Taking Liberties:Ideals of freedom in contemporary South Africa: a practice-based approach to research with multilingual writing communities.

Taking Liberties Abstract This paper will focus on a Leverhulme Foundation-funded research project, Taking Liberties, which took place at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, from January to May 2018. The paper will trace some antecedents for this multilingual Creative Writing project, drawing out methodological practices that informed its design and implementation. It will trace the engagement with students at the University of the Western Cape in the context of historical and contemporary political conditions. Outputs from the project will be featured and discussed in terms of text and performance. Links will be provided to web-based outputs to create an interactive dimension. My discussion of the project will reflect upon the nature of practice-based research in Creative Writing and the wider implications for the discipline and its inter-disciplinary capacity