Ode to the City – An Ethnographic Drama
This ethnographic drama script is adapted from observations conducted in a large city centre library in the UK. The action focuses on the staff room in the library, where the fictionalised characters of four customer experience assistants, threatened with redundancy, take their lunch and tea breaks. The ethnographic drama is a creative curation of field notes, transcripts, audio recordings, video recordings, conversations and observations. It tells a story of political tension in everyday life at a time of austerity.
Adrian Blackledge is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Stirling, UK. He has published widely on both multilingualism and sociolinguistics. He was Birmingham Poet Laureate from 2014-2016.
Angela Creese is Professor of Linguistic Ethnography at the University of Stirling, UK. She has published widely on multilingualism and ethnographic methods. Together with Adrian Blackledge she is the author of Voices of a City Market: An Ethnography (Multilingual Matters, 2019), Interpretations – An Ethnographic Drama (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and Volleyball – An Ethnographic Drama (Multilingual Matters, 2021).