The changing landscape of arts and action research

Abstract

Watching the evening come across Cadair Idris, a spectacular mountain in northwest Wales, you can see the landscape change moment by moment as the shadows of the clouds shift across the slope and the sky darkens. The view is at once constantly changing and eternal – the bones of the mountain, the essential truth of the landscape, remain (see Figure 1). Action research has changed the landscape of social science research by dramatically shifting our perspective on the process of knowledge generation, highlighting aspects of experience that had been in shadow, helping us to appreciate the drama and beauty of lives in our communities, and bringing greater clarity to our understanding of important issues. And now arts-based action research is changing our perspective once again, as evidenced by the six articles included in this special issue. We were delighted with the response to our call for papers for this project and are sorry not to be able to include more of the many examples of exciting and innovative work being done to integrate the arts in conducting and communicating action research projects around the world. That said, we feel that the work included here provides a wonderful introduction to the breadth of arts-based action research practices now being carried out.