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CHAPTER FIVE: DATA ANALYSIS Reflections on Ihemselves Participants of the drama lesson reflected on different aspects of their life following the sessions. Some reflected on their position in the world: "I need to learn to live outside myself, not live boxed up. It made me think about my relationship to the world. Any situation can have so many different outcomes. We can turn things on their heads””* As this response is from a questionnaire, it is not possible to probe further whether it was the feral child’s seclusion from the world or the structures offered to challenge narratives in drama and improvisations that triggered this reflection. Other questions concerning the individual’s relationship to the world raised in the questionnaires were: “what do I gain if I integrate?” and “how should I perceive the world? Is there anything that can stop me?” Other reflections on themselves included “I feel impotent when I approach someone who is so different from me”.”?’ Participants also reflected on a raised awareness of their surrounding that the drama created in them. As I was going home I realised that I started watching in a different way. I was watching how people move. Things that just looked normal to me till then. As I was standing in the crowd on the Metro I looked at how different people were, how they behaved. Being in community — we are so afraid of connecting or touching each other, all stuck in our own worlds.’** Others reflected on the raised awareness of how past experiences influence us. I remembered watching my little brother growing up, becoming a person. These stories influenced how we related to this child, who was both a dog and a person, and was neither of them as well. In our scene, I was looking at her scientifically, but what would have happened if I would have been like a parent just observing the child, would things have happened differently? What would I have done? I had the strong feeling that our pre-existing knowledge, the things we know from before, really influence us. Things could be different if we wouldn’t rely on them so much.’ Both the social and personal reflections and questions are concerned with values and with the participants’ position in the world, and their relationship to it. These are the territories DEs should work in. These responses also suggest that the approach taken on in this cycle of the research has brought the creation of DEs in LTD closer. 736 Q Wb. 737 Q Wa. 738 Q Wb. 739 F Wa. + 226 +
