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CONFERENCE THEME

An Artful Experience: The use of the arts throughout the participatory action research process

Una experiencia artística: el uso de las artes a lo largo del proceso de investigación-acción participativa

The 2025 ARNA conference focuses on the use of the arts as a form of communicating and making meaning throughout the participatory action research (PAR) process. In order to take action and effect change, participants will contemplate this concept and consider the role that visual, lyrical, and performing arts can play in creating action research questions, involving community, documenting and analyzing research findings, and/or exploring creative ways to present participatory action research findings. Based on the presentations and events at the two day conference, participants will investigate opportunities to learn and engage in the arts as elements of action with their potential of influencing individuals, communities, and policies in the future.

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PROPOSAL INVITATION

I propose that as action researchers we consider ourselves to be Artists of the Invisible, working to create spaces which are potentially transformative for ourselves, those we work with and the systems of which we are an intrinsic part (Seeley, 2011).

 

The 2025 ARNA Conference Team invites submissions from individuals and groups who are interested in sharing, discussing and improving collective efforts, particularly through using the arts as a form of communicating and making meaning within a participatory action research (PAR) approach. Submissions are also encouraged for creative ways to present PAR findings. The PAR approach equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers in all aspects of the research process where all partners contribute expertise and share decision making and ownership.  The core principles of bringing the arts to PAR can include:

• People collaborating with researchers in ‘art making as a way of knowing’ (Leavy, 2018)
• Focusing on democratizing the research process and orienting it towards social change, in which art forms are employed as tools in all or part of the action research process (Chevalier and Buckles, 2013; Finley, 2005; Leavy, 2018).
• Privileging and amplifying marginalized voices and experiences, providing accessibility to non-academic audiences, and communicating in alternative registers such as affective ways of knowing (Nunn, 2017b; Conquergood, 2002; Harris, 2012; Lenette, 2019; O’Neill, 2010).
• Challenging dominant representations and ways of knowing to facilitate dialogue across ideological and epistemological boundaries. (Fine et al. 2021; O'Neil et al., 2022; Wright, 2020 )
• Changing understanding through building both intellectual and affective understanding (Conquergood, 2002; Erel et al., 2017; Finley, 2005; O’Neill, 2010).
• Making meaning through the arts, whether performing, visual or lyrical by offering an analytic lens that makes findings accessible to a wider audience (Ayala and Zaal, 2016).
• Utilizing drama and theatre in education structures throughout the research process in ways that effect personal and systemic change through, among others, a theatre of the oppressed (Boal 1971), story drama (Booth 2005), open space learning (Monk, Rutter, Neelands, & Heron2011), legislative theatre (Rubin 2022), and mantle of the expert (Taylor & Aitkin 2023).
• Exploring ways in which a more comprehensive arts-informed inquiry appears as a fundamental and normal way of making sense of being part of the world (Seeley, 2011).
• Engaging in ‘extended epistemology’ of experiential, presentational, propositional and practical ways of knowing (Heron and Reason, 2008)

 

SUBMISSION INFORMATION AND DEADLINES

The Organizing Committee of the 2025 Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) Conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico is calling for abstract submissions to review for conference presentation. To present at the conference your abstract will go through a double-blind peer review. A rubric is available in the ARNA Conference 2025 information within the ARNA website for you to know how your review is scored. Upon payment of registration fees, your attendance at the conference will be confirmed.

• You may submit your abstract through the Google form on the ARNA website.
• Early Bird Abstract Submission begins: November 1st, 2024. Final Abstract Submission Deadline: March 7th, 2025.
• Results of abstract review returned to authors: Before March 21st, 2025.
• Full conference registration fees are due for all presenters: April 15, 2025.

 

Please click here to submit your proposal through a Google Form 

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION STREAMS FOR SESSIONS

The 2025 ARNA Proposal Committee welcomes proposal submissions from the wide variety of perspectives within the concepts of the use of art as a form of communication and meaning-making throughout the participatory action research (PAR) process.

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TYPE OF SESSION PRESENTATIONS

All sessions will be 90 minutes in duration and include the following formats.

 

Individual Paper Presentations

• Between 3 and 5 paper presentations can be accommodated in each session.
• Presentation time for each paper and for the discussant is limited as follows:

20 minutes each for a session with three presentations and a discussant

15 minutes each for a session with four presentations and a discussant

20 minutes each for a session with four presentations and no discussant

15 minutes each for a session with five presentations and no discussant

Panel Sessions

• Each panel discussion can accommodate up to 5 people on the panel.
• A panel session is recommended for presentations based on research in progress or more general thematic discussions of work in one particular area or several, such as discussions of organizing the arts within participatory based research studies, publicizing participatory research using the arts, sustaining participatory research with the use of the arts.
• Panel participants can include printed papers and/or handouts or the use of the arts within the presentation.

Workshop Sessions

• Workshop sessions will include facilitators and participants.
• Unless otherwise noted, workshop sessions will be within a 90 minute period. More time can be requested in the proposal.
• The workshop session facilitation focus is on interaction and learning.
• The proposal will outline learning outcomes, strategies for workshop engagement, and workshop capacity.

Art Installation

• It is the desire of the 2025 Conference Planning Team to infuse the conference with valuable artistic experiences.
• Explain in the proposal what form you would like your artistic experience to take, including, but not limited to: performance, poster, video production, virtual gallery walk, etc.
• Clarify the purpose and connection to the conference theme.
• Explain how your art installation will receive a meaningful response from session attendees. For example, will you have a proposed or current action research project you will present that connects with your artistic experience? Will you have a group of questions that will invite a discussion?

 

GENERAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All proposals will be 300 to 500 words and should describe the overall aims/objectives of the session, followed by 100 word descriptions of each paper presentation.

• In your proposal submission please specify if you would prefer to share your paper in a round table paper individual presentation, panel, or workshop (described above). We will take what you would prefer into consideration during our review of the proposals for placement in the conference schedule.
• Sessions may be proposed independently or as a group. If the submission is a proposal from a group, then a contact member of the group needs to be identified.
• Proposals and sessions will be presented in English and/or Spanish
• A session organizer who is submitting but not presenting may act as chair and/or discussant.

General Format

Paper proposals will follow this general format:

• Briefly outline the research and/or participatory action aims of your work and for the conference presentation;
• Explain what has been done so far to

1. achieve the aims of the participatory action and/or research (e.g., methodology, theoretical framework, methods, and how you included or will include the arts)
2. define the progress made (or goals you have set) towards research and action aims (e.g., findings, results, outputs, program changes, community action changes, art centered events, or perspective changes)

• Panel proposals should first describe research in progress or more general thematic discussions of work in one particular area or several, such as discussions of organizing community based participatory based research studies with support of the arts, publicizing community based participatory research using arts centered approaches, sustaining community based participatory research through the use of the arts. The proposal can them move on to discuss how the panel will be structured, identify any target participant group, and describe how the audience will be included for questions.
• Workshop proposals should describe the overall aims/objectives of the workshop; the structure of the workshop (including a general flow of activities); workshop capacity and the target participant group (ex. Community Based Organizations, New or Emerging Community Based Participatory Action Researchers, or Youth Participatory Action Researchers) -  if the workshop is not targeting a general audience of action-researchers.

 

Please click here to submit your proposal through a Google Form 

We look forward to receiving your proposal.

Registration fees include a one-year membership in ARNA.

Registration will be opening soon on ARNA website.