This paper draws on a case study of a community-based organization working with marginalized Muslim women in London from refugee and migrant backgrounds. The organization delivers a model of practice that involves English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes, practical/informative workshops, and social integration in a women-only community space rather than these elements being accessed separately in often formal spaces. The article draws on data collected as part of the first year of an evaluation of a three-year funded project to engage the women. The data include registration information about the participant group, a bespoke workshop evaluation form completed by the women each month, and interviews with beneficiaries, volunteers, and staff. Our research finds that an integrated, bottom-up approach is successful in engaging isolated women and impacts on their lives through increased well-being, knowledge and skills, empowerment, and freedom. Whilst asset-focused interventions have become dominant in community development, there is a danger that a deliberate focus away from the needs of vulnerable groups may cement rather than tackle inequalities, and collude with a political and neoliberal agenda that promotes individualism and austerity. We argue it is necessary to develop interventions that respond to the needs of marginalized groups before building on people’s strengths to address them. Our case study offers evidence for this.

The paper is based on an arts-based project that was aimed at understanding what ‘home’ means to migrant women in London. The project entailed teaching art techniques to 36 women participants and the active contribution of a large group of volunteers and research assistants. Women in the project were from various backgrounds but the majority were from Afghanistan. As such the project was conducted using multiple languages and a systematic collaboration among the research team members and between researchers and participants. This complex communication made the process of meaning-making of concept of home challenging. Three main challenges that were experienced in relation to this collaborative methodology have been identified and the strategies that were developed to address them are detailed. The three challenges in combining action research and arts methods that are discussed in this paper include: 1. Challenges about collective decision-making; 2. Challenges about the notions of progress and process; and 3. Challenges concerning stakeholders’ scope of experience. The paper offers a pathway towards working in contentious research settings between academia and community-based organisations in project that include participants from different backgrounds and speak various languages. We offer insights into how both researchers and participants can learn from challenges in deploying collaborative methodologies such as art practice in action research. We show here that incorporating art practice is a transformative action even when it is seen as far from an essential skill or unnecessary. Such action-oriented practices in research are directly related to United Nations’ sustainable development goals in reducing gender inequality and the opportunities that art practice can offer for quality education to marginalised groups in society.

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