Theatre of the Oppressed: Reflections and Provocations from an Artist/Researcher Artwork

Practice As Research

Practice As Research aims to bring together the many different strands of practice-led/based research across all disciplines so as to not be limited by disciplinary conventions, but instead to benefit from cross-disciplinary fertilisation. In the wider academic communities, there are many terms in use to describe the research-practice nexus. For the sake of consistency we adopt the term 'practice as research'. Fundamentally, we consider practice as research any practice that is underpinned by scholarship and academic rigour. The primary aim of Practice As Research is sharing practices, providing constructive feedback and thus enabling the mutual development of understanding around practice as research.

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Practice As Research

Theatre of the Oppressed: Reflections and Provocations from an Artist/Researcher

March 27, 2026 • Nicole Brown • Season 5 • Episode 6

0:00 | 50:35

In this session Olivia Maurer presents her experience using practice as research working with participatory theatre in a traditional policy and social science context.

Drawing on her ongoing doctoral research, Olivia shares insights on conducting practice as research and how the duality of the artist/researcher identity has impacted her positionality, duty of care, and outcomes of the project. The challenges and potentialities of engaging in PAR within a PhD process are also evaluated. This session also discusses how practice as research is not just a “nice to have” in an urban studies and cultural geography research landscape, but a needed contribution to the field. We consider how the body is a vital source of knowledge of place and a crucial lens through which we can gain a better understanding of place-based experiences. We also examine how creative practice facilitates a space where this embodied knowledge is able to be teased out and reflected upon.

Olivia Maurer is a postgraduate researcher in Urban Studies and Social Policy at the University of Glasgow, with a background in public policy and arts-based community engagement. Her PhD works in partnership with the AHRC Place-Based Research Programme to build an evidence base of methodologies that are able to surface the “felt experience of place,” specifically focused on using Theatre of the Oppressed as both a research method and a policy engagement tool. Olivia is also a community theatre practitioner, with her work recently being showcased at the UK Parliament as one of 100 Creative Agents of Climate Change.