1 Dr Jennifer Beth Spiegel is a Montreal-based scholar with a PhD in Cultural Studies, currently teaching at Concordia University. She is also a Research Associate at Simon Fraser University's International Centre of Art for Social Change. Since 2013, she has been researching impacts and critical tensions in social circus and critical theories of art for social change more broadly. Her work has been published as book chapters and articles in journals such as Antipode, Critical Inquiry, Theatre Topics, TDR and International Journal of Art and Health, among others.
2 Stephanie N. Parent is a Vancouver-based community health researcher trained in epidemiological and quantitative methods, with degrees in psychology and public health. She has pursued her longstanding interest in community development within the Global Health Research Programme in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia where she investigated arts-based projects across Canada, in Ecuador and South Africa.

Re-approaching community development through the arts: a 'critical mixed methods' study of social circus in Quebec.



Community Dev J. 2018 Oct;53(4):600-617



Authors: Spiegel JB, Parent SN



Abstract

Community arts projects have long been used in community development. Nevertheless, despite many liberatory tales that have emerged, scholars caution that well-meaning organizations and artists may inadvertently become complicit in efforts that distract from fundamental inequities, instrumentalizing creative expression as a means to transform potentially dissident youth into productive and cooperative 'citizens'. This article examines how social circus - using circus arts with equity-seeking communities - has been affecting personal and community development among youth with marginalized lifestyles in Quebec, Canada. Employing a 'critical mixed methods' design, we analysed the impacts of the social circus methodology and partnership model deployed on transformation at the personal and community level. Our analysis suggests that transformation in this context is grounded in principles of using embodied play to re-forge habits and fortify an identity within community and societal acceptance through recognizing individual and collective creative contributions. The disciplinary dimension of the programme, however, equally suggests an imprinting of values of 'productivity' by putting marginality 'to work'. In the social circus programmes studied, tensions between the goal of better coping within the existing socioeconomic system and building skills to transform inequitable dynamics within dominant social and cultural processes, are navigated by carving out a space in society that offers alternative ways of seeing and engaging.



PMID: 30449895 [PubMed]