Performance as a strategy for women's liberation: practices of the theatre of the oppressed in Okmeydanı Social Center

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the practices of the theatre of the oppressed with women in the Okmeydanı Social Center, along with women's narratives on these practices and the social center itself, in terms of women's strategies for liberation within the context of Turkey. The thesis aims to show that the perspective that approaches the issue of women's liberation within the framework of modern education discourses and their practices fail to develop strategies for women in their everyday life. The main argument of this thesis is that the theatre of the oppressed provides a space and a tool for women in terms of their emancipation, transformation and helps them to develop strategies for resisting patriarchy.This thesis discusses the premises of considering the theatre of the oppressed and performance as a feminist method for women's liberation, as a means of deciphering the construction of gender identities, gendered organization of everyday life and the patriarchal power relations.