The key theme of the thesis is home, taking us from the history of the London music-hall to the cultural production of the Latinx community of south London, enriching our environment through the languages, music and experience of those who have come to be Londoners. It is an intellectually stimulating, moving and joyful piece of work.
Professor Catherine Boyle, Director of the Centre for Language Acts and Worldmaking
21 May 2025
PhD student in Languages, Literatures and Cultures wins King's Outstanding Thesis Prize
Mary Ann Vargas, PhD student in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has been awarded a King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize 2025.
Mary Ann’s project, ‘Re-enacting home away from home’, began as an attempt to use performance practices as tools and methodological springboards to re-enact the sense of belonging experienced by migrant and ethnic communities living and working in South London.
Her research began before the pandemic, in tandem with the demolition of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre, the largest Latin American hub in the south of the city.
Her work was supported by the Language Acts and Worldmaking research centre based in the Global Cultures Institute, which aims to regenerate and transform modern language learning by foregrounding language's power to shape how we live and make our worlds.
For the project, Mary Ann produced three Latinx variety nights called Barrio for Southwark Playhouse, although the third could not take place due to the pandemic. These events became the reflective spaces which Mary Ann used to develop a decolonial critique positioned at the intersection of British and Peruvian popular theatre and performance, such as variety nights and fiestas.
The prism through which I look back at Barrio has been further puzzled by our experience of lockdown and by the growing local and global crises of the past three years.
Mary Ann Vargas, PhD student
Mary Ann’s response to the social limitations of the pandemic included a photo-essay on the demolition of the Elephant and Castle taken during her permitted outings from home.
Now she has completed her PhD, Mary Ann aims to put the performance-based initiatives she has developed with migrant communities in South London into practice. These initiatives took place during times of significant upheaval – the pandemic, local demolitions, global civil conflicts and climate crises.
My overriding desire, beyond the thesis, is to create a model for an annual collaborative event, ideally itinerant, to consolidate migrant and ethnic communities’ presence in London, both on stage and beyond. This includes more writing about the alternative forms of knowledge making from as wide a range of practitioners as possible.
Mary Ann Vargas
She is also setting up a multi-disciplinary art-based research hub in Peckham, two-three-four studio.
Above all, I hope this recognition ignites other people’s desire to explore alternative forms of knowledge making and to navigate these routes with confidence, rigour and imagination. No matter how marooned we may feel at times, our role as researchers is to gain a renewed sense of awareness and fresh perspectives that strengthen our resolve to intervene in the world as artists, activists, and thinkers, to stay connected.
Mary Ann Vargas
In this story
Translation Acts PhD Student
Professor of Latin American Cultural Studies