Site Of Social Change Research Articles

Cross-Cultural Museum Bias: Undoing Legacies of Whiteness in Art Histories

Abstract When museums are used as sites of knowledge production and research, what are their responsibilities for anti-racist public education? Examining the racial logics that govern, organize, and fund museums, this essay focuses on institutional bias within knowledge production and argues that locating racial logics within museums can be an act of radical pedagogy. Museums are being challenged to become sites of social change, making it vital to study their power structures and the ways in which they organize and study other cultures, illuminating imperial and colonial biases existing at their foundations. The Canadian Museum of Civilization’s exhibition The Lands within Me: Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin, is a relevant case study as it opened within weeks of September 11, 2001. The moral panic surrounding the show provides a powerful glimpse of the ways in which certain narratives are excluded from Canadian national projects and how these racial projects exist within museums. Works by Camille Zakharia, an artist included in the exhibition, will be analyzed and the fragmented forms of his photo collages will be used as an organizing metaphor to discuss Canadian multiculturalism, racialization, and citizenship.

When two worlds collide: the unsettling experiences of non-Indigenous volunteers at 2017 World Indigenous Nations Games

ABSTRACT Foregrounding the ethical demands for non-Indigenous people to be relationally accountable to Indigenous Peoples in settler colonial societies as well as the potential of sport as a site for social change, this study examines the experiences of a group of non-Indigenous sport volunteers at the 2017 World Indigenous Nations Games (WIN Games), an international event hosted simultaneously with the ‘Canada 150ʹ celebration. The findings reveal four themes related to non-Indigenous volunteers’ unsettling yet meaningful experiences. This research highlights how responsible and reflexive engagement through sport, e.g., volunteering, might contain critical educational value and be mobilized as a modest way of action in unsettling settler colonialism.

Queer Cyborgs in South African Speculative Fiction: Moxyland by Lauren Beukes and The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

This article explores the image of the queer cyborg in two works of speculative fiction about South Africa, Lauren Beukes's Moxyland (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2008) and Nicky Drayden's The Prey of Gods (London: Harper Voyager, 2017). These queer cyborg characters inhabit imagined futures where the interface between human and technology is both a conduit for self-expression and a threat to their freedoms and lives. I use Donna Haraway's essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” (Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991) as a queer theory to argue that the characters in these novels can use the human–machine interface to experience themselves more fully and to queer their environments. The characters become queer cyborgs who blur the boundaries between human/animal, human/machine, and physical/non-physical. However, the interface with technology in these novels also reinscribes the long history of violence and oppression suffered by queer people in South Africa and globally. I argue that the queer cyborg, although conceived in idealistic terms by some post-Harawayan theorists, represents the position of queer people as outsiders in South Africa, and that these novels offer important critical perspectives on what the future might hold for queer people as everyday life becomes more cyborgian. Technologies that might provide sites for social change and for redefining restrictive identity categories are simultaneously sites that bring new forms of manipulation, oppression, and control for the queer cyborg, and this figure can thus speak to present-day cyborgian experiences of queer people in South Africa.

Problematizing ‘productive citizenship’ within rehabilitation services: insights from three studies

Background: The idea that everyone should strive to be a ‘productive citizen’ is a dominant societal discourse. However, critiques highlight that common definitions of productive citizenship focus on forms of participation and contribution that many people experiencing disability find difficult or impossible to realize, resulting in marginalization. Since rehabilitation services strive for enablement, social participation, and inclusiveness, it is important to question whether these things are achieved within the realities of practice. Our aim was to do this by examining specific examples of how ‘productive citizenship’ appears in rehabilitation services.Methods: This article draws examples from three research studies in two countries to highlight instances in which narrow understandings of productive citizenship employed in rehabilitation services can have unintended marginalizing effects. Each example is presented as a vignette.Discussion: The vignettes help us reflect on marginalization at the level of individual, community and society that arises from narrow interpretations of ‘productive citizenship’ in rehabilitation services. They also provide clues as to how productive citizenship could be envisaged differently. We argue that rehabilitation services, because of their influence at critical junctures in peoples’ lives, could be an effective site of social change regarding how productive citizenship is understood in wider society.Implications for rehabilitation‘Productive citizenship’, or the interpretation of which activities count as contributions to society, has a very restrictive definition within rehabilitation services.This restrictive definition is reflected in both policy and practices, and influences what counts as ‘legitimate’ rehabilitation and support, marginalizing options for a ‘good life’ that fall outside of it.Rehabilitation can be a site for social change; one way forward involves advocating for broader understandings of what counts as ‘productive citizenship’.

‘Not that kind of atheist’: scepticism as a lifestyle movement

This article examines atheist activists from a lifestyle movement perspective. I focus on how atheist activists adopt the term ‘sceptic’ as a distinct identity marker to represent their growing interest in other types of activism beyond atheist community building and criticism of religious beliefs. My data come from thirty-five interviews with Canadian atheist activists and participant observation in the province of Alberta. In contrast to previous social movement approaches to atheist activism, I deemphasize the importance of collective identity and instead attend to personal identity as the site of social change. My findings show that being a sceptic is a personally meaningful identity in the context of a relatively weak secularist collective identity. Moreover, atheist activists who also identify as sceptics wish to expand the boundaries of the atheist movement to include individualistic projects of personal affirmation based on science and critical thinking. This work contributes to our understanding of the everyday activities of activists who engage in individual action in the absence of a strong collective identity. In particular, this article expands our understanding of lifestyle movements beyond the current focus on socially conscious consumption. Instead, I return to the roots of lifestyle movement theory, that is, how one’s everyday choices serve as a form of protest. Finally, this work contributes to atheism scholarship, which has neglected the diversity of individual identities within atheist organisations and among atheist activists.

How Will India’s Urban Future Affect Social Identities?

Urbanisation is as much a social process as it is an economic and spatial process. Cities are sites of social change that offer possibilities for social mobility by disrupting the social stratifications of rural societies. If so, what does India’s rapid urbanisation mean for social identities and social cleavages in the country? The article examines some of the principal mechanisms that will determine whether India’s urban future lies in a burgeoning cosmopolitan sensibility or in sharpening social cleavages. These include new and varied occupations and patterns of employment, the nature of housing and transportation and, crucially, the nature and role of the middle class. If urbanisation’s promise in transforming social identities in India is to be realised, the pattern of urbanisation and urban governance must fundamentally change. India needs many more large cities, which are also better funded and governed, which is unlikely to happen unless the promise of the 74th amendment to the Indian Constitution empowering urban local bodies is realised. The degree to which this will occur will have profound effects on India’s urban trajectory—and with it, the very nature of Indian society and its social cleavages.

Community to Classroom: Reflections on Community-Centered Pedagogy in Contemporary Modern Dance Technique

ABSTRACTThis article reflects on the ways in which socially engaged arts practices can contribute to reconceptualizing the contemporary modern dance technique class as a powerful site of social change. Specifically, the author considers how incorporating socially engaged practices into pedagogical models has the potential to foster responsible citizenship in the technique classroom. The article discusses community arts values and facilitation techniques, as well as the challenges that arise when socially engaged ideologies collide with student expectations and academic policies. In the context of a technique class, an emphasis on reciprocity, collaboration, and inclusion as opposed to individual achievement often raises questions about technical mastery, authority, and assessment. Despite these concerns, the author concludes that a community-centered pedagogy promotes collective awareness, generosity, and social engagement, all of which are essential in nurturing artist-citizens who truly embody democratic ideals.

Schools as Sites for Social Change: Applying the TEARS Principle

In order to truly be innovative in education, it is sometimes necessary to break away from conventional practices while, at the same time, keeping the students’ best interests in mind. We support the notion that innovation in teaching and learning plays a vital role in the success of an institution and as such have launched innovative initiatives amongst various institutions. These initiatives present various benefits, such as empowering children and supporting well-being through innovative educational wellness indicators and health promoting intervention. Based on the results obtained in this study, and the needs and knowledge based on the teachers and learners, an intervention plan was developed to support positive change within the schools and the community. This intervention plan includes the development of learning content that can be included in the curriculum without adding any additional burden to the teachers as well as the training of teachers to better implement this curriculum. The intervention further aims to assist with social change by guiding the schools in improving their learner feeding scheme and physical activity programme. The TEARS principle is an innovative 5-step enterprise that has been developed and implemented in order to pioneer the necessary changes in education.

Reach for Generation Y: using celebrity endorsement to communicate about nonprofit causes with young people in Australia

The popular contemporary global practice of using celebrities to endorse nonprofit causes can be a constructive means of stakeholder communication that offers the potential to increase awareness of, grow resources for and focus attention on these causes. However, if this communication practice is poorly executed, it risks devaluing complex social problems while more broadly challenging the nonprofit sector's role as a site of social change. This paper offers an analysis of the possibilities and pitfalls of using celebrities to communicate about nonprofit causes to Generation Y stakeholders. Based on findings from interviews with nonprofit leaders who have utilized this communication strategy, it offers an Australian perspective to the growing body of research into the increasingly popular strategy of celebrity endorsement of nonprofit causes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction: The Gender and Queer Politics of Translation: New Approaches

Introduction: The Gender and Queer Politics of Translation: New Approaches

Sociology, health data, and health equity: One state agency as a site of social change

Governmental agencies are important sources of information on the health and well-being of citizens. Recently, improvement in the data collection and reporting of race, ethnicity, social class, and primary language has received considerable attention by national and state governmental bodies in the US as we try to accommodate the social and health needs of an increasingly diverse population. This article draws on the author’s work as a sociologist in a state governmental public health agency to improve the collection and reporting of social data for the purpose of describing health disparities across subpopulation groups and informing equitable health policies. It illustrates how sociologists in governmental agencies can be agents of social change in broad-based collaborative efforts to improve population health and social policy. It describes the context in which a governmental agency is uniquely positioned to be a site of social change.

What is to be done? Economies of knowledge

India’s self-projection as a knowledge economy, a goal it seeks to achieve by 2020, needs to be measured against both practical and conceptual difficulties. The National Knowledge Commission of India acknowledged the first, but elided the second set of problems. Basic education for all and an equitable distribution of educational resources are India’s first priorities, yet the public university remains the most important site of social change and knowledge production. While it is held back by funding and infrastructural inadequacies, shadowed by political influence, and trapped in debates regarding public and private funding, central or state control, meritocracy and affirmative action, it is also a site of opportunity. Its strength lies in its ability to mirror the nation and the democratic process, and to create knowledge not just as product, but as tool.

International schools as sites of social change

This article examines the potential of international schools to act as agents of social transformation in developing countries. The method comprises a case study at two international schools in the Philippines. The case study explored ways in which schools foster host-national students’ sense of social responsibility, particularly through community connections. It found important social links were forged through school service learning programmes that sometimes augmented family or church outreach activities. However, among students in the study, noblesse oblige attitudes prevailed over identification with agency for significant social change.

Berlin—Warsaw—Jena: A Journey with Glen H. Elder Through Sites of Social Change

Glen H. Elder's intellectual legacy for psychological research on social change in Germany is exemplified by its influence on the first author's research group, spanning the time from the early 1980s until today. Several research lines are reported that were influenced by Elder's concepts and research strategies, such as the notion of hardships, control cycles, and cohort comparisons. The Berlin Youth Longitudinal Study analyzed the consequences of family hardship in West Berlin of the 1980s. The results are compared to a replication of this study in Warsaw, Poland. Whereas these studies were conducted during a time when Germany and Europe were divided into two political blocs, the German Shell Study used a cohort comparison in 1991 and 1996 to delineate two different stages during German unification. Summarizing the results from these studies, the present research agenda of the Jena Study on Social Change and Human Development is introduced. This study aims at the interplay of new personal demands resulting from social change, coping and individual and social resources in different contexts.

Day Care as Battleground: using moral panic to locate the front lines

While moral panic has been studied from a range of perspectives, much of this work underestimates its numerous spatial dimensions. Discussion of how place, space or location might inform a particular public moral crisis, or how moral panic is a phenomenon with significant socio-spatial causes and effects, has been left to those interested in how space and place inform social relations, to add a critical geographic perspective to moral panic analyses. Drawing on a recent episode of moral panic around a childcare centre in Sydney, this paper shows how moral panic can be used to locate the current sites of social change.

The Women Artists’ Cooperative Space as a Site for Social Change: Artemisia Gallery, Chicago (1973–1979)

FEMINIST CRITIC LAURA COTTINGHAM'S ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN ARTISTS' COOPERATIVES provides two key reasons why the history of these spaces is marginalized and their activist agendas have been historically undervalued. Cottingham (2000:31) commented: The extensive alternative exhibition network that feminists constructed provided them with a sense of community and critical exchange, places to show, and audiences, but it couldn't provide any significant influx of money. Nor did it function as a springboard into the commercial art structure, as most art professionals did not view or place value on art that was presented in cooperative and temporary venues. First, Cottingham's conclusions emphasize the notion that a cooperative's value is based in part on its ability to provide public exposure for their artists and an eventual entry into the commercial art market, sustaining modernism's individualist lens that diminishes collaborative and activist acts that also demand commercial success to establish critical credibility. (2) Second, Cottingham's position places the questions of community and critical exchange between artists on the margins of any historical consideration and, more important, overshadows and dilutes the activist agendas established by many of these separatist cooperatives in the 1970s. As T.V. Reed (2005: xvi) argued, the history of cultural movements or groups, such as the women artists' cooperative, face erasure because it is difficult to quantify the results of their efforts in comparison to other types of activism in which voting patterns, money raised, and legislation passed can be traced. What is often overlooked and will be examined in this essay is that the memberships of these spaces attempted to arm women with the tools necessary to attack from within the institutional structures that marginalized them in the first place. This article will reclaim the voice of these activists; it specifically explores a series of programming and exhibitions implemented by Artemisia Gallery in Chicago from 1973 to 1979, which prepared women artists to enter the professional workforce equipped with feminist pedagogy to promote social justice for women in the art world. Each event was sponsored by the Artemisia Fund, which was founded after the gallery was incorporated in 1973, to foster a national educational dialogue regarding the history of women artists, as well as the social, economic, and political concerns they faced (Poe, 1979). Economic Structures of the Art World (1976), Feminist Art Workers (1976), and Feminist Art Methodology (1976) were workshops opened for enrollment to artists outside Artemisia and run by noted feminist art activists and theorists, such as Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, Cheri Gaulke, Ruth Iskin, Johnnie Johnson, Laurel Klick, Ellen Lanyon, and Arlene Raven. They taught participants how to apply feminist agendas to their own careers and to assert change where they taught, exhibited, and sold their work. Lastly, Both Sides Now: An International Exhibition Integrating Feminism and Leftist Politics (1979), curated by the noted feminist critic Lucy Lippard, engendered a dialogue regarding emerging shifts in feminist discourse and its relationship to political action. Overall, this assessment of Artemisia's activist agendas and demands for social justice will serve as a case study and call for a thorough reexamination and theorizing of collaborative activist art in general. Reasserting Artemisia's history is also important because many young women are unaware of the struggles undertaken to make female artists visible in the academy and the art market today. As Amelia Jones (1999: 18) observed, feminism among art students is at the same time both naturalized into popular culture and invisible.... Founding and Philosophy of Artemisia Gallery and the Artemisia Fund Historically, the terms and artist were irreconcilable; when combined, they evoked the image of a woman engaging in a hobby in a domestic space, rather than in professional or public practice. …

Intergenerational Literacy Programs as Potential Sites for Social Change

Based on findings from research with intergenerational literacy program participants, the author explores the consequences of participation in these programs for adult learners, namely: (1) increased self-confidence, (2) social-efficacy, and, to a lesser degree, (3) critical social involvement. Using a Freirean framework, she argues that these sort of impacts point toward the potential for positive social change from program participation. Policy makers, who drive federal and state funding for adult literacy programs, view education for adults from a deficit perspective, with the learners perceived as lacking in skills or abilities that would help them to contribute more fully to the economy. Many publicly funded adult education programs consequently find themselves driven more by workforce development and employability goals, than by social change or personal empowerment agendas. The intergenerational programs studied here aim not so much at merely conforming to policy-driven employability agenda, but primarily at empowering marginalized adults and their families. In this discussion, the author presents findings from surveys and interviews with adult learners from six intergenerational literacy programs in northern New England, with a focus on effects of participation for adults and key components of programming that supports these effects. The article concludes with implications for practitioners in the human service community and recommendations for further study.