2 Arts- and music-based activities and nondeliberative participatory research methods: building connection and community
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Brian L. Kelly
Abstract
Arts exposure and engagement have been used throughout the history of the social work profession, particularly in community-oriented forms of social work and social group work. As one of the leading voices of the settlement house movement, Jane Addams, along with cofounder Ellen Gates Starr, championed the use of the arts at the Chicago-based settlement, Hull House (Glowacki, 2004). This practice lives on today as practitioners, researchers, and scholars argue for the inclusion of arts- and music-based activities in social work practice, education, and research (Huss & Sela-Amit, 2019; Nissen, 2019). While several expressive therapies have grown into substantial fields of practice with bodies of literature to support their efficacy and effectiveness (Malchiodi, 2013), including art, dance, music, and play therapies, these areas of practice tend to focus on micro-level interventions to address behavioural and medical health problems. There is a small but growing body of literature exploring the use of music-based activities to create opportunities for empowerment (Travis et al., 2019a, 2019b, 2020) and to engage participants’ talents, strengths, and interests (Kelly, 2017, Kelly). While these studies show that music-based activities have the power and potential to engage, harness, and foster participants’ strengths, less is known about how these types of activities might be used as nondeliberative participatory research methods to build connection and community, particularly within groups. This chapter will explore this idea, beginning with brief reviews of Norma Lang’s (2016) theory of nondeliberative practice and participatory research methods, followed by a case study of a research project I conducted that used audio documentary as a nondeliberative participatory research method.
Abstract
Arts exposure and engagement have been used throughout the history of the social work profession, particularly in community-oriented forms of social work and social group work. As one of the leading voices of the settlement house movement, Jane Addams, along with cofounder Ellen Gates Starr, championed the use of the arts at the Chicago-based settlement, Hull House (Glowacki, 2004). This practice lives on today as practitioners, researchers, and scholars argue for the inclusion of arts- and music-based activities in social work practice, education, and research (Huss & Sela-Amit, 2019; Nissen, 2019). While several expressive therapies have grown into substantial fields of practice with bodies of literature to support their efficacy and effectiveness (Malchiodi, 2013), including art, dance, music, and play therapies, these areas of practice tend to focus on micro-level interventions to address behavioural and medical health problems. There is a small but growing body of literature exploring the use of music-based activities to create opportunities for empowerment (Travis et al., 2019a, 2019b, 2020) and to engage participants’ talents, strengths, and interests (Kelly, 2017, Kelly). While these studies show that music-based activities have the power and potential to engage, harness, and foster participants’ strengths, less is known about how these types of activities might be used as nondeliberative participatory research methods to build connection and community, particularly within groups. This chapter will explore this idea, beginning with brief reviews of Norma Lang’s (2016) theory of nondeliberative practice and participatory research methods, followed by a case study of a research project I conducted that used audio documentary as a nondeliberative participatory research method.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents ix
- List of figures and tables xi
- Notes on contributors xiii
- Introduction 1
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Arts-based research as a method to understand and give voice to marginalised groups
- Using arts-based methods to explore existential issues around ageing 13
- Arts- and music-based activities and nondeliberative participatory research methods: building connection and community 24
- Arts-based methods to co-create knowledge and reconstruct power relations with marginalised women in and through research 33
- Autoethnographic playwriting and performance for self-healing and advocacy 45
- Using photography to research the ‘other’: the validity of photography for social work research – a visual case study from China 55
- Mixed arts-based methods as a platform for expressing lived experience 68
- Arts-based methods to support and reveal new mothers’ and families’ experiences: a positive parenting and feminist approach 77
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Using arts-based research to listen to, and give voice to, children in social work
- “I don’t like the cameras in the house. They’re looking at us all the time”: the contribution of Photovoice to children in a post-hospitalisation programme 89
- Arts-based research work with migrant children 102
- Using creative art research approaches to assess arts-based interventions with children in post-disaster contexts 117
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Arts-based research as a way for researchers and community members to understand communities
- Murals and photography in community engagement and assessment 129
- Forum theatre as participatory action research with community workers 139
- A/r/tography, rhizomatic storytelling, and ripple effects mapping: a combined arts-based and community mapping methodology to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 expressive arts support groups for frontliners in the Philippines 148
- Art and artefact: displaying social work through objects 162
- Building research capacity: scaffolding the process through arts-based pedagogy 170
- Art as a way of improving participatory action research: an experience with youngsters with an intellectual disability and their families 181
- Epilogue 198
- Index 200
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents ix
- List of figures and tables xi
- Notes on contributors xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Arts-based research as a method to understand and give voice to marginalised groups
- Using arts-based methods to explore existential issues around ageing 13
- Arts- and music-based activities and nondeliberative participatory research methods: building connection and community 24
- Arts-based methods to co-create knowledge and reconstruct power relations with marginalised women in and through research 33
- Autoethnographic playwriting and performance for self-healing and advocacy 45
- Using photography to research the ‘other’: the validity of photography for social work research – a visual case study from China 55
- Mixed arts-based methods as a platform for expressing lived experience 68
- Arts-based methods to support and reveal new mothers’ and families’ experiences: a positive parenting and feminist approach 77
-
Using arts-based research to listen to, and give voice to, children in social work
- “I don’t like the cameras in the house. They’re looking at us all the time”: the contribution of Photovoice to children in a post-hospitalisation programme 89
- Arts-based research work with migrant children 102
- Using creative art research approaches to assess arts-based interventions with children in post-disaster contexts 117
-
Arts-based research as a way for researchers and community members to understand communities
- Murals and photography in community engagement and assessment 129
- Forum theatre as participatory action research with community workers 139
- A/r/tography, rhizomatic storytelling, and ripple effects mapping: a combined arts-based and community mapping methodology to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 expressive arts support groups for frontliners in the Philippines 148
- Art and artefact: displaying social work through objects 162
- Building research capacity: scaffolding the process through arts-based pedagogy 170
- Art as a way of improving participatory action research: an experience with youngsters with an intellectual disability and their families 181
- Epilogue 198
- Index 200
