote, there is much less public discourse on the topic of refugees and asylum seekers.
- 13.
“The 1951 Refugee Convention,” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html
- 14.
April Shemak, Asylum Speakers: Caribbean Refugees and Testimonial Discourse (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 27.
- 15.
Aid workers sometimes refer to physical scars as a “torture bonus,” because they act as evidence in support of the asylum seeker’s claims. See Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman. The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood. Trans. Rachel Gomme. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton UP, 2009, 245.
- 16.
For a discussion of how the term “bogus” moves feelings of fear and hate around asylum seekers, see Ahmed, “Affective Economies.”
- 17.
Shemak, Asylum Speakers, 34.
- 18.
Jeffers, Refugees, Theatre, and Crisis, 31.
- 19.
See April Shemak, 3.
- 20.
See Helen Baillot, Sharon Cowan, and Vanessa E Munro, “‘Hearing the Right Gaps’: Enabling and Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence within the UK Asylum Process,” Social and Legal Studies 21.3 (2012): 269–296. This essay discusses rape disclosures within the asylum process. In their interviews with those associated with the asylum process and their observations of it, the authors note that claimants may not disclose all relevant information in an interview because they have found the interview itself so frustrating and/or exhausting (279).
- 21.
Audrey Macklin, “Truth and Consequences: Credibility Determination in the Refugee Context,” International Association of Refugee Law Judges (1998 Conference), 137.
- 22.
Rea Dennis, “Inclusive Democracy: A Consideration of Playback Theatre with Refugee and Asylum Seekers in Australia,” in Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters, ed. Michael Balfour (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2013), 282.
- 23.
Mary Carter, “Navigation guide: Employment issues for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK,” Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (July 2008). While this statement pertains specifically to the UK, it is true of other countries’ asylum systems as well. The European Union, which operates under a common asylum policy, guarantees access to employment within nine months, even if a decision has not been made on an applicant’s case. EU nations must also allow applicants to obtain job training, even before they are legally granted access to the labor market. See “Common European Asylum System,” European Commission Home Affairs, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/index_en.htm, accessed April 15, 2015.
- 24.
This is one of several penalties applied specifically to immigrants arriving by boat in Australia. These immigration policies have sparked wide-ranging international debates about humanitarianism, maritime law, and modern interpretations of the Human Rights Convention. Among the many issues raised by these policies is that of economic discrimination, as the law privileges migrants and asylum seekers who have the means to travel by plane.
- 25.
Reasons for which an applicant’s clock may be stopped include any delay caused by the applicant (including a delay to gather evidence in support of one’s claim) and failure to appear for an interview with a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services officer without an interpreter. Note that it is the applicant’s duty to find her own interpreter. See Human Rights Watch, “‘At Least Let Them Work’: The Denial of Work Authorization and Assistance for Asylum Seekers in the United States,” 2013, http://www.hrw.org.
- 26.
Human Rights Watch notes that, “While the majority of developed asylum-granting nations place certain limitations on the right to work for asylum seekers, the United States stands alone in denying both employment and government assistance.” Many other nations deny the right to work but provide some form of (limited) government financial support. See Human Rights Watch, “‘At Least Let Them Work,’” 1–2.
- 27.
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, “Asylum Seekers and the right to work,” ASRC policy position paper.
- 28.
Peter Nyers, Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 50.
- 29.
The Convention affirms the right of those “lawfully staying” in a country to earn wages. The lack of clarity as to what is “lawful” as well as what constitutes “staying” (that is, permanency or temporariness) opens the door to work restrictions. See Human Rights Watch, “At Least Let Them Work,” 6.
- 30.
UK Home Office, “Asylum Policy Instruction: Permission to Work,” version 6.0, 1 April 2014.
- 31.
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, “At Least Let Them Work,” 2.
- 32.
Luibhéid, Pregnant on Arrival: Making the Illegal Immigrant (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 119. Luibhéid is writing specifically about the “direct provision” system that was in place in Ireland prior to the enactment of new European Union rules. Under direct provision, asylum seekers were assigned housing which required them to sign in and out, prohibited from working or seeking job training, and required to live on a stipend provided by the government. Luibhéid reports that individuals found the housing restrictions confining, undermining their sense of agency and independence and making family life particularly difficult. In many cases, however, even this sort of restricted housing may be preferable to detention centers that can be found in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and various EU member nations.
- 33.
Kay Adshead, The Bogus Woman (London: Oberon Books, 2001), 14.
- 34.
Halliburton, Rachel. “Women’s Refuge.” New Statesman 14.646 (March 5, 2001): 48–49.
- 35.
Adshead, 84.
- 36.
Now renamed Freedom from Torture, this organization offers mental and physical rehabilitation services for victims of torture and those who work with them, as well as helping individuals navigate such issues as employment, education, and living situations. See www.freedomfromtorture.org.
- 37.
Sonja Linden, I have before me a remarkable document given to me by a young lady from Rwanda (Aurora Metro Press, 2004), 28.
- 38.
Ibid., 28.
- 39.
Richard Ashby Wilson and Richard D. Brown, Introduction to Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 20.
- 40.
See, for example, Paul Bloom, “Against Empathy,” www.bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy. Accessed Sept. 22, 2014.
- 41.
David Herman, Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed. David Herman (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge Companions Online, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10/1017/CCOL0521856965.001. 3.
- 42.
Ryan’s definition of narrative is actually more flexible than Herman’s. She argues that narrative texts should be defined not through a binary definition (as in it is or is not narrative), but rather through a “fuzzy set” of criteria, meaning that some but not all of the criteria need to be met for a text to qualify as narrative. Marie-Laure Ryan, “Toward a definition of narrative,” The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed. David Herman (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge Companions Online, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10/1017/CCOL0521856965.001. 29.
- 43.
Rachel Lewis has discussed an instance of a lesbian asylum claim rejected on the logic that the person could be “discreet” and thus remain safe in her home country. Thus, while this woman’s membership in a persecuted group was at least provisionally accepted, the fact of membership alone was not enough to prove her in danger. Rachel Lewis, “Deportable Subjects: Lesbians and Political Asylum,” Feminist Formations 25.2 (Summer 2013): 174–194.
- 44.
Baillot et al., “‘Hearing the Right Gaps,’” 287.
- 45.
Linden, I have before me, 63.
- 46.
Ibid., 63.
- 47.
Linden, Introduction to I have before me (Aurora Metro Press, 2004), 15.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
In a separate essay, Linden offers a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between writing and healing. While overwhelmingly positive about the potential of writing, she notes that for some of the people she works with, “to revisit the experience of torture and degradation is to re-enter the darkest tunnels of memory.” She also argues that “autofiction,” or a somewhat fictionalized approach to autobiography, may be both easier to write and more helpful in the healing process. Sonja Linden, “Return to the dark tunnel: the writing cure,” Open Democracy, December 18, 2003, https://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-Literature/article_1638.jsp. Accessed January 13, 2015.
- 50.
Thompson, 45.
- 51.
Jeffers, Refugees, Theatre and Crisis, 31.
- 52.
Richard Owen Geer, “Of the People, By the People, and For the People: The field of
community performance.” High Performance 64 (Spring 1993). Community Arts Network Reading Room. N.d. n.p. Web. 9 March 2010.
- 53.
Jan Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers, 2005), 110.
- 54.
Personal conversation with author, January 14, 2015.
- 55.
See their website: http://www.asrc.org.au
- 56.
Personal conversation with author, April 26, 2015.
- 57.
Personal conversation with author, January 14, 2015.
- 58.
Shuman, “Entitlement and Empathy in Personal Narrative,” Narrative Inquiry 16.1 (2006), 153. Shuman is drawing here on the work of Dell Hymes.
- 59.
Catherine Simmonds and Asylum Seekers and Refugees from the Asylum Seekers Resource Center, Melbourne, Journey of Asylum—Waiting, in Staging Asylum: Contemporary Plays about Refugees, ed. Emma Cox (Strawberry Hills, NSW: Currency Press, 2013), 146.
- 60.
This moment produced extensive debate in the devising process. In its original version, Yomal actually mimicked a monkey, but some participants felt that this might encourage audience members to see asylum seekers in a degrading way. The revised version captures the idea that asylum seekers are put in boxes (in this case, literally), treated reductively, and compelled to perform in exchange for residency status, and it does this without turning the character into a victim.
- 61.
Journey of Asylum—Waiting, 144.
- 62.
Journey of Asylum—Waiting, 160
- 63.
Ibid., 145.
- 64.
Personal conversation with author, January 14, 2015.
- 65.
Journey of Asylum—Waiting, 145.
- 66.
Journey of Asylum—Waiting, 179.
- 67.
Catherine Simmonds and Ubah Badi, “Asylum Seekers’ Stories on Stage,” interview with Simon Leo Brown, March 3, 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2010/03/03/2835513.htm.
- 68.
Anne McNevin, “Becoming Political: Asylum Seeker Activism through Community Theatre,” Local-Global: Identity, Security, Community 8 (2010), 155.
- 69.
Alison Jeffers, “Hospitable Stages and Civil Listening: Being an Audience for Participatory Refugee Theatre,” in Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters, ed. Michael Balfour (Bristol UK, Chicago USA: Intellect, 2013), 307.
- 70.
Judith Butler, “Bodily Vulnerability, Coalitions, and Street Politics,” 108, emphasis in original.
- 71.
Catherine Simmonds, personal conversation with author, January 14, 2015.
- 72.
See Butler, “Bodily Vulnerability, Coalitions, and Street Politics,” as well as Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).
- 73.
Butler, ““Bodily Vulnerability, Coalitions, and Street Politics,” 117.
- 74.
Carl Rogers, “Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being,” The Counseling Psychologist 5.2 (1975), 7.
- 75.
Personal communication, April 26, 2015.
- 76.
Ibid.
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Cummings, L.B. (2016). Empathic Economies: Performance by Refugees and Asylum Seekers. In: Empathy as Dialogue in Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59326-9_5
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