The contributors explore diverse contexts of performance to discuss peoples' own reflections on political subjectivities, governance and development. The volume refocuses anthropological engagement with ethics, aesthetics, and politics to examine the transformative potential of political performance, both for individuals and wider collectives.

PART I: ETHNOGRAPHIES OF POLITICAL PERFORMANCE IN DEVELOPING CONTEXTS 1.1 Interventions Re-Imagining Political Subjectivities: Relationality, Reflexivity And Performance In Rural Brazil; Alex Flynn Performing Transformation: Cultivating A Paradigm Of Education For Cooperation And Sustainability In A Brazilian Community; Dan Baron Cohen Embodying Protest: Culture And Performance Within Social Movements; Jeffrey Juris 1.2 Development And Governance Resistant Acts In Post-Genocide Rwanda; Ananda Breed Embodiment, Intellect And Emotion: Thinking About Possible Impacts Of Theatre For Development In Three Projects In Africa; Jane Plastow Governance, Theatricality, And Fantasma In Mafia Dance; Stavroula Pipyrou PART II: THEATRE AS PARADIGM FOR SOCIAL REFLECTION - CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES 2.1 Theatre And Tradition: Politics And Aesthetics Ethical Self-Cultivation As The Politics Of Engaged Theatre: How Theatre Engages Refugee Politics; Jonas Tinius The Invisible Performance/ The Invisible Masterpiece: Visibility, Concealment, And Commitment In Graffiti And Street Art; Rafael Schacter Whose Theatre Is It Anyway? Ancient Chorality Versus Modern Drama; Clare Foster 2.2 Political Theatricality Pussy Riot's Moscow Trials: Restaging Political Protest And Juridical Metaperformance; Milo Rau Reinventing The Show Trial: Putin And Pussy Riot; Catherine Schuler Theatre In The Arab World - Perspectives/Portraits From Lebanon, Syria, And Tunisia; Rolf Hemke 2.3 Theatre As Ethnographic Method - Ethnography As Theatrical Practice For A Verbatim Ethnography; Nick Long The Anthropologist As Ensemble Member: Anthropological Experiments With Theatre Makers; Caroline Gatt