Drama therapy and social cohesion: Symbolic engagement as a practice of coexistence across difference

Using philosophical inquiry, this article explores how drama therapy may contribute to social cohesion in culturally diverse societies. It argues that symbolic engagement and aesthetic distance offer an alternative pathway for engaging differences in responses to mistrust, polarization and social fragmentation. Through analysis of the I Choose Art intervention, it proposes that drama therapy may reduce defensiveness, support collaborative meaning-making and cultivate coexistence as a relational practice across differences.