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» NEW! » Kapitan, Litell & Torres - Creative Art Therapy in a Community's Participatory Research and Social Transformation

Lynn Kapitan, Mary Litell & Anabel Torres (2011) Creative Art Therapy in a Community's Participatory Research and Social Transformation, Art Therapy, 28:2, 64-73, DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2011.578238

When people come together in community to practice critical inquiry, they develop a capacity to see, reflect, and become subjects of their own development. This article describes arts-based participatory action research in partnership with a nongovernmental organization in Central America. Creative art therapy was culturally adapted and practiced on the macro level to facilitate a community's art-based research, achieving outcomes that contributed to social action and transformation. Popular education, a grassroots pedagogy that aims to transform oppressive power structures, reinforced group norms and facilitation. The results showed that community-based creative art therapy in participatory action research strengthened the personal, spiritual, and social development of the co-researchers, which in turn multiplied broader impacts on their communities.

Creative Art Therapy in a Community's Participatory Research and Social Transformation