What nonsense is this? Psychodrama and Clowning as devices to report prejudice

Abstract

This article presents an in-person experience carried out at the XIV Ibero-American Congress of Psychodrama (Florianópolis/2023), which aimed to raise awareness among the group about prejudices, understood as a historically constructed social symptom. By combining sociodrama with clowning, we co-constructed a relaxed yet profound collective space that would foster the building of bonds to promote collective reflections and symbolic reparation. The final goal was to transpose reflections from the group context to the social one, sowing possibilities for social transformation. Games, headline readings, and role-plays were held to engage participants, while new perspectives on exposed and hidden prejudices emerged from the process of reflection and dramatization, covering themes such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and religious intolerance. What prejudices dwell within us? And where, after all, do we place our noses to promote effective changes,both internal and external?