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.