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19 - Community Arts, Decoloniality, and Epistemic Justice

from Part V - Participatory and Community Arts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2024

By
Christopher C. Sonn ,
Rama P. Agung-Igusti ,
Roshani J. Jayawardana ,
Amy F. Quayle  and
Samuel P. Keast
Edited by
Brian D. Christens
Brian D. Christens
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

This chapter brings together key concepts from decolonial, feminist, and liberation-focussed psychologies to advocate for the role of community arts in the pursuit of epistemic justice and liberatory community empowerment. The chapter focuses on three areas of praxis that are evident in community-oriented psychology’s engagement with calls for decolonizing science: archival retrieval, relational knowledge practices, and storytelling and counter-storytelling. These areas are further illustrated via two case examples from Australia that detail how people who are marginalized and racialized form communities to address structural and symbolic violence while also strengthening practices and capacities for re-existence. The cases show how, through forming intentional settings and mobilizing cultural practice, practices of cultural remembering and reauthoring of stories can contribute to decoloniality and epistemic justice. These cases also highlight that marginalized and racialized communities can create home places of healing, connection, and memory. These relational practices of accompaniment require ongoing critical reflexivity and deliberate deep rethinking as well as equitable access to material and symbolic resources to engage in decolonial and antiracist work.

Keywords

epistemic justicecommunity artsdecolonialitynarrativecultural practice
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Community Empowerment , pp. 480 - 504
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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