Social movements and boundary work in arts, health and wellbeing: A research agenda

Abstract

Purpose: Despite a growing evidence base and increasing recognition of the connections between arts, health and wellbeing, arts and creativity are some distance from being fully integrated into health and care services. Further, there is a lack of consensus about the best way to develop the evidence base and progress the field. This paper draws on social movement theory and the related field of boundary studies to explore these critical challenges. Design: The paper critically examines the developing international field of arts, health and wellbeing, drawing on a literature from several disciplines including arts and health, social and political sciences, and organisational studies. Findings: While it is important to continue to develop evidence, theories and frameworks are also needed to address strategic questions, such as the relationship between evidence, policy and practice, as well as practical issues of propagation and scale in arts, health and wellbeing. Research limitations: This is a discursive paper. It does not suggest definitive answers; rather, it signals new directions for further empirical research, including studies of social movement theory and boundary work in arts health and wellbeing. Originality/value: A focus on methodology within an evidence-based medicine paradigm has meant that key questions concerning the development and impact of arts projects and programmes in health and wellbeing have been neglected. Social movement theory and boundary studies offer insights into the potential role of arts in reducing divisions, fostering collaboration and contributing to the transformation of health and care policy and practice.

Arts as Treatment? Innovation and resistance within an emerging movement

“…Works of art often inherently convey something of the artist's worldview, emotions, and opinions -even when motivated by art for art's sake -thereby often conveying social, cultural or political attitudes more than direct forms of communication. In what it communicates, AaH is diverse (Daykin, 2019a(Daykin, , 2019b.…”

“…The Outsider-ness of AaH practitioners enables the playfulness and eccentricity of their creativity, and therefore facilitates the distinctive insights and challenge which their work facilitates (Raw & Mantecón, 2013). Daykin (2019aDaykin ( , 2019b draws from sociological theories around boundary work (Matarasso, 2019) to explain how the unregulated Outsider-ness of AaH practitioners encourages participants to feel less constrained by the conventions and inhibitions within professional-patient interactions, and to trust and confide in AaH practitioners in ways that they may not with mainstream health practitioners. The artist as Outsider heritage and perennial boundary-spanning of the AaH movement means that AaH practitioners operate in an ambiguous relationship with mainstream health services, whether or not they engage in explicit activism.…”

“…Communities and artists have always collaborated in diverse and ever-changing ways (Daykin, 2019a). The methodological diversity intrinsic to the arts means that the extent to which Arts and Health (AaH) constitutes a cohesive social movement remains a question of nuanced debate (Daykin, 2019b), nevertheless, worldwide AaH activities tend to be guided by broadly similar values (All-Party Parliamentary Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPGAHW), 2017; All-Party Parliamentary Working Group on Wellbeing Economics (APPWGWE); Clift, 2012;Raw & Mantecón, 2013). The foremost AaH values, we argue, are those of art for art's sake (APPGAHW, 2017;Macnaughton et al, 2005), the practitioner as Artist (Stickley, Wright & Slade, 2018) and the artist as Outsider (Raw & Mantecón, 2013).…”

“…Foregrounding these values, we seek to update Smith's (2003) frequentlycited Diamond framework (Figure 1), developed within our research centre and published by Macnaughton et al (2005). Updating this model is necessary, we assert, because the values of AaH are such that the effectiveness of AaH in improving health and wellbeing must be argued in theoretical as well as empirical terms (Daykin, 2019b;Raw, Lewis, Russell & Macnaughton, 2012). We update the Diamond by proposing our Stalactite ( Figure 2) and Helictite ( Figure 3) models.…”

Shared Reading as Mental Health Promotion Among Newly Retired Men: Design of a feasibility study

“…Further, there is no established tradition for conceptualizing and measuring the effects of Shared Reading interventions. Various authors and organizations have pointed to the need for an increased evidence base for arts & health interventions and emphasize a number of challenges that arise in generating this evidence, such as poor study and evaluation design, insufficient attention to feasibility and implementation studies, lack of consensus on how to demonstrate the value of arts and health, and lack of established criteria for the measurement of effects (Carnwath & Brown, 2014;Daykin, 2019;Daykin, Gray, McCree & Willis, 2017;Hamilton, Buchanan-Hughes, Lim & Eddoweset, 2015;Skingley, Bungay & Clift, 2012). In addition, it is argued that there is a need for the employment of mixed-methods designs within arts & health research in order to take both qualitative and quantitative aspects of impact of arts & health interventions into account (Cameron, Crane, Ings & Taylor, 2013;Caracciolo & Van Duuren, 2015;Clift, 2012;Skingley et al, 2012).…”