Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

As the background to exploring a new agenda in puppetry, this paper starts with a brief overview of the most noticeable social and political agendas that have included puppets, ranging from political propaganda and the scuffle between political enemies, to the fight for gender equality and informative actions that had the potential to address educational and social problems. The focus of the paper, however, is on a new agenda, which centres on the plight of uprooted people – asylum seekers, political refugees and economic migrants – from societies locked into conditions of extremism, war, conflict and extreme poverty. The plight of people from high-stress environments, desperately crossing borders and wandering over the oceans looking for a place to improve their welfare, while trying to deal with the emotional struggle that stems from displacement and the frequent hostility of surrogate societies, drives this new agenda. Working on the borderlines between entertainment and education, some activities take place in refugee camps as new sites of reception and even sites of production, concentrating mainly on young refugees who are suffering mental and emotional damage arising from wartime events and life as a refugee. At the other end of the spectrum are a number of professional performances at schools and art festivals, in community halls and even mainstream theatres to promote attitudes and behaviours that will promote harmonious coexistence and respect for refugees and other migrants by cultivating a critical approach towards discriminatory and racist or xenophobic attitudes in surrogate societie