Paper Short Abstract:

I present the theatre play ‘Barrio’ as an instance of interdisciplinary collaboration in the context of research on criminal insecurity. I discuss how the play was used to induce dialogue with participants of democratic coexistence, crime, and the longing for ‘community’.

Paper Abstract:

‘Barrio’ is a theatre play that was the product of an interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology and theatre. Drawing on the findings of an ethnography of experiences of criminal insecurity in a context of rising criminal rates and violence, the play was used to induce dialogue between the research team, the actors, and the research participants, becoming a part of the research process and a direct intervention in the research context. Through the process of making and playing the theatre play, I explore how broader concerns and experiences over crime and microsegregation in urban neoliberal Chile became a part of interpretations enmeshed in a longing for dialogue and community. Drawing on these conversations over the possibility of dialogue and community, I discuss the role of interdisciplinary collaborations between social sciences and art to produce a space of dialogue and coexistence within difference. In this context, the play, its backstage, and the reactions of the public were together an opportunity for recognizing differences and, therefore, a space of collaboration as a pre-dialogic performance. At the same time, as a research team, this allowed us to see the limits, obstacles, and problems in the perceived ‘community’, the ‘lack’ of community, or its longing. I argue that this is part of a broader anxiety in Chile over the possibility of democratic coexistence in a context of high levels of violence and inequality.