ABSTRACT
Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to describe basic methods of adapting qualitative educational research (and by extension, social science research) into scripted and performed work for the stage. The written representation of this genre is labelled ethnodrama, a compound word drawn from ‘ethnography’ and ‘drama’, coined by the anthropologist Turner (1982: 100). Turner wisely understood that embodied reenactment of other people’s practices would better inform students of rich cultural meanings:
I’ve long thought that teaching and learning anthropology should be more fun than they often are. Perhaps we should not merely read and comment on ethnographies, but actually perform them.… How, then, may this be done? One possibility may be to turn the more interesting portions of ethnographies into play scripts, then to act them out in class, and fi nally to turn back to ethnographies armed with the understanding that comes from ‘getting inside the skin’ of members of other cultures.
