Role playing: a feminist-geopolitical analysis of the everyday workings of the Mexican state

Abstract

Participatory methods are increasingly important to geographical research of ‘the everyday,’ yet their viability as a means to understand on-the-ground geopolitical processes has been less explored. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on participatory research in geography and feminist geopolitics by arguing for the use of a specific participatory tool – role play. We present an example of our employment of the technique in a case study on using the method during research with Central American immigrants living in the Mexico–Guatemala border city of Tapachula, Mexico. In doing so, we provide an in-depth examination of the implementation of role play, demonstrating its usefulness in revealing immigrant women's daily experiences with low- to mid-level state actors as they seek to avail themselves of their rights. We conclude that role play is particularly well suited to revealing these experiences due to its encouragement of creativity, embodiment through performance and facilitation of in-depth discussion of difficult subject matter.