“…This emotional connection is similar in other studies of Forum Theatre (Baer et al, 2019;Campbell, 2019;Heras et al, 2016) and in line with Boal's (2013) suggestion that empathy alone is not enough to motivate change; dissatisfaction is required to move spectators into action, producing unexpected, surprising and contradictory findings (Baer et al, 2019;Kester, 2005). In this study, Forum Theatre provided a space for enabling specific features of empathy and dissatisfaction to engage local people to participate.…”
Section: Forum Theatre and Intersectionality To Engage Participationsupporting
confidence: 88%
“…One participant stated:And the lady (Patricia), she made me remember, in 1985 when I arrived here, with my children, all small. So, just as she said there was no food… I remembered that difficult time I had here, but thanks to God and thanks to the projects, little by little the community has been developing… I thank all the performers because they reminded me of everything we have been through.This emotional connection is similar in other studies of Forum Theatre (Baer et al, 2019; Campbell, 2019; Heras et al, 2016) and in line with Boal's (2013) suggestion that empathy alone is not enough to motivate change; dissatisfaction is required to move spectators into action, producing unexpected, surprising and contradictory findings(Baer et al, 2019; Kester, 2005). In this study, Forum Theatre provided a space for enabling specific features of empathy and dissatisfaction to engage local people to participate.…”
Nature degradation, poverty and social discrimination are some of the consequences of unfair decision‐making over environmental resources within rural communities in the Global South. Barriers to achieving fair environmental decisions are entrenched power differences and the lack of representation of the diversity of local values in environmental decision‐making.
Using intersectionality and value pluralism as a conceptual base, this is the first paper to examine the potential of Forum Theatre, a performance arts‐based method, to discuss ‘solutions’ regarding power differences and values towards nature in environmental decision‐making.
We implemented Forum Theatre in two rural villages in Chiapas, Mexico, framed around conflicts and power differences in eco‐tourism development.
Participants felt empathy with the Forum Theatre characters and dissatisfaction over the conflicts, and this motivated them to engage and participate in collective reflections on their own personal experiences with power differences in environmental decision‐making.
From these reflections, participants performed diverse ‘solutions’ to the conflicts, bringing to the fore plural interconnected and dynamic values towards nature in these narratives. Despite this, Forum Theatre does not look to ‘solve’ conflicts; it is a safe space to explore how power differences and values towards nature play out in environmental decision‐making.
Results offer a promising picture of the potential of Forum Theatre as an opening where participants could discuss power differences and values towards nature. However, establishing its potential as a tool in environmental decision‐making would require engaging those involved in implementing environmental decisions that affect the communities but who operate from other levels of the governance structure, such as policy‐makers and large NGOs.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
“…This emotional connection is similar in other studies of Forum Theatre (Baer et al, 2019;Campbell, 2019;Heras et al, 2016) and in line with Boal's (2013) suggestion that empathy alone is not enough to motivate change; dissatisfaction is required to move spectators into action, producing unexpected, surprising and contradictory findings (Baer et al, 2019;Kester, 2005). In this study, Forum Theatre provided a space for enabling specific features of empathy and dissatisfaction to engage local people to participate.…”
Section: Forum Theatre and Intersectionality To Engage Participationsupporting
confidence: 88%
“…One participant stated:And the lady (Patricia), she made me remember, in 1985 when I arrived here, with my children, all small. So, just as she said there was no food… I remembered that difficult time I had here, but thanks to God and thanks to the projects, little by little the community has been developing… I thank all the performers because they reminded me of everything we have been through.This emotional connection is similar in other studies of Forum Theatre (Baer et al, 2019; Campbell, 2019; Heras et al, 2016) and in line with Boal's (2013) suggestion that empathy alone is not enough to motivate change; dissatisfaction is required to move spectators into action, producing unexpected, surprising and contradictory findings(Baer et al, 2019; Kester, 2005). In this study, Forum Theatre provided a space for enabling specific features of empathy and dissatisfaction to engage local people to participate.…”
Nature degradation, poverty and social discrimination are some of the consequences of unfair decision‐making over environmental resources within rural communities in the Global South. Barriers to achieving fair environmental decisions are entrenched power differences and the lack of representation of the diversity of local values in environmental decision‐making.
Using intersectionality and value pluralism as a conceptual base, this is the first paper to examine the potential of Forum Theatre, a performance arts‐based method, to discuss ‘solutions’ regarding power differences and values towards nature in environmental decision‐making.
We implemented Forum Theatre in two rural villages in Chiapas, Mexico, framed around conflicts and power differences in eco‐tourism development.
Participants felt empathy with the Forum Theatre characters and dissatisfaction over the conflicts, and this motivated them to engage and participate in collective reflections on their own personal experiences with power differences in environmental decision‐making.
From these reflections, participants performed diverse ‘solutions’ to the conflicts, bringing to the fore plural interconnected and dynamic values towards nature in these narratives. Despite this, Forum Theatre does not look to ‘solve’ conflicts; it is a safe space to explore how power differences and values towards nature play out in environmental decision‐making.
Results offer a promising picture of the potential of Forum Theatre as an opening where participants could discuss power differences and values towards nature. However, establishing its potential as a tool in environmental decision‐making would require engaging those involved in implementing environmental decisions that affect the communities but who operate from other levels of the governance structure, such as policy‐makers and large NGOs.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
“…Both theater and research are collective endeavors and ways of engaging community members (as research participants and/or audiences) despite that both traditions customarily prize the singular, independent genius. Here I join colleagues in theater and research across disciplines who work with care, and additionally aim to be relationally and aesthetically accountable (for some examples, please see Baer et al, 2019; Bhattacharya, 2016; Gallagher & Kushnir, 2020; Goldstein, 2012; Kontos et al, 2021).…”
Research-based Theater (RbT) is shaped by both the form of theater, as an embodied, gestural, spatial, imaginative multi-dimensional art form, and traditions of research surrounding knowledge production, specifically qualitative research. When ethical tensions and questions arise in RbT they are often framed as a dichotomy, such as the ways aesthetic or artistic interests of creating a compelling piece of theater for audiences contrast with responsibilities to research. By drawing on the frame of an aesthetic of relationality, and an example from my work as an RbT playwright from the project Cracked: new light on dementia, I consider the ways both theater and research might be more clearly aligned. This includes how relational and aesthetic accountabilities can offer an important foundation for considering how RbT might be rooted in caring practices and might influence theater-making and the traditions of scientific research more broadly.
“…Verbatim Theatre (Paget, 1987) uses processes of interviewing a community about certain issues or events and recording the conversations to eventually employ the stories as stimulations for the creative structure of a final performance (Hammond & Steward, 2012;Peters, 2017). Out at School (Baer et al, 2019) in 2018 was a verbatim audio-play to share narratives and experiences of LGBTQ families. Theatrical approaches, such as composing original songs and creating visual images, were implemented to document participants' perceptions of educators and school administrators.…”
Research has shown the impetus for utilising dramatic techniques in addressing issues around gender and sexual diversity (GSD) in education. This article argues that drama is an important way of engaging in conversations around GSD in educational settings. The article begins with an exploration of heteronormativity and cisnormativity in education and studies the usefulness of drama and theatre as tools applied to promote GSD. Prior research and projects conducted in different contexts were analysed. The article concludes that five dramatic components could be identified and are pivotal in educational programmes that implemented performing arts and participatory pedagogies in the discussion of GSD - exploration, open-endedness, playfulness, aesthetic distance, and experimentation. The article analysed the development of exploring GSD from artistic and dramatic viewpoints in education spaces during recent decades, and concluded by encouraging future GSD projects to proceed to be creative and inclusive in tackling gender diversity and its visibility.
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