Community Partnership Projects

Project 1

Tiny Human Dramas: Expanding the Impact of Anthropological Research through Collaborative Partnership with Theatre Professionals

A group of actors on stage facing the audience.

Dr Meghan Rose Donnelly with Dr Alexandra D’Onofrio and Laura Sophie Helbig.

The purpose of this project is to further invest and amplify an existing partnership between anthropologists and theatre makers through the production of five short plays based on cutting-edge research.

Tiny Human Dramas is an evening of short plays created using research material that anthropologists gather in the field.  Five anthropologists are paired with five theatre ensembles who will each have 24 hours to create a 10-minute play using material that the anthropologist provides. The plays will be presented together as part of an evening at the Contact Theatre.  The show will be followed by an open discussion with the audience about the opportunities afforded by such an interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists and theatre makers.

The previous iteration of this project was a huge success, reaching a sold-out audience, inviting community partners to participate in anthropological research, expanding the reach of anthropology to new audiences, and opening possibilities for methodologically innovative research and representation.  This project is set to amplify that work in a new iteration.

The public (participants and audiences) will be invited to engage directly with anthropological research. It is about partnership with individuals and organisations to enhance research through direct participation. In this sense the project fosters a creative, communal mode of civic engagement. The liveness of theatre can bring complex topics to life and increase impactful understanding.  This project builds on that insight through methodologically innovative impact work.


Project 2

Konger FC: Football, Identity and Community in Manchester’s Hong Kong Diaspora

Black football flag with Konger FC logo in yellow

David Stroup (Politics department)

Jolynna Sinanan (Social Anthropology department)

The purpose of this project is to produce an ethnographic documentary film in co-creation with Konger FC, a Saturday morning football club for Hong Kongers founded in 2021, based on their 2024/25 season (August to May).

The project contributes to David Stroup’s continuing research on everyday identity among Sinophone communities by providing a collaborative platform to the politically marginalised diaspora of Hong Kongers who have relocated to Manchester on British National (Overseas) passports due to authoritarian repression of activism and cultural expression by the Public Republic of China.

The project leverages existing resources at the University of Manchester (the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology), to provide skills, expertise and resources that Konger FC may use to disseminate its story to previously unreachable audiences.

The community partnership will embed the researchers in activities related to Konger FC (observing matches, team training sessions, conducting interviews with players, sponsors and members of the fan community) with the aim of empowering and enhancing the visibility of Hong Kongers’ narratives of cultural survival, the ways in which they create a sense of home, build networks to facilitate integration and contribute to civic life within the Greater Manchester community.

The project aims to highlight the ways in which the Hong Kong diaspora in Manchester practice forms of activism surrounding the preservation of Hong Kong identity and the promotion of liberal, democratic values and human rights through everyday community organisations and their activities.

Through the film’s production, the project will provide a creative, original platform to enhance the visibility of the Hong Kong community, the opportunities and challenges of integration to living in Britain, and their ongoing struggle for democracy in the face of coercive assimilation and political repression in Hong Kong.