Student profiles
Owen Hutchings
Email: owenhutchings44@outlook.com / o.hutchings1@lancaster.ac.uk
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Dr Cami Rowe
Dr Mark Hurst
Research Summary
I am a theatre-maker, researcher, and performer, whose work exists at the intersection of theatre, history, and climate justice. My work is underpinned by three key frameworks: Marianne Hirsch’s theory of postmemory, the ethics and construction of oral history/verbatim theatre, and Jacques Derrida’s theory of justice as a continuous and impossibly unattainable pursuit. The theatre I make, and the research I undertake, not only explores the power of theatre to reflect society but also seeks to shape the discourse around climate transitions.
Focusing on the legacy of the UK coal industry, my research examines how theatre can engage with histories of industrial transitions and their detrimental effect on working-class communities. My PhD, therefore, investigates how performance offers insights into the social and political elements of (un)just transitions and thus provides lessons towards more just futures for current workers and their families.
My interdisciplinary practice-as-research PhD addresses gaps in working-class representation in theatre through exploring inter-generational memories using stories and testimonies from the 1984/85 miners strike, the closure of the UK’s pits, and the Women Against Pit Closures movement. In so doing, it will result in the creation of multi-vocal performances, presented to various audiences including ex-mining communities, current fossil fuel workers, politicians, industry leaders and policy makers, thus generating debate, and new knowledge on topics such as justice, memory, and transitions.
Research Interests
Theatre
Postmemory
Mining
Political Theatre
Justice
Climate Justice
Working Class
Publications
Coming soon