Arts, Culture and 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.

Ruth Pearce is a Research Fellow in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Her research looks at patterns of inequality, marginalisation, power, and political struggle in institutional contexts, with a focus on trans, queer, and women’s issues.

Daniel H. Mutibwa is Assistant Professor in Creative Industries and Digital Culture at the University of Nottingham, UK Campus.

Rosie R. Meade is Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies at the University College Cork, Ireland.

Mae Shaw is Honorary Fellow in the Moray House School of Education and Sport at the University of Edinburgh, UK.