Performing Arts and Social Violence: Innovating Research Approaches to Sexual and Gender-based Violence in the Global South

The project examines the use of the performing arts to gauge the extent to which comedy, theatre and dance can be harnessed to understand and address social violence, in this case sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). It will seek to link the literature with a more practical engagement. Therefore, the project activities will consist of a comprehensive literature review, accompanied by 'live' elements, which will involve academics, performers, NGOs and policymakers from across the globe.
The project will begin with a review of the state of the performing arts and their relationship to social violence, particularly SGBV and their impacts in different contexts. The second part of the project involves practical engagement. Our in-country Co-Is and local partners in South Africa and Sierra Leone will identify additional collaborators to engage with for a workshop in South Africa and a conference in Sierra Leone. With local comedians, dancers and theatre performers, we will use these different performative modes as a means to better understand and engage the extent and limitations of using the performing arts to engage with SGBV, and the differences and commonalities between theatre, dance and comedy in creating spaces for conversations about SGBV.
The first workshop will take place in South Africa. In partnership with Clowns without Borders, project Co-Is will help co-produce and attend three activities. These will be organised in communities near Cape Town with a dance group, a theatre group and a comedy troupe with contents relating to SGBV. After each performance, the Co-Is will conduct focus group discussions with the communities to inform our reflection on these performances and preliminary research findings.
The larger component of the scoping project will be a 4-day conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This conference will engage academics, practitioners and performers from different countries and disciplines. In partnership with Co-Is, the conference will be co-produced with Timap for Justice staff, SGBV activists and performers from Sierra Leone and South Africa, providing a valuable opportunity for capacity building by helping design the program contents and logistical support.
The conference aims to be an interactive and immersive experience for participants. Following the South Africa workshop, the conference will involve participants attending and observing different groups of performers of theatre, dance and comedy, each related to SGBV, over the course of the first three days in Freetown communities. These sessions will be followed by large discussions with the communities, and then a follow up discussion amongst the conference participants and the performers about their observations and approach. Participants will be asked to reflect on these experiences and contrast them to their own experiences with different performing arts mediums in different parts of the world. These sessions will be the basis for an open access Special Issue in an interdisciplinary journal that will reflect on the ideas and performances at the conference. All publications will be co-authored, with people from the global south collaborating with those from the global north. In addition, we will produce a short film highlighting the performances and perspectives of participants.
Importantly, owing to the uncertain implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for our work, we have built in contingency planning. For instance, if travel is impossible, we would conduct both the South Africa workshop and the Sierra Leone conference virtually in collaboration with our partners and Co-Is. The performances in both places would be live streamed and online discussions would follow.
The scoping work in the project will, therefore, develop existing interdisciplinary work led by arts and humanities scholars and provide the basis for identifying new arts and humanities research directions that respond to the SDGs.