Healing and Well-being
Exploring Older People’s Subjective Experience of Participatory Arts Engagement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emily Bradfield
“By 2050, Europe will have about 34% of its population aged 60 years or over…Longer lives provide the opportunity for rethinking not just what older age might be but how our whole life course might unfold. Yet the extent to which each of us as individuals, and society more broadly, can benefit from this demographic transition will be heavily dependent on one key factor – health.” (WHO, 2016). A rapidly ageing population has significant consequences for the health and wellbeing of our society and an increased need to identify alternative ways of supporting the diverse needs of people in later life. Participatory or community arts programmes, which run outside healthcare settings, can contribute to health promotion including increasing wellbeing and quality of life and providing opportunities for meaningful engagement. This paper explores the effect of participatory arts on the wellbeing and quality of life of healthy older people and considers older people’s subjective experience of arts engagement. The research project involved a mixed-methods systematic review and focus groups with older people. While systematic reviews have long been considered the ‘gold standard’ in the hierarchy of evidence and are a means of synthesising evidence to inform policy and practice, the review reports often remain in academia, without being shared with relevant stakeholder groups. Exploring the findings of the systematic review of participatory arts for older people, with older people, provides an opportunity to contextualise the findings and a means of empowerment for older people through the shared interpretation of the findings.
Exploring the Role of Storybooks in the Lives of Young People with Cystic Fibrosis and Muscular Dystrophy in Canada: Telling My Tale
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Fiona Moola
Since the dawn of time, people have engaged in storytelling as a means to convey information and promote understanding. In this way, storytelling is perennial to the human condition. The stories of young people with life-shortening conditions, however — such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy — most often go unheard in contemporary cultures. Rather, “medical experts” — housed in the biomedical canon — most often speak on their behalf. Young people with life-shortening conditions lack agency to the form and means of self- representation and identity development in contemporary society. In this paper, I reflect on the process and outcome of Telling my Tale, that is, a national storybook writing and illustration study for young people with cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy in Canada. In so doing, I will not only showcase their illustrations and narratives but discuss their broader significance to society and culture. In particular, I will unpack the merits and pitfalls of the participatory storybook writing and drawing methodology, the role of participants images and narratives in identity construction and reconstruction, and how this particular art and creative writing platform can promote dialogue and understanding about the lives of young people with life-shortening conditions. Maya Angelou once said that “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” It is also hoped that this presentation provides a platform for the audience to bear witness to the complex stories and art of young people with life-shortening conditions.
Healing Wounds and Changing Lives: A Study of Dance Movement Therapy in India
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Arudhra Krishnaswamy
There has been a lot of work on dance but the majority of it is still limited to the aesthetics and beauty of performing arts. We often fail to recognize that dance is just as powerful a therapeutic art as it is a performing art. This research project aims at expanding this field by understanding dance and its relationship to society, human rights and community development in India. My objective is to understand and discuss the ways in which dance and movement are used as a recovery method in India and how they aid in healing and rehabilitating an individual who has been through physical, mental or emotional trauma of some kind. In this presentation, I wish to share some of the significant case studies from my fieldwork that would highlight the benefits and challenges of using dance/movement as a healing tool for such individuals. The findings are a result of semi-structured interviews and participant observation sessions in three big cities of India namely Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Both dance/movement therapists as well as patients were interviewed so as to understand their life journeys and the ways in which dance has helped them overcome certain personal struggles. In so doing, the broad aim of this project is to throw light on the emancipatory role of performing arts. It is to examine how dancers that are socially committed can impact their communities using dance that is not only aesthetically engaging but could also be an effective means of social development.
