Fadel Alsawayfa packed his bags and left West Bank, Palestine, travelled 2000 miles with his family to North-West UK, and walked confidently into my room to start three years of doctoral studies. In our first tutorial encounter he spoke about a life changing educational experience that had affected him professionally and personally, a drama in education summer school held high in Jerash, Jordan for teachers from across the Arab world. It had been a profound experience for him, but what – he asked – had it been like for those other educators, many of whom like him had to get permission to cross borders leaving the conflict zones of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and politically unstable countries such as Egypt and Sudan? With a book from my shelf on ‘Space and Place’ in his hand he left the room to start the long investigation that he now shares in this deeply human book.
What Fadel offers us in these pages however is not only a qualitative case study investigation into that summer school and the power of drama in education, but insight into the key research method that he chose to investigate through, namely – Found Poetry. This makes a significant contribution to the growing body of research in the use of poetry as a means of data collection, analysis, presentation, and dissemination. He has helped me and other colleagues in a wide range of disciplines across the humanities, sciences, and arts by offering clear guidance in the method itself and an understanding of the rich potential of his overall research process. This moves from initial data collection through conventional social science semi-structured interviews and transcription to found poetry and performance, which ultimately come to dominate, with the forms of different languages Arabic and English complementing or tensioning each other in the ‘discovered’ poetry.
To write a book on found poetry as research method investigating the potential of drama in education requires the qualifications that Fadel has: an ability to tell stories; empathy for those who are different; a curiosity about culture, imagination and the willingness to step in to third spaces between that which was and that which might be; a resistance on the relational political level to all that threatens social justice; passion for educators and scholars to consider learning from a deeply human perspective. As Fadel himself says, I am not a machine. I am a human being.’ In this 21st century we will need empathetic, collaborative learners and researchers if we are to realize the better world
Allan Owens
Professor Emeritus & National Teaching Fellow
Centre for Research into Education, Creativity, and the Arts through Practice (RECAP)
University of Chester, UK.