Alison Jeffers

My current monograph Crafting Change: performance, boundaries and repair will be published by Bloomsbury in September 2027. This is the first book in my field to bring together theory and practice from Craft Studies to bear on participatory arts and is based on a series of case studies that focus on place, activism, repair and hope.

This book builds on my writing on historical and contemporary understandings of cultural democracy seen through the lens of the British Community Arts Movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Research on this subject has involved interviewing artists active in the early years of the movement, working in a number of private archives and uncovering a wealth of material from that period. The results of that research can be seen in Culture Democracy and the Right to Make Art, a co-edited book with artist Gerri Moriarty, published by Bloomsbury Methuen in 2017. In 2018 this book was awarded Gold Open Access status, competitively awarded by University of Manchester.

My research interests combine practice and theory and these include cultural democracy, participatory theatre with marginalised groups, community arts history and practice and performances of citizenship and belonging. My practical interests include applied theatre practice and research methodologies; specifically, storytelling and adaptation, site specific practices, community devising, solo and autobiographical performance.