Voices for Empowerment against Gender Inequalities: REVISITING THE POTENTIAL OF AUGUSTO BOAL’S THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED BETWEEN POLITICS, AESTHETICS, AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE

Wider research context / theoretical framework
This project is situated at the interface of politics and aesthetics and in the broader framework of Social Justice Research (SJR) (Toporek et al. 2006). The goal of this transdisciplinary project is to connect minds at the service of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. These are two sides of the same coin, which constitutes the fifth among seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the United Nations‘ 2030 agenda. Towards this goal, our project probes the “Theatre of the Oppressed” (TO) - a theatre method developed by Augusto Boal during the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1970s that democratized the process of theatre production: to voice the marginalized, Augusto Boal dissolved the hierarchy between actors and spectators. By creating empowered spectactors, the TO, as a political form of theatre and emancipatory practice shifts the focus from representation to participation in both aesthetic and political terms.

Hypothesis/research questions/objectives
Departing from the hypothesis that the TO is able to effect attitudinal and behavioral change by empowering marginalized groups to raise their voices against gendered inequalities, our project asks: Why, how and under what conditions is TO likely to bring about empowerment against gender inequalities in the contemporary European context? Our pursuit of answers has a two-fold aim: (1) given that most existing work on the TO concerns applications in the Americas and the developing world, the methods of the TO need to be revisited when transferred to the contemporary European context. By means of revisiting Boal’s TO, we aim to test a decolonizing of the senses. (2) We also test whether the TO can trigger attitudinal and behavioral change by raising bodily and sensorial awareness and by unlearning oppression through the rehearsal of alternatives.

Approach/methods
The models we aim to develop will embrace artistic and somatic techniques of the TO, whose short- and long-term effects will have been rigorously tested using a combination of experimental and survey methods with qualitative interviews, artistic research and participatory observation. Situated in an international context of the current TO research, our project will initiate a collaborative local network, including training (workshops, seminars) and multiplication (practical application in local contexts) monitored by evaluation processes (written and visual reports, artistic productions).

Level of originality /innovation
To date, systematic transdisciplinary studies of empowerment occurs through TO are lacking; moreover, the TOs effects on participants have not yet been tested with research designs enable the investigation of causal relationships. This project combines theoretical perspectives from dance and theatre studies, politics, social psychology and gender studies referring to voice as a unifying concept that helps transcend disciplinary perspectives. Voice is fundamentally connected to questions of power, resistance and subversion. The final outcome of this project will be a holistic model for gender diversity of a very wide applicability to educational organizations and a corresponding theatre model, which contributes to raising awareness for inequalities in the aesthetic realm.


Researchers and those involved
The research team of Salzburg University is composed of: Zoe Lefkofridi (Univ. Prof. Political Science and Gender Studies), Nicole Haitzinger (Univ. Prof. Dance Studies), Johannes Klackl (Senior Scientist, Psychology). The team will ‘connect minds’ through cooperating with internationallyacclaimed practitioners of TO and local educative, artistic, and social institutions.