Divided We Stand

Abstract

In 2020, the United States experienced an unprecedented election process, followed by its bitter and violent aftermath. After the Capitol riot in January 2021, Ian Bremmer (2021), editor-at-large of Time Magazine, stated, “there is no advanced industrial democracy in the world more politically divided, or politically dysfunctional, than the United States today” (para. 1). Considering these recent events, I now revisit my work from the past two years, work that generated the play Divided We Stand in the spring of 2020. This arts-based research project used qualitative interviews from 30 women in Phoenix, Arizona, and New York, New York, to investigate how women negotiated and maintained their identities and relationships in today’s climate of political polarization. Utilizing the dramatic form of ethnodrama—specifically, verbatim documentary theatre—Divided We Stand served as a theatricalized space for conversations that were not happening, a space that placed women’s divergent voices directly in dialogue.