(r)agency? Lived Practices of Anger

(r)agency? The Creative Practices of Anger is a multi-disciplinary network, drawing together a team of early-career researchers, working in a number of different fields - both creative and critical - and a series of research activities and case studies that together form a research project on what the role and potentialities of anger might be in communities. Drawing on a range of methodologies and including cross-diciplinary approaches, the project will undertake research with a number of communities, representing different ages and locations, experiencing rage and anger (of different kinds for different reasons). The research asks questions about what brings people individually, or collectively, in community, to experience their anger in productive or transformative ways and create, what Bourdieu terms, new "cultural capital".

The activities and analyses that make up this project, have been framed by the investigators' existing research interests, their disciplines, their critical (and in some case creative) practice, and their engagement with communities. Bringing this network of scholars together enables the exploration of patterns of relating/being with anger across the different communities and contexts. It does this by understanding the role of anger in acknowledging and transforming social and structural injustices across a range of communities and contexts. It is hoped that new understandings about how anger can be reconceptualised as a positive force will come about through bringing together these diverse experiences through the proposed knowledge exchange events and final community reflection and consolidation event.

Activity title:

Performing Rage: young women and their expression of anger - led by Dr Helen Limon

In Angry Tongues: creative practices of anger in politicised poetry, song writing and performance - led by Dr Geoff Bright

Narrating Injustice Artfully: how anger towards animal cruelty and species loss is enacted and told through story - led by Alex Lockwood

Sikh-ing Understanding: expressions of 1984 - led by Dr Jasjit Singh

The Angry Brigade: service veterans and the Aden conflict - Led by Community Co-I Colin Hutchinson with Dr Limon and Alex Lockwood

A range of groups and individuals from non-academic communities will benefit from (co)creating, and engaging with this project. This includes the people in the engaged communities, representatives from public services and policy makers, community artists, those concerned with community development and members of the public. Each research activity engages with a specific community through creative consultation, facilitated conversation and public discussion. The following lists sets out the component elements of the project and the communities with which that project will engage.


"In Angry Tongues: creative practices of anger in politicised poetry, song writing and performance" - community leaders, political activists, members of political groups and performers such as The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, The Miners List, and the union, Unite.

"Performing Rage: young women and their expression of anger" - young women and girls, librarians, teachers, social workers, youth leaders, and representatives of the social justice network convened by Newcastle University. The holders of the archive, Open Clasp, will also benefit by engaging with material that they have not seen as an 'archive' as asset with the capacity to support new work.

"Narrating Injustice Artfully: how anger towards animal cruelty and species loss is enacted and told through story" - Members of the animal and eco-activist communities in the UK and USA who are looking for effective methods of non-violent protest. Creative writers and visual artists who are seeking to engage with anger and rage in their own work.

"Sikh-ing Understanding: expressions of 1984" - participants and audience at Saffron Mic, an annual Sikh community event in London. Dr Singhs participation in this event will be filmed and the work will be presented at the project's final community event in Newcastle.

"The Angry Brigade: service veterans and the Aden conflict" - British Service Veterans, and the network of veteran support agencies linked with Forward-Assist. This includes other veterans charities in the UK and abroad, policy makers, social support services and organisations concerned with social justice.