Social Theatre As a Research Method in Shelters for Women Victims of Violence

The talk takes its cue from performing studies to question the effectiveness of social theater as an investigative tool aimed at examining and understanding the experience of anti-violence shelters, from the perspective of the researcher and that of the social actors involved. In the panorama of the new international theatrology, social theatre is considered as the Italian variant of applied theatre: an “umbrella title” (according to Judith Ackroyd's definition) that stands for a theatrical practice enacted by a group of non-professional people, guided by specially trained facilitators, who work together to discuss, represent and solve their existential and social problems. In applied theatre different techniques (improvisation, theatre games, forum theatre, ...) are used to promote the well-being, expression, empowerment and change of the person, group, and community.

Starting from the study of a social theatre workshop aimed at an integrated group of women shelter workers and women victims of violence, the intervention focuses on the use of performance practice as a means to: reach inaccessible targets (because they are institutionalized within protection circuits) and open new communication channels with those involved; to represent the multiple points of view and needs of social actors and express incomprehensible and unexplored meanings.

Since knowledge does not have an exclusively cognitive-rational foundation and indeed cannot be detached from the individual’s entirety (including its emotional, relational, and bodily dimensions) theatrical practice as a means of training both guests and service workers and as a research tool on the effectiveness of anti-violence centers can foster the overcoming of the emergency perspective, service innovation and the development of a more holistic approach to users and their needs, including unexpressed ones. In doing so, it promotes “embodied ways of knowing” (Barbour, 2011): a total involvement of the researcher in the research context and process.