Alison M. Baker - Böcker

There has been a growing interest in the role of arts and cultural practice in tackling perennial forms of social exclusion, marginalization, and oppression. Researchers and educators from different disciplines have been collaborating with community-based agencies and community groups to forge new ways to challenge these forms of exclusion. This volume discusses how various social actors, work in interdisciplinary and cross-institutional ways to push an agenda that privileges those individuals and groups, who experience and live at the front line of social inequality, discrimination, racism and oppression. For instance, what new understandings are generated through creative, interdisciplinary, action oriented work, and the implications for social action and transformation? How are community pedagogies constructed and communicated through arts-based research, contemporary and innovative mediums such as creative performances, arts, technologies, mixed-cultural practices and social media and networking? This collection of articles, blurs the lines between cultural practice and knowledge production, with the process and products coming in the forms of theories, creative methodologies, and a range of arts. Together these act as powerful pedagogical tools for engaging in social justice and transformative work. The contributions further highlight the multifaceted and diverse ways of creating and disseminating knowledge, and the attempts to decenter text-based ways of communicating in hopes of sharing collaborative knowledge beyond the academy and engaging the ‘public’. This volume was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

There has been a growing interest in the role of arts and cultural practice in tackling perennial forms of social exclusion, marginalization, and oppression. Researchers and educators from different disciplines have been collaborating with community-based agencies and community groups to forge new ways to challenge these forms of exclusion. This volume discusses how various social actors, work in interdisciplinary and cross-institutional ways to push an agenda that privileges those individuals and groups, who experience and live at the front line of social inequality, discrimination, racism and oppression. For instance, what new understandings are generated through creative, interdisciplinary, action oriented work, and the implications for social action and transformation? How are community pedagogies constructed and communicated through arts-based research, contemporary and innovative mediums such as creative performances, arts, technologies, mixed-cultural practices and social media and networking? This collection of articles, blurs the lines between cultural practice and knowledge production, with the process and products coming in the forms of theories, creative methodologies, and a range of arts. Together these act as powerful pedagogical tools for engaging in social justice and transformative work. The contributions further highlight the multifaceted and diverse ways of creating and disseminating knowledge, and the attempts to decenter text-based ways of communicating in hopes of sharing collaborative knowledge beyond the academy and engaging the ‘public’. This volume was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Inclusive Education.

This innovative project wrapped research around a youth theatre project. Young people of colour and from refugee backgrounds developed a sustained provocation for the people of Geelong, a large regional centre in Australia. The packed public performance—at the biggest venue in town—challenged locals to rethink assumptions. The audience response was insightful and momentous. The companion workshops for schools had profound impact with adolescent audiences. Internationally, this book connects with artistic, educational, and research communities, offering a substantial contribution to understandings of racism. This book is a provocative, transdisciplinary meditation on race, culture, the arts and change.