Arts, Health and Wellbeing by
This book brings together leading UK researchers in the field of arts and health, including creative arts therapies. The chapters are based on presentations originally given at a UK seminar series on scholarship and research on connections between the creative arts, health and wellbeing, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. It will be of interest to anyone practising or researching arts and health, in both hospitals and community settings.
Arts Activism, Education, and Therapies by
This second volume of research emanating from Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand, explores the transformative and healing qualities of the arts in South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Essays on arts for social change illuminate the difficulties of conflict-resolution (in war-scarred countries, tertiary institutions, and child-offender programmes) to promote broader understanding of diversity and difference. Further essays focus on arts and healing, in which music therapy diagnoses, repairs, sustains, and enhances collective health. Intervention theatre - in prisons, fieldwork, and the ethics and politics of storytelling - is examined as a basis for collaboration with children and youth. The musical theatre traditions of Botswana's San people are investigated, as well as the benefits of arts counselling with educators to alleviate psycho-social stress in classrooms. Important insights are provided into ways of applying the arts and raise questions of ethics, effectiveness, and apposite usage.Also treated is the role of aesthetics in the effectiveness of art, particularly in social contexts. Included are overviews of the ways in which the aesthetics of drama have changed over the past four decades and of the cohesive potential of the arts. How can arts practitioners engage in inter-cultural dialogue to facilitate healing? The energy and inventiveness of the playful mode engender new ways of contending with social issues, whereby the focus is on how theatre affects an audience and on how communication in applied theatre and drama can reach audiences more effectively.These essays provide an insight into the application of the arts for transformation across Africa. Through their juxtaposition in this volume they speak to the variety and purposes of arts approaches and offer fresh perspectives on and to the field.Hazel Barnes is a retired Head of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she is a Senior Research Associate. Her research interests lie in the field of applied drama, including the contexts of interculturalism and post-traumatic stress.
Arts and Health by
Begins with a valuable overview of the research challenge facing advocates of arts and health work and is followed by two qualitative evaluations of local arts and health initiatives in different parts of the UK. Together these papers show the kind of qualitative approach that has generally been adopted in evaluating community arts for health initiatives - and signal the need perhaps for larger scale, longer-term and more controlled studies. A review follows and focuses on dance therapy and Tai Chi for people affected by arthritis offers a possible goal for research in arts and health. The final article highlights the role of creative and arts-based activities in promoting more happiness in schools. Originally published as Health Education (2005, Vol.105, No.5)
Arts in Health by
Over the past few decades, the use of the arts in health has blossomed. What, for many centuries, was seen as a fringe activity is now being recognised as a field that has enormous potential for impacting positively on both individuals and societies. However, despite this surge in interest andactivity, there is still limited support available for people working in the field. Although the number of practical training courses for artists is growing and more universities are establishing research groups, most training activity occurs in either practice or research; there are relatively fewopportunities to gain parallel experience in both.Arts in Health: Designing and Researching Interventions provides a complete overview of how to go about undertaking research and practice in the field of arts in health. It starts by exploring the context for arts in health interventions, including the history of the use of arts in health and thetheoretical and political developments that have laid the foundations for its flourishing. It also considers what 'arts in health' encompasses and the range of disciplines involved.Part II examines how to design an arts in health intervention, develop partnerships and find funding and considers the sensitivities around working in healthcare.Part III considers the value of research for the field of arts in health and how to design and undertake a research project.Finally, part IV provides a fact file of arts in health research and practice, showing how the arts can be applied and the benefits they can bring across a range of medical disciplines. The book will be valuable for researchers, practitioners, healthcare professionals and those interested inlearning more about the field.
Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare by
The third edition of Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare provides new and more established ways to approach community building and organizing, from collaborating with communities on assessment and issue selection to using the power of coalition building, media advocacy, and social media to enhance the effectiveness of such work. With a strong emphasis on cultural relevance and humility, this collection offers a wealth of case studies in areas ranging from childhood obesity to immigrant worker rights to health care reform. A "tool kit" of appendixes includes guidelines for assessing coalition effectiveness, exercises for critical reflection on our own power and privilege, and training tools such as "policy bingo." From former organizer and now President Barack Obama to academics and professionals in the fields of public health, social work, urban planning, and community psychology, the book offers a comprehensive vision and on-the-ground examples of the many ways community building and organizing can help us address some of the most intractable health and social problems of our times. Dr. Minkler's course syllabus: Although Dr. Minkler has changed the order of some chapters in the syllabus to accommodate guest speakers and help students prep for the midterm assignment she uses, she arranged the actual book layout in a way that should flow quite naturally if instructors wish to use it in the order in which chapters appear.
A Different Voice, a Different Song by
A Different Voice, A Different Song traces the history of a grassroots scene that has until now operated largely beneath the radar, but that has been gently gathering force since the 1970s. At the core of this scene today are the natural voice movement, founded on the premise that "everyonecan sing", and a growing transnational community of amateur singers participating in multicultural music activity. Author Caroline Bithell reveals the intriguing web of circumstances and motivations that link these two trends, highlighting their potential with respect to current social, politicaland educational agendas. She investigates how and why songs from the world's oral traditions have provided the lynchpin for the natural voice movement, revealing how the musical traditions of other cultures not only provide a colourful repertory but also inform the ideological, methodological andethical principles on which the movement itself is founded. A Different Voice, A Different Song draws on long-term ethnographic research, including participant-observation at choir rehearsals, performances, workshops and camps, as well as interviews with voice teachers, choir and workshop leaders,camp and festival organisers, and general participants.Bithell shows how amateur singers who are not musically literate can become competent participants in a vibrant musical community and, in the process, find their voice metaphorically as well as literally. She then follows some of these singers as they journey to distant locations to learn new songsin their natural habitat. She theorises these trends in terms of the politics of participation, the transformative potential of performance, building social capital, the global village, and reclaiming the arts of celebration and conviviality. The stories that emerge reveal a nuanced web ofintersections between the local and global, one which demands a revision of the dominant discourses of authenticity, cultural appropriation and agency in the post-colonial world, and ultimately points towards a more progressive politics of difference.A Different Voice, a Different Song will be an essential text for practitioners involved in the natural voice movement and other vocal methodologies and choral worlds. As a significant study in the fields of ethnomusicology, music education and community music, the book will also be of interest toscholars studying the democratisation of the voice, the dynamics of participation, world musics in performance, the transformative power of harmony singing, and the potential of music-making for sustaining community and aiding intercultural understanding.
Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research by
The bringing together of the arts and qualitative inquiry is changing the face of social science research. The increasing shift toward arts-based research has raised complex questions, such as how to evaluate its quality and even whether distinctions exist between what is art and what is research. In this defining work, Gary Knowles and Ardra Cole bring together the top scholars in qualitative methods to provide a comprehensive overview of where arts-based research has come, and where it is going. Through various categories of art and art-based research - namely epistemological, historical, methodological, thematic - will address all the significant issues of conceiving and conducting arts-based or arts-informed research in the social sciences and humanities, as well as the challenges of composing final representations of the research.
Mediating Peace : Reconciliation through Visual Art, Music and Film by
This volume examines the role and contributions of art, music and film in peace-building and reconciliation, offering a distinctive approach in various forms of art in peace-building in a wide range of conflict situations, particularly in religiously plural contexts. As such, it provides readers with a comprehensive perspective on the subject. The contributors are composed of prominent scholars and artists who examine theoretical, professional and practical perspectives and debates, and address three central research questions, which form the theoretical basis of this project: namely, 'In what way have particular forms of art enhanced peace-building in conflict situations?', 'How do artistic forms become a public demonstration and expression of a particular socio-political context?', and 'In what way have the arts played the role of catalyst for peace-building, and, if not, why not?' This volume demonstrates that art contributes in conflict and post-conflict situations in three main ways: transformation at an individual level; peace-building between communities; and bridging justice and peace for sustainable reconciliation.
Music, Health and Wellbeing by
The great saxophonist Charlie Parker once proclaimed "if you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn". This quote has often been used to explain the hedonistic lifestyle of many jazz greats; however, but it also signals the reciprocal and inextricable relationship between music and widersocial, cultural and psychological variables. This link is complex and multifaceted and is undoubtedly a central component of why music has been implicated as a therapeutic agent in vast swathes of contemporary research studies. Music is always about more than just acoustic events or notes on apage. Music has a universal and timeless potential to influence how we feel. Yet, only recently, have researchers begun to explore and understand the positive effects that music can have on our wellbeing - across a range of cultures and musical genres.This book brings together research from music psychology, therapy, public health, and medicine, to explore the relationship between music, health and wellbeing. It presents a range of chapters from internationally recognised experts, resulting in a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and pluralisticaccount of recent advances and applications in both clinical and non-clinical practice and research.Some of the questions explored include: what is the nature of the scientific evidence to support the relationship between music, health and wellbeing? What are the current views from different disciplines on empirical observations and methodological issues concerning the effects of musicalinterventions on health-related processes? What are the mechanisms which drive these effects and how can they be utilised for building robust theoretical frameworks for future work?For the first time, research from disciplines including neuroscience of music, music therapy, psychophysiology and epidemiology of music, community music and music education is synthesised and presented together to further our understanding of music and health in one single volume, ensuring thatclosely related strands of research in different disciplines are brought together into a authoritative, comprehensive and robust collection of chapters.This book is a timely and unique response to an explosion of interest in the relationship between music, health, and wellbeing and will be invaluable resources for students, administrators and researchers in the humanities, social and medical sciences alike.
Music, Health and Wellbeing: exploring music for health equity and social justice by
This book explores the power music has to address health inequalities and the social determinants of health and wellbeing. It examines music participation as a determinant of wellbeing and as a transformative tool to impact on wider social, cultural and environmental conditions. Uniquely, in this volume health and wellbeing outcomes are conceptualised on a continuum, with potential effects identified in relation to individual participants, their communities but also society at large. While arts therapy approaches have a clear place in the text, the emphasis is on music making outside of clinical contexts and the broader roles musicians, music facilitators and educators can play in enhancing wellbeing in a range of settings beyond the therapy room. This innovative edited collection will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of music, social services, medical humanities, education and the broader health field in the social and medical sciences.
Video tutorials:
Arts and community health or wellness will not fit neatly into subject disciplines. While some literature will be found through the subject-specialized databases listed above, researchers will find it necessary to search some broader, or "interdisciplinary" databases as well.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by 
Write It Up by 
Writing Science by 