Performing the Nation: Identity, Violence and The Search for Plurality in Bangladesh

This research project examines the socio-political context that has generated the contest for national identity in Bangladesh since the War of Independence in 1971. By means of performance and Practice Research, the thesis examines the politics of identity in which the citizens of Bangladesh engage in daily life. It proposes how Practice Research via theatrical performance can provide a space for the acceptance of fluid and heterogeneous cultural identities in Bangladesh. If the “nation” is, as Ernest Renan argues, the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories, an on-going present-day consent, and a desire to live together, then the socio-political context of this study explores how religious, cultural and ethnic markers of national identity are imagined, contested and performed among and by various ethnic, religious, and cultural communities. The research is underpinned by “identity” as a notion that is unfixed, that is in constant flux, and that is informed by various and sometime contradictory social practices. This project explores how national identity in Bangladesh is anything but monolithic, and indeed is always-already in flux. The thesis seeks to understand identity in Bangladesh today by presenting the views of multiple contestants representing religious, cultural, and ethnic groups. Via interviews with different demographic groups, workshops discussing individual and community identities, and a devised theatrical performance (presented in filmed form owing to the COVID-19 pandemic), the project investigates how different individuals and communities can meet, play out, challenge, and respect their own and each other’s identities and specificities in the theatre space.