Ukrainian Life Stories as Told by Social Science and Playback Theatre

Three years ago, Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then over 10 million Ukrainians have had to leave their
homes. Over 6 million of them moved on to other European countries
and continue their lives there. How to take stock of this huge
change in people’s lives? How to gain an understanding of their
perspectives, sense of identity, hopes and fears? Over the past
year, we have explored different ways of narrating the experiences
of forced migrants from Ukraine. In a social science project
conducted at ZOiS, researchers investigate and visualise the
experiences of displacement and arrival, as well as questions of
identity and belonging in relation to forced migrants from and in
Ukraine. In a Berlin theatre, a playback theatre performance based
on the theme of ‘Seeing the difference’, actors brought to life the
stories of their audience members, many of them Ukrainians living
in the city. In this podcast episode, Stefanie Orphal speaks with
playback performer Yuliia Terentieva and ZOiS researcher Sabine von
Löwis about the intersection of research and theatre and explores
unexpected ways of bringing them together. (Music: “Complete” by
Modul is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0-License.)