"Just to let them be who they are": Learning Disability, Arts Training and the Contact Zone

Abstract
The driving force behind this thesis is the uneasy relationship between learning disability and employment. Narrow, ableist conceptions of work and workers dominate the cultural and social landscape, directly influencing the limited opportunities offered to learning disabled people leaving formal education. The aim of this work was to locate a training place that directly challenges this trend. Working with a theatre for learning disabled people I documented its daily practices and underlying ethos, then considered the combined effect that this locale is having upon a group of learning disabled students enrolled upon one of its long term training programs. Underpinned by a constructivist ontology, the research followed an ethnographic, qualitative line of enquiry. Observations, participation and unstructured interviews were completed with informants, with the aim of documenting both the physical space of the theatre and the atmosphere in which the students, artists and staff collaborate. The evidence gathered points to an equitable, activist, cooperative, professional, well resourced training environment that is providing students and artists with a space to reassess and reimagine what their futures may become. Futures that are far removed from the constrained and limited ones currently prescribed by an ableist labour market and a conditional workfare state. The significance of this work lies in its ability to inform conversations around the type and quality of post school provision that should be readily available and accessible for all learning disabled people. It demonstrates that learning disabled people can be both independent thinkers and decision makers regarding important issues affecting their lives, such as the types of futures they want to pursue. Finally, it shows that it is entirely possible (and desirable) to curate training environments in which learning disabled students can develop and thrive.