ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects upon a devising theatre project with young adults that took place in Vienna, Austria, in August 2020. It serves as an example for how a collaborative, relational and vulnerable process of elicitive peace education can manifest through shared theatre-making. ‘Elicitive’ implies that the process and work prominently tap into the students’/participants’ strengths, needs, stories, reflections, skills, understandings, and more, rather than leaning primarily and/or only upon the educator’s professional skills and knowledge. The author inquires in this regard into how the decision to apply a vulnerable pedagogical approach of not fully knowing and of not having full control from the side of the educator can unfold valuable learning for peace, using her own experiences, observations, and reflections as the elicitive theatre pedagogue and peace educator that facilitated the devising theatre project in question to explore potentials and challenges involved. She comes in this way to highlight and understand the possibilities to explore, practice and engage both individual and collective human imperfection as a core potential and learning for peace that can be unfolded through such a relational, vulnerable, and co-creative theatre-making process.
