Re-Imagining and Co-Creating Social Norms Change through Socially Engaged Arts
Summary:
In order to create the transformational change needed to achieve the ambitious goals of the SDGs, behavior change communication must move from simple information delivery to co-designing systems change with stakeholders. The Arts are particularly well-placed to do so as they expose us to new ideas, stories and ways of looking at the world and in doing so elicits emotional, social, and political responses. Art creates openings for marginalized peoples to exercise agency and voice, to challenge power relations, build advocacy tools, and promote positive dialogue among stakeholders (Kirakosyan & Stephenson, 2019). Socially engaged arts practice creates interactive spaces and invaluable opportunities to re-imagine social norms that can serve to explore and design systems-driven behaviour change programs. Further, artists--as change agents already embedded into their communities--are uniquely positioned to drive processes that inspire, activate and sustain new behaviors among communities. Our approach to behaviour change posits social art as an affective means to engage communities with process-driven, outcome-based methods. In this talk we present our Social Arts for Behaviour Change (SABC) methodology, a process that we have co-developed with partners across 11 countries that drives intended behaviour change in Water, Health and Sanitation (WASH) projects. Drawing upon research in behavioural economics, human centered design, edutainment, neuroaesthetics, socially engaged arts, theatre of the oppressed and others, highlights of SABC from our work in Mali, Guatemala, and India provide examples of the value that social arts can bring to the field of SBCC.
Background/Objectives:
Showcase the role that socially engaged art can contribute to SBCC and to catalysing transformational change by becoming a method for stronger community-driven processes and drive behavior change. Through presentation of specific examples of projects that have leveraged the Social Arts for Behavior Change approach, we will highlight the various ways that social arts can be incorporated into a behavior change program to build a truly participatory process-driven intervention. Benefits include strengthened civil society that has the ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders to deliberate on complex issues through shared imagination of changing social norms.
Description of the Big Idea/Experience/Innovation and Its Importance to the SBCC Field:
Socially engaged arts practices have a long history of driving social norms change and in creating public spaces in which citizens can explore new forms of engagement. Socially engaged arts are uniquely placed to be co-designed with priority groups of intended behavior change and allow them to be at the center of process-driven, outcome based methods that elicit emotional, social and political transformations within their own socio-political-economic contexts. Artists, as social change agents already embedded in their communities, are uniquely positioned to drive co-design processes that inspire, activate and sustain new behaviors, alongside community change leaders. Social Arts for Behavior Change strengthens the role of participatory arts practice within systems-driven behavior change programs allowing participants to redefine norms of civic engagement, and create interactive spaces to question and redefine their own relationship with behaviors. The resulting strengthening of civic society space is key in achieving results that have systemic repercussions.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
Socially engaged arts are particularly well-placed to deliver on the ambitious behavior change, civic engagement and social norms change goals that SBCC hopes to deliver. Artists, as change agents embedded in their communities, are uniquely positioned to drive design processes that inspire, activate and sustain new behaviors. Social Art for Behavior Change moves beyond entertainment or communication, to engage priority groups to become the drivers of behavior change in their communities by developing civic imagination and spaces to re-imagine norms. This shifts allows priority groups to be the main drivers and co-designers of any intervention, creating sustainability.
Abstract submitted by:
Raнїsa Mirza - One Drop
Tania Vachon - One Drop