This Cluster draws on the collective expertise of researchers from Canada, the U.K., and France
to develop arts-based and community-engaged research projects combining cultural, creative,
and mindfulness practices and integrating the perspectives of Indigenous scholars and artists
to explore the cultural, spiritual, and environmental dimensions of health and well-being.
Our Cluster seeks to provide a valuable experiential learning model for artist-scholars, educators, and cultural activists committed to legitimizing the health benefits of cultural practice; exploring the political implications of collaborative research in a multicultural context; and developing decolonizing approaches to arts-based pedagogy that can contribute to the health and well-being of culturally diverse communities. We are documenting and analyzing our collective experiences to investigate how engaging with cultural traditions and practices can strengthen relationships to our communities and our natural environments, as well as foster intercultural and transgenerational exchange. By honoring the narratives and perspectives of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples of Canada, our projects demonstrate that storying and re-storying lived experiences valorizes health and well-being by situating self and identity in the larger context of globalized society. In the post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission era, it is crucial to integrate the perspectives of Indigenous scholars and artists who foreground the cultural, spiritual, and environmental dimensions of health and well-being.
Our collaborative research hence responds to the urgent need to acknowledge and to include multiple ways of knowing and being to decolonize Eurocentric paradigms that still inform dominant knowledge systems in the academy. We chart new possibilities and directions for 21st century research on health and well-being to advance scholarly and artistic explorations of identity, community, creativity, embodied knowledges, and biocultural diversities that are pivotal to research and pedagogy across the arts, humanities, social sciences, health, and education.
Our collaborative research hence responds to the urgent need to acknowledge and to include multiple ways of knowing and being to decolonize Eurocentric paradigms that still inform dominant knowledge systems in the academy. We chart new possibilities and directions for 21st century research on health and well-being to advance scholarly and artistic explorations of identity, community, creativity, embodied knowledges, and biocultural diversities that are pivotal to research and pedagogy across the arts, humanities, social sciences, health, and education.
Please click on a Cluster Member's name below to learn more about their individual
contributions to projects funded by the Cluster.
contributions to projects funded by the Cluster.
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