This book examines research using anti-oppressive, arts-based methods to promote social change in oppressed and marginalized communities. The contributors discuss literary techniques, performance, visual art, and new media in relation to the co-construction of knowledge and positionality, reflexivity, data representation, community building and engagement, and pedagogy. The contributors to this volume hail from a wide array of disciplines, including sociology, social work, community psychology, anthropology, performing arts, education, medicine, and public health.

The chapters in Art as an Agent for Social Change, presented as snapshots, focus on exploring the power of drama, dance, visual arts, media, music, poetry and film as educative, artistic, imaginative, embodied and relational art forms that are agents of personal and societal change. A range of methods and ontological views are used by the authors in this unique contribution to scholarship, illustrating the comprehensive methodologies and theories that ground arts-based research in Canada, the US, Norway, India, Hong Kong and South Africa. Weaving together a series of chapters (snapshots) under the themes of community building, collaboration and teaching and pedagogy, this book offers examples of how Art as an Agent for Social Change is of particular relevance for many different and often overlapping groups including community artists, K-university instructors, teachers, students, and arts-based educational researchers interested in using the arts to explore social justice in educative ways. This book provokes us to think critically and creatively about what really matters!

This book is a large-scale study of global creative activism. It explores how activists facilitate the cultivation of societal alternatives. Harrebye shows that social activism has got a creative new edge that is blurring the boundaries between artist and activist, and pop, prank, and protest.

This book explores how street art has been used as a tool of resistance to express opposition to political systems and social issues around the world. Aesthetic devices such as murals, tags, posters, street performances and caricatures are discussed in terms of how they are employed to occupy urban spaces and present alternative visions of social reality. Based on empirical research, the authors use the framework of creative psychology to explore the aesthetic dimensions of resistance that can be found in graffiti, art, music, poetry and other creative cultural forms. Chapters include case studies from countries including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico and Spain to shed new light on the social, cultural and political dynamics of street art not only locally, but globally. This innovative collection will be of particular interest to scholars of social and political psychology, urban studies and the wider sociologies and is essential reading for all those interested in the role of art in social change.

As we play, we step away from stark reality to conjure up new possibilities for the present and our common future. Today, a new cohort of social activists are using it to create social change and reinvent democratic social relations. In contrast to work or routine, play must be free. To the extent that it is, it infuses a high-octane burst of innovation into any number of organizational practices and contexts, and invites social actors to participate in a low-threshold, highly democratic process of collaboration, based on pleasure and convivial social relations. Despite the contention that such activities are counterproductive, movements continue to put the right to party on the table as a part of a larger process of social change, as humor and pleasure disrupt monotony, while disarming systems of power. Through this book, Shepard explores notions of play as a social movement activity, considering some of the meanings, applications and history of the concept in relation to social movement groups ranging from Dada and Surrealism to Situationism, the Yippies to the Young Lords, ACT UP to the Global Justice, anti-gentrification, community and anti-war movements of recent years.

"Extraordinary, wise, and hopeful…nearly poetic meditations." —Boston Globe What if imagination and art are not, as many of us might think, the frosting on life but the fountainhead of human experience? What if our logic and science derive from art forms, rather than the other way around? In this trenchant volume, Rollo May helps all of us find those creative impulses that, once liberated, offer new possibilities for achievement. A renowned therapist and inspiring guide, Dr. May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives. His insightful book offers us a way through our fears into a fully realized self.

The author of the breakout hit Here Comes Everybody reveals how new technology is changing us for the better. In his bestselling Here Comes Everybody, Internet guru Clay Shirky provided readers with a much-needed primer for the digital age. Now, with Cognitive Surplus, he reveals how new digital technology is unleashing a torrent of creative production that will transform our world. For the first time, people are embracing new media that allow them to pool their efforts at vanishingly low cost. The results of this aggregated effort range from mind-expanding reference tools like Wikipedia to life-saving Web sites like Ushahidi.com, which allows Kenyans to report acts of violence in real time. Cognitive Surplus explores what's possible when people unite to use their intellect, energy, and time for the greater good.

Banksy, the Yes Men, Gandhi, Starhawk: the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest is now in the hands of the next generation of change-makers, thanks to Beautiful Trouble. Sophisticated enough for veteran activists, accessible enough for newbies, this compact pocket edition of the bestselling Beautiful Trouble is a book that’s both handy and inexpensive. Showcasing the synergies between artistic imagination and shrewd political strategy, this generously illustrated volume can easily be slipped into your pocket as you head out to the streets. This is for everyone who longs for a more beautiful, more just, more livable world – and wants to know how to get there. Includes a new introduction by the editors. Contributors include: Celia Alario • Andy Bichlbaum • Nadine Bloch • L. M. Bogad • Mike Bonnano • Andrew Boyd • Kevin Buckland • Doyle Canning • Samantha Corbin • Stephen Duncombe • Simon Enoch • Janice Fine • Lisa Fithian • Arun Gupta • Sarah Jaffe • John Jordan • Stephen Lerner • Zack Malitz • Nancy L. Mancias • Dave Oswald Mitchell • Tracey Mitchell • Mark Read • Patrick Reinsborough • Joshua Kahn Russell • Nathan Schneider • John Sellers • Matthew Skomarovsky • Jonathan Matthew Smucker • Starhawk • Eric Stoner • Harsha Walia

Approaching creativity as a form of spiritual practice, artist Benton breaks the creative process down into its most basic components and offers a fresh perspective on developing one's creative skills.

MARCH is Community Social Services Awareness month! Is your organization looking for service project ideas? An increasing number of schools, workplaces, and organizations are doing family service projects as a way to make positive change in their communities. The 101 projects in Doing Good Together answer this growing demand for family service with hands-on projects focused on easing poverty, promoting literacy, supporting the troops, helping the environment, and more.