Co-crafting Artistic Belonging with Communities through Arts-Based Participatory Action Research

This article shares the process and findings of a co-authored arts-based participatory action research collaboration exploring how participatory and pedagogical practices could enable artistic spaces where participants feel that they belong. It begins by introducing the project’s collaborators and describing our use of Arts-Based Participatory Action Research (AB-PAR). It then describes our research process and key pedagogical findings, according to the themes of: (a) Challenging conformity in artistic participation and meaning, (b) developing shared pedagogical practices, (c) recognizing ambiguous power dynamics, (d) responding to power through shared critical dialogue, and (e) responding to power through shared artistic practices.