Introduction: A Divided Nation—English Theatre and Social Abjection

Abstract

Taking Brexit as a starting point, this introductory chapter argues that England is blighted by a number of internal rifts and fissures that pit people against each other in ways that cast particular groups as threats to the nation or as unruly and demeaned citizens. It sets out the book’s concern with how these divisions are generated and circulated in public discourse and about how theatre is implicated in both counter-hegemonic and resistant narratives that question and challenge, but also how theatre can contribute to the recirculation of problematic cultural imaginaries that become attached to groups. It introduces the conceptual paradigm of ‘social abjection’ and the presence of ‘social abjects’ that drives the book and raises questions around who is central, who is peripheral, who is included or excluded, valued or demeaned and how do the answers to these questions fold into a cultural imaginary of the nation?