Mobility, Belonging, and Political Agency: Review of "The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Migration"
Abstract
This review examines The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Migration, edited by Yana Meerzon and Stephen Wilmer, and highlights the significance of its historical range, global scope, and methodological diversity for contemporary research on theatre and migration. Based on a comprehensive reading of the volume, the review identifies mobility, cultural belonging, and political agency as three key themes that run through the handbook and uses these to articulate its central contributions to understanding the relationship between migration and theatre. Notwithstanding the challenges posed by the handbook’s extensive scope and breadth, its rich archival material, interdisciplinary approaches, and globally diverse case studies offer crucial perspectives for advancing scholarly insight into the cultural and political implications of theatre under contemporary conditions of mobility.
Disclosure Statement
Keywords:
mobility, cultural belonging, political agency, migration theatre, transnational performanceReferences
Ahmed, Sara. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge, 2000.
Google Scholar
Balfour, Michael. Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters. Bristol: Intellect, 2013.
Google Scholar
Balme, Christopher. The Theatrical Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
Google Scholar
Castles, Stephen. “Migration and Community Formation under Conditions of Globalization.” International Migration Review 36, no. 4 (2002): 1143–1168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2002.tb00121.x.
Google Scholar
Cox, Emma. Theatre and Migration. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Google Scholar
Filewod, Alan. “Playing on Indigenous Land: Settlers, Immigrants and Theatre in Fictive Canada.” In Theatre and (Im)migration: New Essays on Canadian Theatre, edited by Yana Meerzon. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2019.
Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart, ed. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Thousand Oaks, 1997.
Google Scholar
Kershaw, Baz. The Radical in Performance: Between Brecht and Baudrillard. London: Routledge, 1997.
Google Scholar
Marinelli-König, Gertrud, and, Alexander Preisinger, eds. Zwischenräume der Migration: Über die Entgrenzung von Kulturen und Identitäten. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2011.
Google Scholar
Meerzon, Yana, and, Stephen Wilmer, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Migration. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
Google Scholar
Meerzon, Yana. Performing Exile, Performing Self. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Google Scholar
Schneider, Wolfgang. Theater und Migration: Herausforderungen für Kulturpolitik und Theaterpraxis. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014.
Google Scholar
Sharifi, Azadeh. “Multilingualism and Postmigrant Theatre in Germany.” Modern Drama 61, no. 3(2018): 328–351. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/702334.
Google Scholar
Stewart, Lizzie. “Postmigrant Theatre: The Ballhaus Naunynstraße Takes On Sexual Nationalism.” Journal of Aesthetics & Camp; Culture 9, no. 2, (2017): 56–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004214.2017.1370358.
Google Scholar
Szymanski-Düll, Berenika. “Defining the Theatre Migrant: A Concept Developed Through the Lens of Nineteenth-Century Theatre Practices.” In European Theatre Migrants in the Age of Empire: Personal Experiences, Transnational Trajectories, and Socio-Political Impacts, edited by Berenika Szymanski-Düll and Lisa Skwirblies. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
Google Scholar
Tinius, Jonas. State of the Arts: An Ethnography of German Theatre and Migration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Google Scholar
Authors
Yan LinLudwig-Maximilians-Universität Germany
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9484-6351
Yan Lin – She studied Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing and at the Taipei National University of the Arts. She completed her master’s degree at LMU Munich, where she is currently pursuing her PhD at the Institute of Theatre Studies with a research focus on institutional and aesthetic practices in contemporary German public theatre. Her doctoral research is supported by a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council. She also works as a research assistant for the T-Migrants Project at LMU and serves as an editorial assistant for the Arts Management journal at the Shanghai Theatre Academy in China.
Statistics
Abstract views: 0PDF downloads: 0
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Yan Lin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author grants a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Pamiętnik Teatralny should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.
From issue 1/2018 to 3/2022 all articles were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
