Lecture
Watch time: 33 minutes
Summary
Dr. Celeste Pang (Mount Royal University) presents examples of arts-based action research projects, including:
- Fostering Dialogues
- Run by Dr. Pang at Egale Canada, supported by the Flourish Collective in Toronto and VHA Home Healthcare, in collaboration with Melanie Schambach.
- This project brought together a group of LGBTQ older adults and home care personal support workers. Focus was on how can arts-based action research help to create connections among LGBTQ older adults and home care personal support workers, and how can it facilitate reflection on current conditions and inspire imaginings about futures of care.
- First-In-Family at MRU: An Arts Based Action Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) Project
- Led by Dr. Gloria Pérez-Rivera (PI) and in collaboration with Melanie Schambach.
- Goal was to engage a small group of student co-creators in arts and dialogue around what it means to be a first in family student at Mount Royal University.
Why This Matters
- Arts-based methods create conditions for dialogue, creativity, and emotional expression that allow participants to generate knowledge they could not articulate through interviews or surveys alone.
- Research that centres relationship-building as a primary outcome (not just data collection) produces lasting community benefits, including reduced isolation and new networks of mutual support among participants."
Key Concepts
Arts-Based Action Research: A research approach that uses creative arts methods as both tools for inquiry and as forms of direct intervention. This approach aims to generate knowledge, while simultaneously building community capacity, and creating change.
Co-Creation: A research and design process in which participants are active co-authors of the research questions, process, findings, and outputs, transforming the researcher-participant relationship.
References
Pang, C., Jakubiec, B.A.E., Schambach, M. (2024). Relational Practices in Arts-Based Research: A Roundtable Reflection on the Fostering Dialogues Project. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice, 45 (2).
Pang, C., Jakubiec, B.A.E., Schambach, M. (2023). Fostering Dialogues: an arts-based action research project imagining futures of community-based care with homecare personal support workers and LGBTQ older adults. Toronto, ON: Egale Canada.