Struggling to decolonise ourselves as an antiracist act within the field of the Nordic Community School of Music and Arts

Abstract

This article will investigate a general concern with the practical implementation of inclusion as recommended in policy documents in art education in general and the Nordic Community School of Music and Arts (NCSMA) specifically. We ask: What do policy documents mean by inclusion? In what way can or do art educators practice inclusionary strategies? We consider homogeneity in this field and the need for pluralism in this institutional framework. We will diffract discourses through words and images in threads from a post-colonial perspective, critical race and Whiteness studies. Struggling through our blind spots in knowledge production, we seek to understand how Other perspectives received in the NCSMA can emerge. The three research scholars from the field of education and art embody different educational and geographical starting points and differing but shifting power positions in various contexts. This triangle of embodied knowledge allows us to investigate these conflicting positions and perform intentional antiracist response-ability in research related to the NCSMA as an educational institution. Our analysis shows a discrepancy between general intentions of inclusion and practical outcomes.