Creating destiny : youth, arts, and social change
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In this ethnographic study, I examine the work of a company of youth artists who create art to create social change. I explore how they define social change, and how they make it through a process of creating and performing an original work of hip hop, modern dance, and theater. The company is the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company in Oakland, CA, which brings together 15 to 20 young people each year to work with the company's adult co-directors to create an original performance for social change. The company members are high-school-aged and diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background. Its work is part of a larger tradition of programs in which artists "apply" the tools and processes of the arts to social problems (McCammon, 2007). Through inductive analysis of field data that I collected documenting the company's ten-month process, I surfaced a theory of social change embedded in the company's work. The company posits social change as a process of changing relationships--that is, changing how we relate to ourselves, to one another, and to the world around us. This process requires understanding how our ways of relating are shaped by social structures and our positions within them; imagining new possibilities for these relationships that would exist in the world in which we want to live; and then transforming our relationships to embody these possibilities. Transforming our relationships in this way, the company suggests, is a means to create the world we have imagined. In this study, I elaborate this theory and it's potential to complement more traditional notions of social change, which focus on changing social structures more directly. Such theories rely on the imposition of social structures to align human activity with principles of equality and social justice. By contrast, the company focuses on how social change created among small groups can radiate outward to effect change in communities and to shift social structures. Through fieldnote, interview, and photographic data that I gathered in the role of participant observer, I describe what dance and writing offer the company as media for social change during their creative process. I also explore the impact of the company performance through audience focus group and survey data. My analyses elaborate the concept of third space in the arts and the ways in which it functions to facilitate social change at an individual, interpersonal, group, and community level. They also illuminate the importance of cross-cultural collaborations among youth to creating social change.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Stevenson, Lauren Margaret |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Education. |
| Primary advisor | McDermott, Monica, 1971- |
| Primary advisor | McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin |
| Thesis advisor | McDermott, Monica, 1971- |
| Thesis advisor | McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin |
| Thesis advisor | Elam, Harry Justin |
| Advisor | Elam, Harry Justin |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Lauren M. Stevenson. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Education. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2011 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Lauren Margaret Stevenson
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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