"We're none of us at peace" : Creating resistance through theatre

Abstract: This essay aims to begin to fill a potential gap in previous research when it comes to studying the political content of specific cultural practices, in this case the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. The theatre expressively refers to itself as a political theatre, calling themselves freedom fighters and places itself at the forefront of they call "cultural resistance". The creation of this cultural resistance is investigated here. This essay aims to explores, through examining the theatre's methods of practice, how cultural resistance could be transformed into political action and what problems that may hinder their political aspirations from becoming a true potential for political influence. The essay concludes that the theatre uses identity and narrative for political purposes in order to unite and strengthen the Palestinian collective identity, creating a civil resistance towards the Israeli occupation. This is however not an unproblematic process, and many of the same problems facing other nonviolent resistance movements are also present within the theatre.