When Place Becomes Home: Refugees and Border Space in Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s The Jungle (2017)

People crossing borders in search of safety and a better life are challenging governments, rousing politics, taxing the capacity of international relief agencies, and raising difficult questions about national identity, social cohesion, fairness, safety, morality, and the rule of law. Since the late 1980s, the increasing number of refugees arriving in Western countries has frequently been met with alarm, and the refugees have been treated with hostility, prejudice, and even violence. This paper tackles The Jungle (2017) by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, two British dramatists. The two recent Oxford graduates gained firsthand knowledge of their subject during their seven-month stint as volunteers at the Jungle, a refugee camp in Calais, France, established in 2015. The play examines the stories of the people who lived in this encampment after fleeing oppression in their home countries, as well as the sense of community that developed there. In The Jungle, the playwrights bring people from various countries together, including migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, and others. By creating spaces and places which enable voices to be heard, The Jungle aims to give a face to the faceless and a voice to the voiceless. Using theatre as a space for reflection and expression, the play discusses the border and the change between the visible and invisibility and explores how borders can move beyond binaries and create a new space – a third space. The play attempted to increase empathy and understanding by allowing audiences to vicariously experience aspects of refugees' lives.