Collective Care in Action: Theatre of the Oppressed as Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) in a College-Based Undergraduate Research Experience

This article describes the ways in which the authors have used Theatre of the Oppressed as a method for critical participatory action research and creative practice in the university and larger community. As a part of a course-based undergraduate experience (CURE), we used theatre to explore issues around access and disability justice by engaging with the embodied, lived experiences of community members as well as our own. This engagement led us to an exploration of collective care, both as a recommended practice for access by members of our community, and to move as a class throughout the semester. In this article, we share who we are as educators/researchers, what inspired us to engage in applied theatre as a vehicle for teaching, research and creative practice, how we engaged in our process over the course of the semester, and why we think that applied theatre worked so beautifully as a critical participatory action research method.