Trying new (and fun!) participatory research approaches: the Theatre Forum

As part of the Usumacinta Roc Project, Dr. Julia Martin-Ortega and colleagues from ECOSUR and Scotland Rural College tested an innovative participatory research method. Using Theatre Forum, they presented some of the results of the project, which focus on understanding the risks that using an ecosystem services framing of environmental problems might bring in terms of commodifying nature, to an audience of environmental professionals in Mexico.

This entailed a short representation of a local community assembly using a script based on project results and an interactive phase in which the public could get involved in the play. Using improvisation theatre techniques, this allowed to take the findings of the research further in a truly participatory and interactive way, moving forward the dialogue and opening new avenues of thinking about how communities interact with the environment.

It was also incredibly fun! You can watch the complete video above (in Spanish – also note the play starts from minute 10 on the video)

The video above shows the presentation of results and if you wish to know more about this technique, please contact Julia Martin-Ortega