Remaking Society

Remaking Society will be:

1) Working with local partners in demonstrating and assessing participatory cultural activities in four contrasting contexts of deprivation - Bradford, Glasgow, Fraserburgh and Newcastle.

2) Using these four pilots to generate new forms of evidence about the lived experience of poverty and exclusion.

3) Creating opportunities for marginalised and less visible sections of society to communicate with wider audiences, including policy-makers.

In this project, the concept of community is not restricted to communitarian accounts of 'a group of people in a given place', or as a site of consensus and constructed oneness based on social categories such as race, class, gender or location. Ours is a dynamic model in which community formation is seen as a continual re-negotiation of co-existence and interdependence, not confined by place, as illustrated by the thirty years of pioneering work by Southall Black Sisters. Questions about how communities conduct these negotiations become particularly important now, at a time of economic crisis, when resources are scarce and stress levels among vulnerable individuals are high.

The study will make critical connections between our understanding of community performance and participatory process across academic fields - including conflict resolution, cultural geography, public health, social psychology and sociology. It will allow a re-examination of inter-disciplinary concepts of community through arts and media practices.

Belonging to a community is critical to a sense of wellbeing for individuals and families, particularly significant for those who live on the breadline. The second element of Remaking Society is the generation of narrative evidence on the cultural dimensions of poverty and social exclusion. It will add a unique inter-disciplinary arts and humanities perspective to the ESRC's national study, Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK (www.poverty.ac.uk). Running until 2013, it is the UK's largest ever research project on the impact of poverty.

The pilot demonstrator sites have been carefully selected to represent a range of approaches and all partner organisations are regarded as leading practitioners in their respective fields of participatory arts/media.

Twenty four individuals from the four deprived areas and members of their communities will gain practice-based learning and skills development from the art projects in which they are involved and meet those from the other three locaitons. We will build their capacity to both undertake them by themselves in the future and to fundraise for this purpose. In addition community-based performance practitioners are key beneficiaries of the project. We define this group broadly to include artistic directors, education officers, cultural producers, and professional and volunteer performers attached to the four locations. The plan to create impact at local, regional and national levels, as well as internationally, will be informed by their participation in the project and in the production of the co-authored book and DVD.

At a national and international level, the team has a track record in influencing policy and practice, including Wakeford's previous work with the the Human Genetics Commission and Rockefeller Foundation on legislative performances (such as citizens' juries) and Jeffery's previous work with NESTA/DCMS on creative learning.

The international conference which will present the findings of the project will convene all stakeholders including participants from the four sites to exchange knowledge in an international context, bringing in leading experts from the USA and Australia to offer a comparative perspective on the project

Working with our partners: Cadispa Trust, Mission Models Money re:think programme, NHSGGC and poverty.ac.uk we will extend the reach of the project's findings beyond traditional academic outputs to social media platforms and communities of practice in the arts, health and regeneration field.

Alongside the UK and Scottish governments, the outputs will be presented to Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, NESTA, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and many regional arts, community organisations and think-tanks. Mission Models Money has the capacity to ensure that opinion-formers and decision-makers learn from the project and are supported to change policy based on a dialogue that they will help facilitate. The International e-Conference will be at the centre of opening a dialogue with these stakeholders alongside those with either a regional or international remit.