This workshop will blend theory, lived experiences, experiential activities, and research findings to explore the importance of having an anti-carceral and abolitionist vision for drama therapy practice. Aligning with the conference theme, we believe it is important for drama therapists to understand why some systems cannot be mended, and instead, a different world must be imagined. This workshop will explore why reform is not possible in dominant systems like policing, prisons, family policing, border detention, and others that were specifically designed to oppress BlPOC, disabled, queer, trans, poor, and those without status. We will trace how our field has been complicit through a variety of drama therapy practices. We will facilitate experientials and group discussions to brainstorm new practices and imagine new ways of being in relationship. In the second half of the workshop, we will also share preliminary research findings on the literal embodiment of carceral and anti-carceral approaches to drama therapy, sharing arts-based research findings through tableaux. We will be presenting these preliminary select findings from a larger study entitled: Complicit Bodies: Identifying Carceral Logics in the Helping Professions of Drama Therapy and Social Work, funded by the Centre for Human Rights Research and the University of Manitoba.
