Disability and Community: Dis/engagement, Dis/enfranchisement, Dis/parity and Dissent (aka the D4D project) will investigate the evolving ways in which disabled people express, perform, experience and practise 'community'. The work will be informed by critical disability theory, and it will foreground the knowledge and lived experiences of disabled people. The project team brings together academics from a range of disciplines, community investigators with expertise in performance and arts practice, and community partners (including Shape, Accentuate and DRUK). Our goals are to learn from participating communities, to build understanding, to generate opportunities for connections, solidarity, resilience and activism, and to create meaningful legacies for the communities and partners involved. D4D will explore aspects of the historical, clinical, institutional, political and technological construction of disabled communities, and trace the ways in which community members have contested, rejected and embraced these varied possibilities over time. The project will facilitate agency and empowerment among participants, facilitate knowledge exchange and professional development, and create new spaces for dialogue and intervention. D4D's research question is: In what ways are disabled people connected/disconnected to/from surrounding communities, and how might they trouble existing affiliations, re-situate themselves, and re-shape communities around them? The team will explore this question while drawing on disability studies and community research literature, and engaging in continual collaboration and reflection (on issues of power, ethics and research practice, for example). There will be 8 work streams: WS1 - will explore issues of integration and marginalization, focusing on two settings: mainstream schools and the work-place. It will explore lived experience of 'inclusion'. This work will combine ethnographic studies, with a series of cultural animation workshops through which disabled participants will articulate and explore aspects of inclusion and marginalization. WS2 - will explore the ways in which technology might impact on or facilitate experiences of social belonging, by focusing on play. The steam will support methodological development, as it will involve exploring the ways in which new technologies can support the agentic participation of non-traditional research participants. WS3 - will examine the origins, development and future of the Disability Arts community. In particular, this will involve exploring the tensions within 'identity arts' movements regarding issues of affiliation and community. WS4 - this strand will explore how participants form, experience and express alternative community, as well as how they manage their (dis)placement and disqualification by mainstream society. This research will also support disabled communities critically responds to clinical practice. WS5- In this strand, arts based research will drive an investigation of past, present and future disabled communities. In particular, through the creation and exhibition of an interactive art-piece, 'Evolution', mainstream audiences will be asked to consider disability perspectives on such matters as eugenics and genetic screening. WS6 - Playful Bodies, Technology and Community will address technologies, social change and the body, and identify the implications for disability and community, while drawing on player studies, social media research, collaborative game design, and public play. WS7 - Ethics, reflection and learning for participation will inform all the above activities and support the practices and professional development of all those taking part. WS8 - Will provide a forum for skill sharing and knowledge exchange across all streams, and work to maximize impact across and beyond the academic.

This proposal builds on - and extends to new audiences and user communities - our NDA funded research project (2009-2012) entitled Ages and Stages: The Place of Theatre in Representations and Recollections of Ageing. It aims to develop some of the activities and research-led learning from that project and, in so doing, reach out to - and bring together - user communities who may not traditionally have worked with drama in the ways proposed here. This will be achieved through the following connected programme of drama-related activities: 1) The formation of an intergenerational theatre company at the New Vic Theatre. Through a regular series of workshops, the company will bring older and younger people together in creative, drama-based activities to enhance understanding between the generations and support the continued social engagement of both groups. 2) A touring performance. The IG company will create a touring piece(s) which can be taken out to audiences within, and beyond, North Staffordshire. We anticipate that these audiences might include local councils; primary as well as secondary schools; residential homes/housing developments for older people; community groups and higher education institutions providing professional training courses (for teachers, social workers and doctors/nurses). 3) An inter-professional training course and training materials/resources, which will aim to develop practice capabilities and age awareness amongst teachers, health and social care professionals, arts practitioners and others interested in learning about and including intergenerational theatre/drama in their practice. The IG company will act as an important resource by contributing to the development and delivery of the training sessions and providing feedback to participants. 4) A scoping exercise for a wider 'Creative Age Festival', which could leave a concrete community legacy from Ages & Stages. The project will continue to be overseen by the existing 'Ages and Stages' Advisory Group, which includes experts in drama, intergenerational practice, policy and gerontology. The group will also be refreshed by new members, including younger members of the intergenerational theatre company (aged 16-18) . The activities we propose are timely for the following reasons. First, there is a notable groundswell of interest in the arts in general and theatre/drama in particular, not simply as a cultural activity but as one which has the potential to impact positively on the well-being of older and younger people. Second, in times of scarce resources, it is important to capitalise on activities which bring people together rather than those which might pit the generations against each other. Third, there is a role for practitioners in facilitating and enabling these kinds of activities but rarely, to our knowledge, have there been opportunities for professionals from differing arenas to work together as is proposed here. Finally, it is important to make best use of existing knowledge - not just that generated from our own work but also that of colleagues. We will be drawing strongly from our collaborators, including our linked Canadian project (about the impact of theatre on health ageing, which runs until 2013), and will also remain part of the New Dynamics of Ageing programme and will benefit from the knowledge exchanges this offers.

This proposal aims to assess the cultural value of older people's participation in theatre making. It will do so through a participatory action research approach, framed by a perspective which places emphasis on the skills, abilities and capacities of older people rather than automatically framing ageing as 'a problem to be solved' in contemporary society. The proposal is inspired by our interdisciplinary 'Ages and Stages' project, which has consisted of two related but distinct phases. The first phase (October 2009-July 2012, funded by the NDA programme) explored representations of age and ageing in the Victoria/New Vic Theatre's social documentaries and the role that theatre has played in the lives of local older people. Archival and qualitative data was brought together in the final year of the project to create a new verbatim social documentary performance, 'Our Age, Our Stage', exploring ageing, intergenerational relations and the role the theatre has played - and continues to play - in the creative life of the people of Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire. The second phase (August 2012-July 2013, funded by the AHRC follow-on scheme) has focused on translational work, including evolving the original 'Ages and Stages' group into the 'Ages and Stages Company' and devising an interactive, forum theatre piece about intergenerational relationships - Happy Returns. Both phases have been documented through film, ethnographic notes and diary keeping. The proposed case study of 'Ages and Stages' will involve undertaking secondary analysis of existing research materials and developing the 'Ages and Stages Company' into a 'company of researchers', who will work with us to identify - and to show through live performance - the cultural value of what they have been involved in. Company members will engage in a series of recorded research discussions with each other (both one-to-one and group) exploring their experiences of Ages and Stages; the impacts it has had on themselves; and on others (e.g. their families; friends; the younger people they have performed with). Arising out of these discussions, the Company will then select and agree the issues to be developed into a new, short, piece to be performed before Christmas 2013 to invited audiences of practitioners, policy makes and academic colleagues. The performance/s will be filmed and turned into a DVD. In the New Year, the Company will come back together to co-evaluate the research process. These sessions will also be digitally recorded, transcribed and analysed and, together with the secondary analyses of existing research materials, will form the basis for the final report. An invited workshop (including members of the Advisory Group) will conclude the project in May 2014. The piece will be performed at this workshop as a stimulus to further discussions about the cultural value of theatre making with, and for, older people and, if awarded, the workshop will also include findings from the proposed linked Critical Review on 'Ageing, Drama and Creativity'.

The proposed seminar series tackles the important societal issue of marketplace exclusion, for example the mechanisms through which individuals and communities are barred from the resources and opportunities provided by the marketplace to the average citizen. It explores how marketplace exclusion operates within UK society and what measures we might take to help counter it. We aim to bring together leading scholars, early career researchers, and relevant user groups that are interested in the intersections between marketplace participation and other social categories, in particular community cohesion. We aim to highlight marketplace exclusion as a serious but largely neglected issue in both academic and policy circles. The series will also establish cross disciplinary networks for future research collaboration. It is undeniable that we are living in an era of consumerism where we are increasingly encouraged to look to the marketplace to find meaning in our lives and to use products, services and brands to define ourselves in relation to others. Participation in the market, and the accompanying rights and responsibilities, is an essential aspect of social cohesion. Alongside the rise of consumerism we have seen a shift away from values of community and integrity towards those of materialism and competition. This in itself has been problematic for UK society as a whole however some groups are better equipped to thrive in this context than others. The recent riots of summer 2011 where young people targeted their frustrations at major brands (Boffey, 2012) is evidence of the alienation some groups are experiencing. Marketplace exclusion might result from a range of financial factors such as poor access to jobs and forms of credit which mean that individuals simply cannot afford to participate in the marketplace. However, we are also concerned in this seminar series to explore the failure of the marketplace in social/symbolic terms. As such the seminar series will focus on representations through which individuals are excluded from the marketplace, engaging critically with the discourse and practice of advertising, marketing research and digital marketing both in the academy and in industry. The series will also explore the ways in which individuals and communities might resist marketplace exclusion through the development of alternative channels of consumption such as community shops and Local Economic Trading Systems (LETS). It will also explore policy responses to marketplace exclusion, specifically social housing and community cohesion policies, and aims to develop new insights on these. The originality of the series lies in its cognate but cross disciplinary make-up of participants brought together to address the role of the marketplace in perpetuating exclusion for some groups in society. The organisers come from the relatively diverse fields of critical marketing, consumer research, organisation studies, housing studies and community cohesion. However, the most innovative element of the series is our collaboration with the New Vic Theatre group Borderlines, to use theatre to explore the issues emerging and work with the community to find solutions. The final seminar in the series will take the form of a theatre production with ten unemployed (NEETS) young people. Using findings from the previous five seminars the production will be designed to explore individuals' everyday experiences of alienation from the marketplace and create a response through theatre. The performance will be followed by a practitioner workshop involving the cast, local organisations and academics/practitioners from earlier seminars. The performance and workshop will uphold or challenge the issues discussed in earlier seminars. It will also allow excluded consumers to find a voice and find new and positive ways to understand themselves and their communities.

The four AHRC projects involved in this collaborative grant application share the view that academic theories are not ends in themselves; rather that they must serve the needs of the communities studied. Indeed many scholars have raised concerns about the gap between academic interests for advancing knowledge for knowledge sake and the practical problems and needs of the communities studied by academics (Kelemen and Bansal, 2002). Our collaboration is unique in that it has a dual focus on rigour and relevance and seeks to advance and promote a 'Pragmatist agenda' across the humanities, arts and social sciences. This Pragmatist agenda is rooted in the American Pragmatist philosophical school of thought represented by John Dewey, William James and Charles Peirce. Put simply, American Pragmatism may be described as a practical and anti-foundationalist philosophy that focuses on the future and is concerned with improving the conditions that enable individuals to thrive in their everyday lives. It collapses not only the artificial division between theory and practice, emphasising the link between knowledge and action, but also other restrictive dualisms (e.g. body-mind, subject-object), by a process of inquiry that understands knowledge as a practical activity and the value of theory by the practical consequences and actions it produces (Kelemen and Rumens, 2012). By working together with our community partners, our international academic link and his community partners, we will reflect upon as well as share our existing experiences about advancing theories that meet the dual criteria of rigour and relevance. The project will benefit greatly from a cross-disciplinary approach in terms of both content and mode of delivery. Underpinned by a Pragmatist philosophical approach, the collaboration taps into narrative methods, dramaturgical approaches, visual studies, sociological theories, design studies and community studies. Its innovative mode of delivery includes open participant sessions, drama exercises, experiential workshops, story telling, visual methods and crowd sourcing in an attempt to address issues of language translation and cultural capital across academics and community partners. The work of our Japanese partner which relates to and involves communities affected by the Tsunami (2011) and their way of coping with a crisis situation will benefit greatly our project by providing insights into an ongoing successful collaboration between academics and communities. Professor Kiyomiya's research focuses on what is considered 'actionable' knowledge by communities and what makes knowledge relevant, useful and/or practical at their end. We will produce two installations as a result of the workshops held in the UK and Japan that will tour various venues. The UK installation will also travel to Japan. We will disseminate our findings in conference papers and journal articles and will feed our lessons into the teaching curricula of the five universities taking part in the project.