Arts-based research offers an innovative approach to today’s social-ecological challenges. Many authors ascertain the transformative power of arts-based research lies in its ability to generate holistic and collaborative encounters that facilitate change. To advance critical discussions around arts-based research, the following article opens up pockets of success as well as the limitations and failures of the My Mabopane photovoice project. This project intended to support urban transformation in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, by asking participants to photograph and reflect upon a nearby green space afflicted with various social and environmental challenges. Results suggest alternative ways of knowing, which contribute to transformative learning, and can link arts-based research to social-ecological transformation. However, despite this promising pathway, analyses also reveal realizing social-ecological transformation with arts-based research is no walk in the park. Rather problematic assumptions around knowledge and knowledge production, emerging in tensions between art and science, often trump the emancipatory intentions of photovoice. And broader structural challenges, that arts-based research situates itself in and against, pose a strong barrier for social-ecological transformation. In response to these barriers, this article argues for a collaborative arts-based research practice centering community realities on multiple scales via a merging of art, science, and life.Heines, Maria & Breed, Christina & Engemann, Kristine & Knudsen, Linette & Colo, Lwandiso & Ngcobo, Sifiso & Pasgaard, Maya. (2024). Art, science, and life: where arts-based research and social-ecological transformation can meet. Urban Transformations. 6. 10.1186/s42854-024-00062-6.
2 The aim of working with two different groups of students was to uncover differences in perspectives on the urban green space based on age. However, observed behavioral differenceswhich colored all aspects of My Mabopane imple-mentationbecame unintended results indicative of complicated real-life contexts that need consideration in ABR. Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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Page 9 of 13Heines et al. Urban Transformations (2024) 6:4 neutrality and objectivity. Not only does this question the salience of ABR to co-pro-duce knowledge3, but this dynamic also risks harmful transformative learning outcomes. For example, in focus groups consensus formed around narratives blaming environmen-tal degradation on the community and misconceptions about local ecology and climate change. Such discussions could have benefited from researcher perspectives on the structural roots of environmental degradation and relevant technical knowledge. The lack of intervention likely harmed both transformative learning in student participants and the photovoice team by failing to open up problematic assumptions on social-eco-logical relationships and researcher-researched dichotomies.A more thorough integration of art and science is required to avoid such failures and, instead, realize the beneficial understandings of social-ecological systems that ABR offers. The case of My Mabopane
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2017; Schipper et al. 2019; Buyana et al. 2021). Here Hein-rich (2018) provides a helpful reminder that art has always been able to convey truth(s) (pg. 134). Recognizing this in practice can mean experimenting with where art meets science in your studies, collaborating with artists throughout all research stages as well as placing equal value on scientific and artistic outputs.Art, science, and lifeUp until now, I have circled around social-ecological transformation by discussing the successes and failures of ABR to incite transformative learning. Although these two processes are connected, beyond shifts in individual and public consciousness, trans-formation also requires material and political resources (Tarrow 1998). This second component is crucial in photovoice projects as participants are typically marginalized a
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Emphasis here enables researchers to be promoters of transformation (Fischer et al. 2012; Mertens 2016). And asks; can new social-ecological understandings cultivated in ABR lead to a more sustainable future and how?It is virtually impossibleespecially in the short termto pin down the impact My Mabopane had or will have on local urban green space management. However, evi-dence of participant collaboration may help connect the dots between ABR and trans-formation. The follow-up participant interviewee, specifically, appreciated photography aspects of My Mabopane as it helped her see what other students think, love, and want to change about the green space. This plurality of perspectives was likely facilitated by supportive group dynamics, especially at the secondary school, where students were quick to express agreement, excitement, and interest as fellow classmates presented their photographs. Such group dynamics a
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