Transnational Neighbourhood and Theatrical Practices: The Concept of Home, Negotiating Strangeness and Familiarity, and the Experience of Migrant Communities in North Essex

By placing theatrical and related ethnographic practices at the centre of the debate around migration, this chapter contends that in the experience of migrant communities, at the local level of urban microcosms, a transnational neighbourhood exemplifies negotiations between strangeness and familiarity, where the concept of strangeness defines the figure of the migrant as the stranger, and familiarity as part of the process whereby the migrant attempts to make their country of destination into their own home. This chapter will argue that theatrical practices, operating at a local/micro level, are best placed to facilitate the process of a transnational/transcultural neighbourhood, because the performative space as a communal place can transform strangeness, a condition affecting much of the migrant experience, into familiarity. This will be documented by critically assessing the project Human Side of Migration, which has involved migrant communities (Syrian, Polish, Filipino and Chinese) from the North Essex region, in the research process that informed the writing of Priority Seating, a new stage play, which uses verbatim and nonverbatim techniques and styles