Arts and Culture in Global Development Practice

This book explores the role that arts and culture can play in supporting global international development. The book argues that arts and culture are fundamental to human development and can bring considerable positive results for helping to empower communities and provide new ways of looking at social transformation. Whilst most literature addresses culture in abstract terms, this book focuses on practice-based, collective, community-focused, sustainability-minded, and capacity-building examples of arts and development. The book draws on case studies from around the world, investigating the different ways practitioners are imagining or defining the role of arts and culture in Belize, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kosovo, Malawi, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA, and Western Sahara refugee camps in Algeria. The book highlights the importance of situated practice, asking what questions or concerns practitioners have and inviting a dialogic sharing of resources and possibilities across different contexts. Seeking to highlight practices and conversations outside normative frameworks of understanding, this book will be a breath of fresh air to practitioners, policy makers, students, and researchers from across the fields of global development, social work, art therapy, and visual and performing arts education.

Cindy Maguire, PhD, is Associate Professor of Art & Design Education at Adelphi University, USA. She also co-directs ArtsAction Group, a community-based collective of arts educators, art therapists, artist teachers, and educators committed to facilitating arts and education initiatives with young people in conflict-affected environments. Ann Holt, PhD, is a visiting assistant professor of Art & Design Education at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and an adjunct professor of Art & Design Education at Adelphi University, USA. She also serves as advisor to ArtsAction Group.

Introduction: Bringing forth human expression, forming identity, and empowering communities through arts and culture: Who defines it? Who is it for? Who gets to do it? Ann Holt and Cindy Maguire 1. A temple of art in the middle of the desert: Reflections on creating Motif Art Studio and the role of art in the Sahrawi refugee camps Mohamed Sleiman Labat 2. A Painted Conversation: Narratives in community-based mural making processes Natalia Pilato 3. Ojos que Sienten: Changing the narrative of seeing through sensory photography Gina Badenoch 4. Turning higher education hierarchies inside out: Sticky encounters in co-designing a community centre using multimodal interventions Kim Berman and Boitumelo Kembo 5. Creative teaching through solidarity networks in the Saharawi refugee camps: Desert Voicebox Danielle V. B. Smith and Violeta Ruano 6. Healing and education through the arts: A HEART-based approach Girija Kaimal, Sara Hommel, Lauren Pisani, and Jonathan Seiden 7. Cultivating Black diasporic memories and communities through community archiving Désirée Rochat 8. Cross-cultural collaborations through the lens of art therapy: Sri Lanka Emilija Mecelicaite and Janine Simpson 9. The arts and creative education as resistance and renewal: Kosovo Refki Gollopeni 10. Authentic and ethical fashion design guided by the heart Alexia Sobrado 11. Bridging communities through innovation: Art, design, and entrepreneurship: COPE NYC Vida Sabbaghi 12. Feminist art and education: Facilitating a cross-cultural exchange: U.S.-China Art Summit Karen Keifer-Boyd and Xinxin Guo 13. Moving the margins in Malawi: Culturally responsive art education for girls Darden Bradshaw and Novea Mcintosh