Routledge Handbook of Arts and Global Development

This book brings together a leading team of international experts in arts and global development to showcase effective practice, and to explore how this vibrant interdisciplinary field has developed, and what the latest research can teach us.

Although arts play a central role in human development, and in the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities, few have attempted to comprehensively explore arts practice as global development. This handbook first provides a theoretical framework for exploring arts and global development, before surveying a comprehensive range of art forms and development practices to explore the potential of the arts to strategically and beneficially contribute to more just and equitable conditions for communities across the globe. Stretching across the arts from theatre, dance, and music, to poetry, film, and visual arts, the book covers topics as diverse as health, education, peacebuilding, livelihoods, sustainability, activism, and arts as research method in programming. The Handbook also identifies gaps in the literature, pointing towards the most pressing and promising avenues for further research over the next few years.

This book will be an essential resource for any researcher, student or practitioner wishing to understand the role of the arts in global development, and in the global south more generally.

Vicki-Ann Ware lectures in development studies, Deakin University. An ethnomusicologist, widely published with 30 years’ experience in arts-based community work, she researches arts-based community development/peacebuilding. Having worked in mainland Southeast Asia, she currently works in Bangladesh and Indonesia. She convenes the Arts/Sports Community Development Network, and is Artistic Director for Casey Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta holds a Ph.D. in Applied Theatre from The University of Manchester, United Kingdom. She is Associate Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada. Currently, she is working on her SSHRC grants on Coast Salish language revitalization through theatre. Sadeghi-Yekta has published many articles in a variety of journals.

Tim Prentki is Emeritus Professor of Theatre for Development at the University of Winchester where, for many years, he created and ran the MA in Theatre and Media as Development. This programme trained students to become facilitators of theatre and video processes designed to assist communities in addressing issues in relation to their self-development. Students ran projects throughout the world. Prentki has been involved in projects, NGO training and academic collaborations in Asia, Africa and South America. He has served on the editorial and advisory boards of Research in Drama Education and Applied Theatre Research. A past winner of a Southern Arts award, he has written and directed for theatre for fifty years, including Shakespeare, contemporary writing and his own scripts, two of which, Half Measures and Lear in Brexitland, were recently presented at the Shakespeare North Playhouse. His current works are Henry VII: Shakespeare’s ’Lost’ Play and Empire’s Edge or What You Will.

Wasim al Kurdi is a poet, writer, and practitioner in Drama & Theatre in Education. He served as the Director of the Educational Programme at Palestine’s A.M. Qattan Foundation and as the Academic Director of DiE Summer School in Jordan. He is an author of books on education, culture, and the arts.

Patrick Kabanda is the author of The Creative Wealth of Nations (Cambridge, 2018). He has consulted for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. A Juilliard and Fletcher graduate, he was awarded the 2013 Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service from Tufts University, Massachusetts. (www.musikaba.net)