Staging Interventions: Limitations and Advantages of Performance as Research
Date
2019
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Haverford College. Department of Anthropology
Type
Thesis
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Award
Language
eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
Performance ethnography is a new approach to anthropological research that uses theatre to identify and critically examine power structures as they exist in everyday life. Researchers using this methodology aim to work with participants from the community they’re researching to resist oppressive systems of the academy and the community. With this focus on effecting change, performance ethnographers vastly expand the reach of ethnographic projects. As a consequence, these projects may fall short of the anthropologist’s high expectations for transformative work, and run the risk of reinforcing the researcher’s power over their subjects by prioritizing their own agenda. This thesis examines methodological interventions performance offers to ethnography using a few case studies, and argues that performance ethnography is not successful when it is used mainly to transform or liberate the subjects of research. For these interventions to be effective, anthropologists should recognize their limitations and use performance ethnography as an investigative and educational tool.