Playing with Fire: Using Forum Theatre to Research Social Conflict in the Aftermath of 2019 Bolivian Wildland Fires

2019年，巴西经历了7.2万多起野火，比前一年增加了84%。巴西亚马逊雨林的大火仍是国际社会关注的焦点。然而，不那么明显的是，同样的环境危机正在南美洲邻国展开。例如，2019年，美国国家航空航天局估计玻利维亚的烧毁面积与巴西相似，但面积只有巴西的八倍。火灾总烧毁面积超过500万公顷，是上年的5倍，是近20年来最大的一次。野火对玻利维亚农村的社会经济和环境造成了毁灭性的影响。奇基塔尼亚地区位于该国东部，拥有南美洲最大和保存较好的干燥森林之一，最近的火灾对该地区的影响尤其严重。在这里，最近的火灾造成了巨大的破坏，特别是在保护区和土著领土上，加剧了当地社区（土著人民、移民农民、牧场主、门诺派教徒）之间的紧张关系，他们的生活方式和使用土地和自然资源的方式不同。该项目旨在通过创作研究衍生的艺术作品，推动本地和国际公众对野火危机的复杂性和紧迫性的讨论。我们采用社区战区办法作为缓解冲突的工具，促进玻利维亚奇基塔尼亚地区不同农村社区内部和社区之间的关键对话。我们借鉴了一种流行的社区戏剧方法，称为被压迫的戏剧（TO）（1974年），与不同的当地团体的成员一起创作了一个论坛剧院的戏剧，生动地描述了他们对野火危机的生活经历。随后，该剧将在四个受火灾影响的社区巡回演出。论坛剧院是一种戏剧形式，在这种戏剧形式中，观众（被重新定义为场景演员）可以进入戏剧“虚构”，进行干预，可能会导致不同的结果。我们的目标是将来自不同社会群体的人们带入（潜在的紧张）对话，并创造一种不完整的不安感，通过舞台下的实际行动寻求解决方案。该项目将首次记录将TO方法应用于野火危机。它将侧重于涉及多个方面的社区间冲突所产生的复杂压迫情况：文化和种族污名化、不相容的生计战略、政治竞争、与自然环境的关系。我们将开发一种创新的方法，以了解压迫的多个方面之间的联系，以及这些联系如何反映在诸如野火引发的重大社会环境危机中。研究小组将跟随该剧的行程，记录观众的干预情况，并采访当地社区的主要演员，以更全面地了解问题和经验。该剧的创作和表演将被记录下来，并根据项目参与者的个人和集体旅程，制作一部纪录片和摄影展。在这种情况下，视觉艺术将成为与国内和国际观众接触的有力手段，以提高公众对野火紧急情况复杂性的认识和辩论。照片和视频展览将在玻利维亚几个主要城市、国际节日和学术会议上巡回展出，也将通过项目网站提供。因此，这将鼓励人们在项目范围和持续时间之外继续思考野火危机。

In 2019, Brazil experienced more than 72,000 wildland fires, which represents a staggering 84 percent increase from the previous year. The burning of the Brazilian Amazon continues to be the subject of much international attention. Less visible, however, has been an equivalent environmental crisis unfolding in neighbouring countries in South America. In 2019, for example, NASA estimated that Bolivia had a burned area similar in size to Brazil, but in a country eight times smaller. The total burned area was over 5 million hectares, five times greater than the previous year and the largest area burned over the past 20 years. Wildland fires are having devastating socio-economic and environmental implications in rural Bolivia. The Chiquitania region, an area in the Eastern part of the country that hosts one of the largest and better preserved dry forests in South America, has been particularly affected by the recent fires. Here, the exceptional devastation of recent fires, especially on protected areas and indigenous territories, have exacerbated tensions among local communities (indigenous peoples, migrant peasants, ranchers, Mennonites) with different ways of living and using the land and natural resources. This project aims to advance local and international public debate on the complexity and urgency of wildland fire crisis through the creation of research-derived artistic work. We deploy a community theatre approach as a conflict mitigation tool to facilitate critical dialogue within and between different rural communities in Bolivia's Chiquitania region. We draw on a popular community theatre methodology called Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) (Boal 1974) to create a Forum Theatre play with members of different local groups animating their lived experiences of the wildland fire crisis. This play will then travel, to be performed in four fire-affected communities. Forum Theatre is a theatrical form in which spectators (reframed as spect-actors) can physically enter the theatrical 'fiction' to make an intervention that might lead to a different outcome. Our objective is to bring people from different social groups into (potentially tense) dialogue and to create an uneasy sense of incompleteness that seeks resolution through real action off stage.This project will document for the first time the application of TO methods to a wildland fire crisis. It will focus on complex situations of oppression stemming from inter-community conflicts involving multiple dimensions: cultural and ethnic stigmatisation, incompatible livelihood strategies, political competition, relationships to the natural environment. We will develop an innovative approach to understand the linkages between multiple dimensions of oppression and how these are reflected in a major socio-environmental crisis such as the one provoked by wildland fires. The research team will follow alongside the travels of the play to record audience interventions and to interview key actors in local communities to glean a fuller understanding of issues and experiences. The creation and performance of the play will be recorded and, drawing on the individual and collective journeys of the project participants, a documentary film and a photography exhibition will be created. Visual arts will become, in this context, powerful means to engage with national and international audiences in order to enhance public awareness and debate on the complexity of wildland fire emergency. A photo and video exhibit will tour several major Bolivian cities, international festivals and academic conferences and will also be available through the project website. These will thus encourage continued reflection on wildland fire crisis beyond the scope and duration of the project.