Arts, Culture and Community Development

"This is a very important book that can help us to be more transgressive against our present conditions. In my opinion, too many books about the arts and culture focus solely on the individual act of creation, so this volume is an exception as it emphasises collectivity." Concept

"This is an important global contribution to understandings of how the arts work as critical and creative mechanisms of both community development and cultural democracy." Darlene E. Clover, University of Victoria

"This book affirms how communal arts practices and cultural knowledge can nurture the hope that a radical democracy is, indeed, possible. A must-read for cultural activists!" Astrid von Kotze, Popular Education Programme, South Africa

"Beyond the mechanistic and reductionist paradigms of community development, the volume offers a fabulous account of creative and collective endeavours of communities in rescripting the conditions of their own lives. The editors and authors must be congratulated for providing a nuanced understanding of aesthetic expressions emanating from disempowered community contexts." Pushpesh Kumar, University of Hyderabad

Rosie R. Meade is Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies at the University College Cork, Ireland.

Mae Shaw is Honorary Fellow in the Moray House School of Education and Sport at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Culture and Community Development – Introductory Essay ~ Rosie R. Meade and Mae Shaw

Section 1: Making and Sharing Collective Meanings

Reflections on the Decolonizing Dance Praxis of Grupo Bayano ~ Antonia Darder and Sharon Cronin

The Power of Song ~ Leon Rosselson

The People Awoke Awake - Observations from Beirut's Walls in the October 17 Moment ~ Arek Dakessian, Célia Hassani and Sarah Shmaitilly

Muralism, Disputes, and Imaginaries of Community Resistance: Case-studies from Settlements in Santiago de Chile and Rio de Janeiro ~ Alexis Cortés, Palloma Menezes and Apoena Mano

Contemporary expressions of arts and culture as protest: Consonance, dissonance, paradox and opportunities for community development? ~ Daniel H. Mutibwa

Queering Community Development in DIY punk spaces ~ Kirsty Lohman and Ruth Pearce

Section 2: Negotiating Practice and Policy

Access to Communication as Resistance and Struggle in the 21st Century ~ Pradip Ninan Thomas

Unholy Alliance or Way of the Future? The intertwinements of community development, cultural planning and cultural industries in municipal and regional cultural strategies in Finland ~ Miikka Pyykkönen

Frameworks for Assessing and Reconsidering Empowerment in Community Arts ~ Samson Kei Shun Wong

Maintaining a critical approach to collaborative art and youth work practice in neoliberal times ~ Fiona Whelan and Jim Lawlor

The Kinaesthetics of Community: social circus, corporeal aesthetics and the balancing act of a development practice in (post)neoliberal conditions ~ Jennifer Beth Spiegel

Building peaceful communities: Collaboration and co-creation through theatre ~ Nilanjana Premaratna

Afterword