The Arts and Social Justice: Re-Crafting Adult education and Community Cultural Leadership

The purpose of this book is to extend the notion of adult education as an overtly political action by exploring activist dimensions of arts and crafts-based learnign practices from around the world. The advance of neo-liberal policies across global borders has increased interest in the imagination and creativity. For some, this means innovative products, increased productivity and more effective and applicable outcomes. However, for those who believe that the social and economic fabrics of many communities are fraying under neo-liberal policies and gloabilisation, the arts and the imagniation are viewed as forces for resistance and movement towards social justice. The authors contend that 'the arts' are capable of engaging the disinterested and the disenfranchised. They argue that within the realm of arts and crafts there exist alternative spaces and practices of critical social learning, in which engagement with symbolic aesthetic media can raise issues of critique, choice, debate and control. This book makes a contribution beyond the mainstream by suggesting a theoretical reconnection of arts practice with ideas of empowerment, autonomy and self-definition as central building blocks of active citizenship. 'Any adult educator could benefit from reading The Arts and Social Justice... come away inspired' (Katherine McManus, Simon Fraser University)