The “Got Art?” paradox: Questioning the value of art in collective action

Abstract

New scholarship on movements focuses on the role of art in mobilization and, relatedly, documents a shift toward a model of politics in which culture is central and constitutive. Nevertheless, researchers seldom combine the study of the changing politics of mobilization with the study of contemporary uses of art in movements. We bridge this gap by examining an attempt by performing arts service organizations to mobilize their stakeholders over the course of a four-day deliberative democratic process. Based on a multi-method study of this effort, we analyze lay actors’ disagreements about the value of art and cultural change and the resultant effect of these emerging tensions on collective action efforts. We conclude that lay perceptions of the value of art in collective action may not reflect the more expansive conceptions held by contemporary activists, even when those laypersons are engaged in non-traditional forms of mobilization and are passionately devoted to the arts. As a case in which beliefs about art inhibited action, these findings reveal obstacles to the contemporary uses of art in movements. For scholars of culture and contention, our findings underscore how ideas about the power of symbolic expression may themselves produce quiescence.