BEING IN MY SKIN: FORUM THEATRE IN A PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

Abstract

The Forum Theatre—one of the modalities of Theatre of the Oppressed—is an expressive and reflective method that allows for the exploration of social transformation and liberation through dialogical learning arising from everyday situations. In this article, we report on the work developed within the framework of a third-year internship project in Social Education, with young people and adults who exhibited some difficulties from an Intellectual and Developmental perspective (IDD). The SOMOS NÓS Association served as the "stage" for this work, which involved the need to think about and reconceptualize the meaning of social responses to these social actors. Throughout the text, we discuss how the project ESTAR NA MINHA PELE enabled considerations of conflict resolution, the creation of conditions for well-being, active participation, and cooperation with and within the community. The project was developed with the principles of Participatory Action Research in mind, considering the contextualization of reality to understand and mediate the entire intervention process. The use of this methodology allowed the creation of a participatory and transformative project, with a greater focus on the personal and social area, whose main results were the development of communication skills, conflict mediation, empathy and cooperation.