Dramatic Theater & Human Rights Discourse: Thailand

Erin Kamler, a public diplomacy practitioner and alum of the USC Master of Public Diplomacy program, has published a new article in the International Journal of Communication. Her piece, Performing Land of Smiles: Dramatization as Research in Thailand’s Antitrafficking Movement, focuses on the role of dramatic theater as a vehicle for human rights discourse. Kamler, who wrote and composed the music for Land of Smiles, engaged three sets of participants—Western NGOs, female migrants from ethnic communities in Burma, and Western and Thai artists—to unpack the ways in which human rights research and dramatic storytelling intersect and inform one another. Her article analyzes the tropes characterizing human trafficking discourse—specifically narratives around victimhood, rescue and morality—to expose both the problems with this normative victim-savior lens and the mediating power of theater to create a space for personal and social transformation. 

The full article is available here. 

Photo by Global Panorma | CC BY-SA 2.0