Speaking up through research, taking the floor in society: a participatory research study on the impact of the theatre laboratory at the "Cesare Beccaria" youth detention center in Milan.

Drawing on the results of a qualitative, participatory research study on the impact of theatre laboratory at ‘C.Beccaria’ juvenile prison in Milan, the paper aims to explore the perceptions and give voice to the views of young inmates on the value and impact of the theatre workshop experience. Through phenomenological interviews, ethnographic observations and certain methodological attentions, the research gathered participants' views in terms of their experiences, needs, desires and aspirations. In particular, the researchers investigate how young inmates signify and live educational experiences in the prison context and in relation to the detention pathway in which they are placed. The voices collected are not only fundamental as testimonies of the youths' point of view, but also become a valuable element for adults, primarily the professionals involved, as they enable them to reflect critically and from a pedagogical perspective on the prison re-educational mandate. Work remains namely to be done regarding the re-educational task that characterises the enforcement of a sentence in juvenile prison, particularly with respect to the task of reintegration, which has declined as social inclusion and active citizenship education. Hence the contribution, through the lab participants’ voices, reflects on the educational model implicit in theatre practices with specific regards to the peculiar mode of participation in social life that it allows and to the agency that this experience gives back to the young inmates. Finally, we will show how theatre in prison turns out to be capable - as an "embodied" practice which allows through a performance to take the floor in the public space - of changing the participants and of transforming not just their positioning in the social structure but partially the social structure of the prison itself. Adolescents, and adolescent inmates, thanks to the medium of theatre and the magic circle of its play space, return to being protagonist social actors since they find a way and have space for a new presence and visibility/voice in the public scene of the city. The theatre lab makes it feasible for them to enact new ways of taking part in the world.