Humanizing Higher Education: The Role of Participatory, Creative Practices in This Messy Moment

Abstract

The convergence of current crises sometimes called a polycrisis heightens our awareness that many of our institutions are not well. In this paper, we examine how creative, art-based practices can open up spaces for students and us to find meaning, connection, and agency in these difficult times. PAR is the foundation of our work providing students with skills to pose critical questions, engage in participatory, interactive and creative practices that lift up and map root causes, challenges, lived experiences, and even potential solutions to social issues that directly concern them. Students engage in formal and informal research to unpack and advocate for issues, concerns, possibilities, and dreams that align with THEIR EXPERIENCES. As members of the Action Research Network of the Americas’ Youth Participatory Action Research Community (the ARNA YPAR ARC), our international, intergenerational collective engages in formal and informal research to examine issues, concerns, possibilities, and dreams that align with STUDENT EXPERIENCES. Given the immense amount of uncertainty and chaos, creative and art-based practices are central to our work in humanizing – tapping into trust, vulnerability, care, and centering the lived experiences of students. In particular, this paper examines the role of art in community building, video in transnational collaboration, beholding media in honest conversation, photovoice in action, blogs and painting in voice and democracy, and mind maps in dreaming and envisioning other possibilities. The detailed explanations of these art-making and adjacent creative practices serve as springboards for practitioners and people in general to humanize learning, research, and activist spaces.