Arts, Culture and Community Development

Drawing on international examples, this original book interrogates the relationship between the arts, cultural practice and community development. Expert contributors from six continents, consider how different forms of aesthetic arts contribute to processes of peacebuilding, youth empowerment, participatory planning and environmental regeneration. Investigating ‘cultural democracy’, this exciting text asserts the importance of arts as intrinsically meaningful in a reimagining of community development. How and why are arts and cultural practices meaningful to communities? Highlighting examples from Lebanon, Latin America, China, Ireland, India, Sri Lanka and beyond, this exciting book explores the relationship between the arts, culture and community development.Academics and practitioners from six continents discuss how diverse communities understand, re-imagine or seek to change personal, cultural, social, economic or political conditions while using the arts as their means and spaces of engagement. Investigating the theory and practice of ‘cultural democracy’, this book explores a range of aesthetic forms including song, music, muralism, theatre, dance, and circus arts.
Drawing on international examples, this book interrogates the relationship between the arts, culture and community development. Contributors from six continents, reimagine community development as they consider how aesthetic arts contribute to processes of peacebuilding, youth empowerment, participatory planning and environmental regeneration.