Students at IDS often have the opportunity to attend seminars, panel discussions, and workshops in addition to regular classes. These opportunities allow them to understand research being undertaken at IDS, to connect to the broader IDS community and to take these learnings into their future work. One such opportunity was the recent workshop on theatre as a method of research, organised by the ‘Sustaining Power: Women’s Struggles against contemporary backlash in South Asia’ (SuPWR) project.
SuPWR undertook research on how 16 women’s movements in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan resisted and sustained their power against backlash. The workshop was held as part of the final dissemination of the project’s activities, and showcased SuPWR’s innovative research methodologies. Centred on techniques from the ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’, the workshop introduced the exercises used by the project as a method of analysis.
Below three IDS master’s students share reflections from the workshop.
The Transformative Power of Participatory Theatre
Nancy Yeri, MA Gender & Development (Class of 2025-26)
In my over ten years of development work experience in Ghana, theatre was a central advocacy tool – we called it “theatre for change”. We focused on using theatre to raise community awareness about, for example, the importance of changing norms or adopting better health and hygiene practices. During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we used this method to help communities understand the need for handwashing and to recognise Ebola symptoms. The SuPWR workshop was unique; I have never experienced such a research methodology, it felt exciting.
Theatre as a research methodology offers a vital shift in a time when artificial intelligence reproduces existing knowledge frameworks and, inadvertently, reinforces coloniality in knowledge production. It enables us to transcend traditional language domination and hierarchical power dynamics in the field. It brings forward embodied narratives and diverse generational struggles that might otherwise remain unheard, offering a fresh and contextually grounded perspective. In this case, the perspectives of the struggles of feminist movements in South Asia.
Exercise after exercise, I was immersed in the research approach. One exercise which required us to reflect on our day – what we do when we wake up until we go to bed – got me wondering “how much do I care for myself, how do I use my time?” I can only imagine how this impacted the movements who experienced this, how much self-care is needed amid these struggles, especially in the face of burnout and fatigue compounded by relentless backlash.
As demonstrated in SuPWR, this approach – rooted in the principles of Augusto Boal’s ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ that uses theatre as a tool for social change – allows us to capture the nuances of social movements and understand how they navigate collective challenges. It’s a powerful way to democratise knowledge and ensure that diverse voices shape the narratives we rely on in development studies.
I am eager to employ this research methodology in my future work within the African context – where storytelling and performance already thrive as powerful tools for community engagement.
Reflections on Power, Participation, and Facilitation
Sanket Aher, MA Governance, Development & Public Policy (Class of 2025-26)
In my professional journey working with rural communities in Maharashtra, India, I frequently used participatory rural appraisal methods to engage villagers in identifying local challenges and reflecting collectively on issues such as governance, livelihoods, and access to public services. These approaches helped create spaces where community members could share their experiences and perspectives openly. However, encountering theatre-based methods as a research approach was new to me. The idea of using performance and embodied storytelling to explore lived experiences of power and gender intrigued me, and this motivated me to join the workshop.
From start to finish, the workshop was participatory – for instance, I introduced myself with bhangra dance. Over three hours, facilitator Effie led us through different activities. Two activities stayed with me. In ‘Colombian Hypnosis’, we worked in pairs where one person leads and other follows the leader’s hand through the space. This activity made me realise what it means to feel powerful when leading and powerless when following. I learned that trust and responsible use of power are important factors for both leader and follower in a team.
In the Machine game, our group formed a human machine using simple, repetitive body movements and sounds. When the theme was Brighton, it felt simple. When the theme became Feminism, it got complicated and interesting. People were protesting, writing, thinking, and looking at the future. What fascinated me was that the same word was expressed in different ways by different people, and observers also interpreted it differently.
This workshop gave me a real sense that research can be participatory, where participants co-travel with the researcher. They are not just subjects; they actively co-create knowledge by sharing their experiences and building values through it. In the SuPWR project, participants used this space to reflect on their journey as activists and to create space for care and solidarity. This experience made me reflect that facilitation is not just about running activities, but about creating a space where people feel safe to share and learn together. In future, I will carry these principles when facilitating future workshops or research.
A return to theatre as a way of knowing
Julia Bezerra, MA Gender & Development (Class of 2025-26)
During my first undergraduate degree in Theatre in São Paulo, Brazil, I learned about the techniques developed by Augusto Boal. I still remember the first time I read about the ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ and understood that “theatre is a form of knowledge.”
I then went on to study Social Sciences and followed a more “traditional” academic path, one that did not allow me to integrate my previous knowledge of theatre with research. In this sense, my interest in the workshop was driven by a desire to discover how to build this connection between worlds.
Over the course of three hours of theatrical exercises, we began to understand how embodied practice can make thought visible. Through exercises such as ‘Image Theatre and Forum Theatre’, we collectively realised that there are things that escape language, as expressions of human complexity cannot be fully captured in words. In an academic research context, this expansion of how knowledge can be accessed allows for a more complex and multifaceted engagement with research participants.
The exercises were accompanied by reflections from the SuPWR researchers. This methodology enabled the collective construction of knowledge: within the project, social movements participating in the theatrical exercises moved from being spectators to “spect-actors,” actively engaging in the process.
These activities helped us understand how to access dimensions that often elude language and more “rigid” academic methodologies, such as structured interviews or data analysis. I left the workshop certain that I want to incorporate participatory arts methodologies into my own research and academic trajectory.
For me, the workshop was not only a new learning experience, but also a return. A reconnection with something that the rigidity of certain environments had made me forget – and that I am grateful to be able to include in my life and work again.
Conclusion
The workshop helped broaden our horizons regarding the democratisation of knowledge, questioning the dominance of traditional academic language and contributing to a collective process of knowledge construction. By using the body as a means of collective knowledge construction, we engaged in the process in a practical, experiential way. Moving away from the restricted environment of the classroom, where bodies sit individually in chairs and receive knowledge in a “top-down” manner, allowed us to question the very power relations within the field of development and to imagine ways of transforming how research is conducted.
