Dr. Sanna Ryynänen is social scientist and researcher based in Helsinki, Finland. She works as a senior lecturer of social pedagogy at the University of Eastern Finland and teaches occasionally at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. One of her main research fields is theatre and performative arts as social and political acts. She is especially interested in the questions of spectatorship, encounters, and relational practices in theatre and performative arts, as well as in the political in theatre. She is a researcher member of a Finnish independent theatre group Saimaan Teatteri (Saimaa Theatre), and a member of researcher-artist collective Puhekupla (Speech Bubble). She specialises in creative, action-oriented and participatory research methods, and has co-authored textbooks on activist research, creative, participatory and action oriented research methods in social sciences, as well as on social pedagogy.