Contemporary expressions of arts and culture as protest: consonance, dissonance, paradox and opportunities for community development?

Mutibwa, Daniel H.

Abstract

The predominance of rich academic analyses of the arts and its use in protest at both macro and meso levels within social movement coalitions has eclipsed work involving other actors, groups and organisations engaging in protest at micro levels outside of social movements and mainstream culture (Jasper, 1997). This chapter recognises that protest can and does happen in local or community contexts that may not necessarily be part of the said movements and culture. To illustrate this, the chapter provides an ethnographic account of the use of the arts and culture in the service of protest through the lens of two pioneering case study arts organisations.
Conceptualising the organisations’ activity and practice as arts and cultural work as protest, the chapter considers how such work offers public witness, is oppositional and presents alternative visions of being or organising (Reed, 2016), explores the different forms of institutional, political and market controls that fiercely challenge this work and discusses responses to those challenges. The chapter argues that while those responses are not unproblematic and demand huge sacrifices, they demonstrate a commitment to pursuing sustainable social change through collective action and solidarity in alignment with critical and transformational approaches to community development.

Citation

Mutibwa, D. H. (2021). Contemporary expressions of arts and culture as protest: consonance, dissonance, paradox and opportunities for community development?. In R. Meade, & M. Shaw (Eds.), Arts, Culture and Community Development (89-109). Policy Press

• Online Publication Date: Jul 15, 2021
• Publication Date: Jul 15, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 5, 2025
• Publisher: Policy Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 89-109
• Series Title: Rethinking Community Development
• Book Title: Arts, Culture and Community Development
• Chapter Number: 6
• ISBN: 9781447340515
• Keywords: Arts, Culture and Community Development
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5659948
• Publisher URL: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/arts-culture-and-community-development
• Contract Date: Apr 5, 2021