“A chance to just be human:” Reintegrative Shaming & the Performer-audience Relationship

• In Event: Advocacy, Activism, and Performance

Abstract

The performer-audience relationship is an essential part of engaging in artistry. However, the unique fusion of theater performances in the criminal justice context recasts the audience-performer relationship beyond its usual intimacies. Drawing upon 15 in-depth and semi-structured interviews with currently reentering individuals involved in a theatre program for formerly incarcerated persons, this study argues that theatre provides a kind of reintegrative shaming ritual for participants. Through reflected appraisals, the audience stands in for the larger public and when they approve of formerly incarcerated individuals who have often been stigmatized and outcast from society, it triggers reintegrative shaming rituals which ameliorate some of the stigma participants experience.

Author

• Victoria Inzana, University of Missouri-St. Louis