Becoming civic centred: a case study of the University of Greenwich’s Bathway Theatre based in Woolwich

This paper constructs an inter-disciplinary lens to consider a University Theatre’s community engagement programme, What About Us: Empowering Community Voices. We argue for an ‘Open-Third Space’ as a way of decolonising the academy whilst constructing Higher Education and Community Partnerships. In doing so we re-think assumptions around privileging academic knowledge within Knowledge Exchange Frameworks (KEF). We assert the need for universities to consider knowledge exchange as a reflexive process whereby the knowledge of partners coming from non-university settings is positioned equitably with those from the academy. Moving beyond Lave and Wenger’s ‘Community of Practice’, which considers communities as homogenous groups, we take a Dreierien perspective, considering project partners as unique knowledge holders; enabling us to help frame, shape and create activity which is of interest to the multicultural community of Woolwich, where the Theatre sits. In doing so we are able to reflect on our shared experiences across the community engagement programme and introduce ‘Open-Third Space’ to the literature, which fuses the critical components of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s ‘open space’ and Oldenburg’s ‘third space,’ as a practical way of working and as a set of principles which will need further unpacking as the theatre develops its community engagement strategy