Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper presents results from an ethnographic research project. Graduate students researched a participatory arts program that was originally designed to engage young women from an underserved community in a major European city. An NGO, supported by the local municipality designed a project where young teenage girls, through participating in art with artists would be encouraged to partake more in the art of public spaces and be empowered. Focusing on the girls’ experiences and the participatory process, interesting findings were revealed. The program adjusted its target and ended up engaging and heavily investing in girls who attended, but were in fact not from the neighborhood and of higher socio-economic status. These girls’ social and cultural capital were more in alignment with the organizers and the arts instructors. The original target girl population participated but minimally and were not invited to any of the public presentations of the project. Inspired by Bourdieu’s concept of cultural and social capital, the researchers want to introduce the concept of adaptation capital and explore the extent to which institutions fail or succeed to adapt to their target populations and what the larger consequences are to these actions. Finally, this team explores larger moral questions of responsibility and social justice, for those of us who want to use arts to engage and improve communities.