L'agent devient l'acteur : un regard sur les méthodes du Théâtre de l'Opprimé et la notion de l'habitus chez Pierre Bourdieu

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2014

Department

French

Program

Bachelor's Degree

Citation of Original Publication

Rights

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.

Abstract

While spending a semester abroad in Paris during the Spring of 2012 I worked as an intern at the Théâtre de l'Opprimé, a small theater that uses participatory theater practices to promote social change. A requirement of my program, Internships in Francophone Europe, was that each student produce a 30-page research paper on a topic relating to their internship work. I chose to incorporate the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus into my work, navigating the intersection of sociology and contemporary theater practices in France. In an attempt to prove that the Théatre de l'Opprimé's practices enable participants to make visible their own habitus, I describe several theatrical techniques incorporated into the TDO's method. Through both intensive research of existing scholarship and participant observation I am able to begin to address the question of habitus as it relates to participatory theater in contemporary France.