Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research

In an effort to challenge the ways in which colonial power relations and Eurocentric knowledges are reproduced in participatory research, this book explores whether and how it is possible to use arts-based methods for creating more horizontal and democratic research practices.

In discussing both the transformative potential and limitations of arts-based methods, the book asks: What can arts-based methods contribute to decolonising participatory research and its processes and practices? The book takes part in ongoing debates related to the need to decolonise research, and investigates practical contributions of arts-based methods in the practice-led research domain. Further, it discusses the role of artistic research in depth, locating it in a decolonising context.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, design, fine arts, service design, social sciences and development studies.

1. Introduction: Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research

Tiina Seppälä, Melanie Sarantou and Satu Miettinen

SECTION I: Co-Creation, Collaboration, Movement

2. Co-Creation Through Quilting: Connected Entanglements and Disruptions With Care

Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, Shyam Gadhavi and Marjaana Jauhola

3. In Touch With the Mindful Body: Moving With Women and Girls at the Za’atari Refugee Camp

Susanna Hast

4. Towards Just Dance Research: An uMunthu Participatory and Performative Inquiry Into Malawian–Norwegian Entanglements

Sunniva Hovde, Asante Smzy Maulidi and Tone Pernille Østern

5. Participatory Photography With Women’s Rights Activists in Nepal: Towards a Practice of Decolonial Feminist Solidarity?

Tiina Seppälä 

SECTION II: Participatory Service Design

6. Archipelagos of Designing Through Ko -Ontological Encounters

Yoko Akama

7. Building a Community Through Service Design and Responsiveness to Emotions

Mariluz Soto Hormazábal, Katherine Mollenhauer, Satu Miettinen and Melanie Sarantou

8. Developing the Relational Dimension of Participatory Design Through Creativity-Based Methods

Caoimhe Isha Beaulé, Solen Roth, Anne Marchand and Karine Awashish

9. Navigating Uncertainty: Developing the Facilitator’s Role Through Participatory Service Design Workshops

Maija Rautiainen, Michelle Van Wyk and Satu Miettinen

SECTION III: Artistic Research and Practice

10. Decoloniality of Knowing and Being: Artistic Research Through Collaborative Craft Practice

Nithikul Nimkulrat

11. The Flying Ants and the Beauty of Ice

Heidi Pietarinen and Eija Timonen

12. Paint That Place With Light! Light Painting as a Means of Creating Attachment to Historical Locations—An Arts-Based Action Research Project

Nina Luostarinen and Kirsi MacKenzie

13. John Savio’s Art as a Part of Early Sámi Decolonisation in the 1920s and 1930s

Tuija Hautala-Hirvioja