The Shakespeare North Playhouse comprises a re-creation of Whitehall’s sixteenth and seventeenth century Cockpit in Court, enfolded in a modern building and performance garden housing community and educational activities. This chapter outlines the overall aims and the educational philosophy of the Shakespeare North project during its long phase of development (2004–21), as it worked towards the Playhouse’s realisation in 2022.

The chapter begins with a description of, and a meditation on, the implications of Shakespeare North’s location in the Liverpool City Region borough of Knowsley, a particularly deprived area of England. Summarising the historical background to Shakespeare North’s commemoration of the early modern performance culture of Knowsley, it suggests that viewing theatre history from the perspective of the regional might provide a fresh perspective on configurations of region, metropolis and nation both historically and in a modern context. From this, the chapter argues that connectivity and the dialogic might be central to all of Shakespeare North’s activities, especially the educational.

Following deliberation on enablements and difficulties involved in creating the playhouse as a heritage-based, urban-regeneration initiative through the interactions of diverse partnership organisations, the chapter finally suggests how the dialogic might inform Shakespeare North’s community education activities and experiments.

African American women writers of the 1980s were arguably the beneficiaries of cultural and political phenomena that held sway during the 1970s and 1980s. One of the major tenets and accomplishments of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Aesthetic of the 1960s was the validation of Black voices that came from within Black communities, drew upon the culture of Black communities -- especially the use of music and the vernacular -- and posited the validity, reality, and truth of that culture. Black women writers of the 1980s provide a logical progression from those communal assertions of value and freedom to extending the possibilities for such expression. This chapter considers the contributions of writers such as Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Rita Dove, Octavia Butler, Gloria Nayor, Sherley Anne Williams, and Toni Morrison as writers who extend and liberate creative and cultural possibilities initiated in earlier decades.

Service is not always a virtue. It can be a drudgery, or an enslavement if not physical or legal, then economic. But Paul inverted this meaning to illustrate the greater commitment of the believer to God, a virtue that levels social divisions and asserts a broader community of faith. This chapter examines the ways that Shakespeare adopts or reshapes Paul’s use of service elevating it as a community virtue where one serves another, often toward no gain for oneself in order to support a greater good. Two plays illustrate this focus of Shakespeare’s, King Lear where service, though more poignant, is more brittle and precarious, and Cymbeline, a play that revels in the necessity of collective service to establish an enduring peace.

This short chapter examines the degree to which the communal experiences of political prisoners on what Irving Goffman calls a “total institution” like South Africa’s Robben Island Prison might paradoxically exemplify the kind of community that Aristotle requires for the exercise of virtue proper: a sense of communal friendship built on trust and the virtues celebrated by Nelson Mandela: “Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others”. But at the same time, it complicates that utopian vision with the fact that such communities tend to establish their sense of identity on the exclusion of others, regarded as alien, different, or threatening, a tendency present on Robben Island. The chapter consequently opposes the Aristotelean notion of communal virtue with a very different concept of ethics derived from Levinas: in which no community may be established in opposition to another, but in which the ethical imperative is to be open to otherness, beyond to bounds of the Aristotelian polis. It argues that the prisoner’s signing their names against their favourite passage from Shakespeare, in Sonny Venkatrathnam’s copy of Shakespeare’s complete works, is an exemplum of such openness to the stranger.

Organisational empowerment is a critical pathway to support the sustainable transformation of food systems, mediated through different types of organisations. Collective action can be an effective strategy to include marginalised groups who may otherwise be excluded from agricultural development, extension, financing, or other aspects of climate-resilient food security. Key empowerment actions by farmer and producer organisations include building capacity, supporting greater access to inputs and information, facilitating the formation of agricultural enterprises, connecting to policy and markets, and encouraging youth membership and leadership. A focus on livelihoods, production, and poverty reduction can be a basis for increased agency and influence in decision-making. Women’s collective action is a platform to access information, technology, and a share of finances, which can lead to agency and leadership in local decision-making. For youth organisations, it is important to mobilise finance, provide support to post-production activities, support rural youth networks and recognise the role of young women in food systems.

There have been several calls for transformation in food systems to address the challenges of climate change, hunger, continuing population pressure, and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although complicated, working across scales and actors is critical for food-system transformation, alongside understanding the entry points. As agricultural research for development (AR4D) is ultimately about farming practices and farmer livelihoods, a focus on the local scale is essential, as in most cases, farms and districts are where the most action is required. Through effective cross-scale work, lessons from local levels can shape the thinking of regional and national governments, as well as the private sector. Involving multiple and ideally nested scales, designing sets of solutions, and developing actionable, fundable, and implementable solutions is likely to provide rich food-system outcomes. Partners need to provide the tools, signals, and resources so that local people, communities, and policy planners are empowered to drive transformation.

Communities are integral parts of health systems and their engagement in defining health needs, priorities, solutions and in the delivery of services is essential to improving health and well-being. All communities, regardless of how they are defined, include individuals or sub-groups who, for a host of reasons are disadvantaged and experience a disproportionate burden of ill health. Identifying and engaging them is both essential and challenging, and should be prioritized. Communities interface with the health system with varying degrees of engagement ranging from passively receiving information at one end of the spectrum to actively engaging in decision making through mutually accountable relationships at the other. This chapter explores the concepts of community and community engagement and consider their role in health systems. It examines the concept of health, the changing health needs of communities and the influence of community in defining health issues and informing solutions, including the delivery of services. Finally, the chapter discusses the modalities of community engagement for health systems, particularly within low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs).

Chapter 5 focuses on the hippies’ ambition to change the world. Relying on the concept of generativity, namely, the concern to guarantee the wellbeing of future generations, this chapter differentiates between the hippies as a collective, The Farm as a distinct community, and the individual level. Referring to past and current activities, the findings presented in this chapter suggest that the aspiration to change the world, the behavior it yields, and the appraisal of its consequences offer a significant source of meaning and satisfaction among aging hippies.

Moving away from the quantitative approach of Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3 considers service magicians’ social position. The chapter begins by exploring the official stance towards magic and magicians over the period: what sort of archetypal image is painted by ecclesiastical and secular authorities, and how this changed over the centuries. This (overwhelmingly negative) characterisation acts as a point of comparison against popular attitudes towards service magic, and treatment of wizards in reality. The second section considers magicians living in London and uses their domiciliary location as a lens to look at how they lived and practised. Through this approach we see that most practitioners, though living on the edge of the city, were nevertheless carefully positioned to be as accessible to their client base as possible. Further investigation of court records and popular media (primarily plays) of the time demonstrates that service magicians were a recognised, even occasionally celebrated, part of London life. This leads to a conclusion that magic was broadly accepted in wider society, at least in an urban context.

Chapter 4 examines the relationship between individual, communal, and political contentment in Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare presents contentment as most successful when shared between selves, whereas an overly possessive attitude toward one’s contentment jeopardizes its existence. As You Like It depicts a commonwealth built upon the bonds between subjects and preserved through mutual contentment. By contrast, the malcontent Iago identifies vulnerabilities in Othello’s understanding of contentedness to destroy his relationships with Desdemona and Venetian society writ large. In As You Like It, communal contentment counteracts the social threat of envy, but in Othello jealousy distorts content beyond the point of recognition or redemption. Shakespeare does not shy away from the challenges to contentment, but he attempts to provide audiences with collective experiences of positive emotion and to unite them in the face of tragedy. Though recent critics have described the Renaissance theatre as an arena for emotional extremes, this chapter broadens our perspective of Shakespearean emotion to include a contentment that shares the stage with other affects.

Chapter 8 examines the ethics of community – a dominant value of the hippie movement – and points to the differences between the people who live at The Farm and those who left it. Notwithstanding, this chapter reveals the power of what may be described as the cement of powerful shared experiences in early life in forming a lifelong bond that remains stable and offers a strong psychological sense of community regardless of physical distance and frequency of contact. This chapter also highlights the challenges of community life and examines them vis-à-vis perceived advantages.

Chapter 9 considers end-of-life matters and reports the efforts made by The Farm and its members to make their own and their loved ones’ final years and death as peaceful and comfortable as possible. Discussing issues such as advanced care planning, facilities for the aged population, and alternative burials and commemorations, this chapter demonstrates, once again, the hippie tendency to do things somewhat differently. It also suggests that their lifelong values and beliefs made them slightly less fearful of death than older adults who were not part of the hippie movement.

Chapter 4 focuses on magicians’ clients. Adopting a similar format to Chapter 3, it begins with a summary of the way clients were portrayed in didactic texts, isolating some key characteristics that were persistently applied. Again, these are unflattering, and the rest of the chapter is dedicated to establishing the extent to which they were accurate. We see that popular portrayals of clients are often more sympathetic, and that, if the court records are anything to go by, the range of people who visited magicians was very diverse. We also find that clients were aware of the negative reputations they might garner, and as such tried either to hide or justify their activities. Finally, we see that clients, especially in the late medieval period, were very aware that they were indeed clients. As such, they carried certain expectations about what they would receive from a magician and were even prepared to seek redress when disappointed. This assertive stance may have become more aggressive as the period progressed and fear crept in over the potential link between witchcraft and other forms of magic. Simultaneously, new legislation outlawing various types of practical magic probably led to a drop in clients seeking formal redress.

The final chapter discusses whether or not hippies age differently or better than other older adults.It suggests two complementary perspectives: The perceptions of the researched individuals that emphasize healthy lifestyle, engagement, and social support; and the researcher’s viewpoint, which stresses identity work, generativity, play, spirituality, and psychological sense of community. Discussing the two overarching themes of ideology and adaptability, the chapter also presents a take-home message about commitment and its contribution to wellbeing in old age. Overall, it suggests that we and others may benefit if we make our later years meaningful, satisfying, and hippie to an extent.

What has triggered this new concern with an impersonal yet singular life? In what sense do these formal innovations in contemporary aesthetics open up new ways to understand shared experience? In the belief that the analysis and reading of these cultural practices can help us foster the potential for understanding in spite of cultural differences, this chapter wishes to unlock the ethical and political challenges of our time as they are elaborated and discussed in contemporary art practices by Teixeira Coelho, Diamela Eltit, Sergio Chejfec, Rosângela Rennó, Gian Paolo Minelli, and Claudia Andujar.