As an arts-based researcher, I find myself grappling with (and, at the same time, welcoming with open arms) the critical challenges that arts‐based approaches present. I have incorporated dance, theatre, painting, installation, and multi‐media art methods into investigations about stigma, self‐injury, rural youth experience, Indigenous/non-Indigenous alliance building, pedagogy and social inclusion/belonging. Knowledge was both produced and mobilized in these various research projects. In this paper, I suggest that arts-based research calls upon a research engagement that redefines participation, relationship, and action in such a way as to politicize research and re-conceptualize the ethical possibilities of the research project.
This presentation starts from 26 mins 6 secs.
Presenter
Trish Van Katwyk is an associate professor at the School of Social Work, Renison University College, uWaterloo. “A major focus of my work is exploring the ways in which community immersion and artistic expression can activate healthy communities and many important ways of knowing. I like to support and participate in collaborations that can critique structures that can hold us back and create obstacles to positive, holistic, and collective health. In other words, I like to work with others to make change in the name of social justice. I have engaged in collaborative art creation and in land-based journey in order to extend an understanding of holistic knowing so that meaningful relationships are built. I am now learning about how performance and theatre can also be used to create change and promote health.”
