Marginality, identity work and the four-part structure: Resisting unwelcome interpellation

This practitioner enquiry looks at some of the identity-forming and change processes experienced by a cohort of 14–15-year-old young people in the context of a series of dramatherapeutically informed curriculum-delivery drama lessons. It is based on the work of a longer study. However, whereas the initial study took place over the course of one academic year and included a cohort of 23 young people as they worked together on three separate drama projects, this article looks at the work of one working group of three students, over the course of a twelve-week project. The theoretical framework takes an embodied psychosocial and relational perspective and is rooted in the connections that exist between identity formation, performance and story. It explores the impact of the agentic and negotiative roles inhabited, and choices made, by individuals in groups, and the ability of individuals to resist, or not, the interpellative effects of social discourses as performed by and through peers. The results were analysed using the four-part structure of Roberts (2025). The findings illustrate the agentic and negotiative processes experienced and practised by the young people in the working group, reinforce the idea that identity change and consolidation arise relationally and indicate that whereas interpellation can be resisted, that resistance is not always successful. Some of the material used in this article has been reproduced from the author’s publication Ethics, Identity, and the Dramatherapy-Informed Classroom (2025). Any reproductions or use of material falls within acceptable practice as stated by Routledge’s author guidelines.