This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the preface; due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; the thesis is 30,000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes, but exclusive of tables, maps, appendices & bibliography.This thesis explores the area of Community Cultural Development (CCD) through a longitudinal Case Study. It postulates that the potential long-term outcomes of a successful CCD process, including the creation of communities and networks, as well as continuing cultural development for the participants, are frustrated by arts policy and funding. The analysis of the Case Study is contextualised by an examination of the history of CCD in Australia and the cultural policy framework for the funding of CCD projects.This thesis addresses the following question: Do the long-term outcomes - of creating networks, creation of communities and continued cultural development - succeed? It is hypothesised that CCD can achieve social change through two types of long term outcomes. The two types of long-term outcomes are - personal level outcomes and community level outcomes. Both levels of outcomes are examined in relation to the Case Study.However, the cultural policy framework for CCD does not support long-term CCD. It is problematic on many levels - funding, evaluation, and the infrastructure support of CCD. It is asserted that there is urgent need for a re-assessment on the way in which CCD is supported in Australia. And that this assessment examines whether the sector is in fact supportive of the aim of CCD - to effect social change.CCD is a process and an artform underpinned by a social change agenda. This research aims to further develop the academic body of work in the field of CCD, to create new questions, ideas and problems for further research to build upon.

During the past several decades, globalization forces in general and mechanization of coal mining jobs more specifically have sharply changed the economic and social conditions of many of the coal towns in the Central Appalachian region of the United States. Efforts to identify and seek alternatives to replace the ongoing decline of their traditional way of life are deeply entangled with community identity and culture due to the historical hegemonic role and power of coal mining and other extractive industries and their critical role in forming residents' identities. Many of the small communities in this region are pursuing initiatives to highlight their natural and cultural assets in efforts to develop tourism as a new foundation for their economies. However, to avoid tourism simply becoming another extractive industry, researchers and practitioners have suggested that these communities must develop capacity to participate in and take ownership of tourism-related decision-making processes. In an effort to examine the dynamics of one such effort in detail this study drew on Community Capacity theory as interpreted by Chaskin (2001a) to explore the relationships between Community Cultural Development (CCD) and the sustainability of tourism in a small town located in Central Appalachia seeking to transition to a visitor-based economy. This dissertation explored whether and in what ways engaging in CCD projects and community capacity are related and identified ways such interactions influence the sustainability of tourism. Along with personal observation and a review of relevant archival data, I conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with a sample of individuals from a community cultural development organization regarding their efforts to build possibilities for sustainable tourism in their rural jurisdiction. This study's findings contribute to the existing literature by suggesting Chaskin's framework of community capacity as an apt model for charting progress towards sustainable community-based tourism. Moreover, this research found that employing CCD methods can enhance community capacity by encouraging a sense of shared identity among the group's members and through them among a broader cross-section of residents. Lastly, this inquiry suggested that CCD contributed to the sustainability of tourism in the case study community by increasing residents' effective participation in decision-making processes concerning such efforts, encouraging locals' partnership and ownership of tourism development projects and providing space for negotiating the tourist gaze in guest-host relationships. / Doctor of Philosophy / Since at least the late 1960s and the advent of the ongoing decline of mining, the populations of many small coal-dependent towns in Central Appalachia have fallen into economic hardship (e.g., high rates of poverty, too few and/or inadequate jobs and public services), now confront a range of social issues arising from that harsh reality (e.g., youth out-migration, rapidly aging populations, the current opioid epidemic). In response to those conditions, many affected communities are investing in their wealth of natural resources and unique cultural assets to promote tourism as a palliative, if not replacement, for their previous economies. Tourism has the potential to reduce poverty and to boost shared prosperity among host communities, but it also, if poorly managed, could become another extractive industry. This study focused on the ways that residents in one Central Appalachian community have individually and as groups sought to assume ownership of their area's tourism-related efforts. I specifically analyzed participation in that jurisdiction's cultural activities (e.g., community theatre and story circles) to understand whether and how involvement in them affected participants' awareness of their capability to address the conditions in their community. My interviews with 10 active participants in my sample community's collective cultural projects revealed that residents did come to perceive themselves as possessing capacity as individuals and as groups to address the challenges that have arisen in their community as its traditional economy has declined. This study also found that participants in culture-based group activities were better prepared to participate effectively in tourism-related decision-making processes in their community. Indeed, many of those I interviewed have become owners and/or partners in tourism development projects because of the information and networks they developed during their participation in cultural activities. Finally, this analysis found that community cultural activities created a space for residents to interact regardless of their socio-economic status, ideological predisposition or other characteristics; an outcome that interviewees indicated they had come to cherish.

This research draws on New Institutionalist theory as interpreted by Fligstein and McAdam (2012) to explore the relationship between structure and agency within one nonprofit organization, Appalshop, located in Central Appalachia. Since 1969, Appalshop has worked with peer institutions to form a larger community cultural development (CCD) field, characterized by actors that value the potential of art and cultural activities to create space for individual and collective imagining and reimagining of communities. Through an exploration of archival documents and interviews with 18 current and former Appalshop staff, I analyzed the organization's 50-year evolution. I identified ways in which Appalshop has operated in the midst of different enabling and inhibiting structural forces, how its staff has sought to assert agency by contesting or circumventing those extant forces, and how the ensuing tensions have shaped the organization's approach to social change. During its evolution, Appalshop can be seen as having gone through four different stages characterized by changing national policy and culture as well as the actions of different generations of Appalshop staff. In order to withstand the growth of neoliberalism, changing technology and regional socioeconomic circumstance, Appalshop staff have had to adapt the organization's modus operandi to one that is more region facing and service based. / Doctor of Philosophy / Appalshop is a community cultural development organization located in central Appalachia. Community cultural development (CCD) is characterized by actors that value the potential of art and cultural activities to create space for individual and collective reimagining of communities. Founded in 1969, Appalshop and its staff have approached CCD in many ways, including through media production, youth education, theater and community organizing and, more recently, through community economic development. I explored Appalshop's evolution and sought to assess the ways in which this arts nonprofit has reacted to changing circumstances nationally and within its region, how those external forces have influenced the organization, and how its staff members have worked to contest forces that inhibited their organization's avowed mission and preferred activities. I used New Institutionalist theory, an analytic framework that emphasizes the need to explore the different fields of influence on any organization as well as the individual actors within that entity who, through their drive to create and perpetuate shared social meaning, may adopt or contest the narratives of external fields. I employed new institutionalism to make sense of the factors that have shaped Appalshop's trajectory as an institution to date. During its evolution, Appalshop has experienced four different stages characterized by changing national policy and culture as well as the actions of different generations of Appalshop staff. To withstand the growth of neoliberalism, changing technology and regional socioeconomic circumstances, Appalshop staff have had to adapt the organization's established modus operandi to one that is more region facing and service based.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.

The aim of this research is to contribute ideas toward the possibilities of what music therapy can be, by examining the therapeutic potentials of creating and performing music within the context of an Australian maximum-security women’s prison. Until recently, music therapists rarely documented or explored the potential of performance for music therapy practice while some health professionals even suggested that performance is anti-therapeutic (See Maratos, 2004). Music therapists writing about their practices in forensic settings emphasise the therapeutic potentials of singing and song writing rather than performance and they predominantly approach these activities from a behavioural orientation. The almost singular theoretical approach to practising music therapy in forensic settings reflects a lack of relevant research. Consequently, the purpose underlying this research is to explore the therapeutic potentials of making and performing music with women in prison from an alternative perspective; namely humanistic rather than behavioural. The aim of this research is not only to examine previously undocumented processes in music therapy such as performance but also to contribute to the literature concerning the health and wellbeing of women in prison. / The research was designed as a qualitative case study of a ten-week creative process involving seven women in prison who collaboratively created a musical together with artists from a theatre company. As a culmination of this ten-week process, the women in prison and the artists of the theatre company performed the musical to an audience of approximately 60 prisoners, prison officers, health professionals and prison staff. In order to examine the therapeutic potentials of creating and performing music in this case, post-performance interviews were conducted with the seven women who were in prison as well as with the artists involved in the theatre company. The researcher also wrote session notes throughout the ten-week process and these, as well as the interviews and five songs created during the ten weeks, comprise the data set for this study. / The data was analysed using a variety of qualitative techniques chosen for their suitability to two main research tasks: 1) describing the case and 2) analysing the therapeutic potentials of creating and performing music in this case. In order to describe what happened collectively throughout the ten-week process, a content analysis was performed upon the researcher’s session notes. Phenomenological techniques of analysis were then applied to the interviews with the women in prison in order to describe the essence of each individual’s experience of the ten-week process. The five songs are presented in their original form as a way of further illustrating the case. In order to describe the work of the theatre company, techniques of grounded theory were used to analyse the interviews with the participating artists. Grounded theory analysis was also the method used to ultimately explain various aspects relating to the therapeutic potentials of creating and performing music in this case. / The main results of this analysis are presented in three parts. The first set of results explains how creating and performing music in this case served the participating women in prison as a bridge from the ‘inside’ to the ‘outside’. These women described a real and symbolic divide between their realities inside prison and the world outside the razor wire. By creating and performing music, the women were able to experience five different ways of shifting outside of their realities in prison, by moving 1) from physical and symbolic ‘inside’ places to ‘outside’ places, 2) from privacy to public, 3) from solitude to togetherness, 4) from self-focus to a focus on others, and 5) from subjective thought processes to objective thought processes. The results outline different therapeutic potentials for each type of outward movement. The exploration of an outward-directed approach to music experience in this case can help to extend conventional music therapy practices where inward-directed therapeutic shifts are more commonly described. / The second set of results depicts the influence of five personal resources that helped the women to enact the therapeutic potentials associated with each of the five outward shifts. In particular, these results suggest that each type of outward movement was especially powerful when courage, readiness, exchange, support and trust were present in their fullest dimensions. It was these resources, rather than the processes usually associated with therapy, that enabled the therapeutic potentials of creating and performing music in this case to be fulfilled. Consequently, the notions of ‘therapy’ and ‘therapeutic’ are further delineated while important implications for the use of music as therapy and for the related practice of ‘arts in health’ are highlighted. / The third and final set of results suggest that music in this case, when compared with visual art and drama, provided the women with a ‘middle road’ in terms of the levels of exposure required by each art-form. As a predominantly gentle form of exposure, music in this case provided therapeutic potentials that differed more in strength rather than quality when compared with drama and visual art. These results suggest the importance of creativity in explaining the relationship between the therapeutic potentials of all arts therapies while also representing important implications for the development of indigenous theory in music therapy. / In relation to the stated aims, this research documents and explores the therapeutic potentials of musical performance and directly relates these potentials to new possibilities for music therapy practice. Furthermore, the research presents a humanistic rather than behavioural approach to creating and performing music with women in prison, thereby adding variety and depth to the sparse music therapy literature related to forensic health. More broadly, however, this research adds to the slim body of literature concerning women in prison by outlining a creative and powerful approach to helping such women improve their health and well-being.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis is an enquiry into the social and political role, in Australia, of practices that have attracted such labels as ‘community arts’, ‘cultural animation’, ‘cultural action’, or ‘community cultural development’ (CCD). It is often argued that such practices offer an effective means to bring about social and political change for people and communities who participate in them. Looking specifically at theatre-based approaches to CCD in Australia, this thesis examines an alternative hypothesis, namely that such projects and programs can contribute to the continued marginalisation of those who take part in them. Using a combination of Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to field analysis, Don Handelman’s analytical framework of special events and Baz Kershaw’s theory of potential efficacy, I carry out an ethnographic and performance-based analysis of a particular project called The Longest Night (TLN), which was devised in collaboration with young people from The Parks, a cluster of suburbs north west of Adelaide, South Australia, and in collaboration between Urban Theatre Projects, a small Sydney-based theatre company with a reputation for doing socially and politically challenging work, young people living in The Parks and local partner organisations, for the 2002 Adelaide Festival. I find that in some instances participation in CCD projects and programs is an enabling factor, creating change opportunities in cultural, economic and/or political spheres in the lives of those who take part, whilst at other times it is a constraining factor. Participation in CCD projects and programs creates possibilities because the practices are potentially subversive and foster elements of learning and change in some participants. It also creates limitations because CCD practitioners operate within a subfield of social and cultural practices where the mechanisms and structures in place, indirectly, tend to help reproduce legitimised social and cultural values and norms.

abstract: In contemporary U.S. culture, dance is often confined to the young and the trained, isolated on stages and in dance studios, and viewed as entertainment that is disconnected from "real life." Socially engaged dance practices re-connect dance to society in meaningful ways. By connecting individuals to their own bodies, to each other, to ideas, and to social, civic, and educational institutions, socially engaged dance practices use movement, the body, and the tools of participatory art, which contributes to the development of a democratic society, while catalyzing social change, and building healthy communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. Dance 2013

This thesis adopts a Cultural Industries framework to examine how Queensland's arts council network has, through the provision of arts products and services, contributed to the vitality, health and sustainability of Queensland's regional communities. It charts the history of the network, its configuration and impact since 1961, with particular focus on the years 2001 - 2004, envisages future trends, and provides an analysis of key issues which may be used to guide future policies and programs. Analysis is guided by a Cultural Industries understanding of the arts embedded in everyday life, and views the arts as a range of activities which, by virtue of their aesthetic and symbolic dimensions, enhance human existence through their impact on both the quality and style of human life. Benefits include enhanced leisure and entertainment options, and educational, social, health, personal growth, and economic outcomes, and other indirect benefits which enrich environment and lifestyle. Queensland Arts Council (QAC) and its network of branches has been a dominant factor in the evolution of Queensland's cultural environment since the middle of the 20th century. Across the state, branches became the public face of the arts, drove cultural agendas, initiated and managed activities, advised governments, wrote cultural policies, lobbied, raised funds and laboured to realise cultural facilities and infrastructure. In the early years of the 21st century, QAC operates within a complex, competitive and rapidly changing environment in which orthodox views of development, oriented in terms of a left / right, or bottom up / top down dichotomy, are breaking down, and new convergent models emerge. These new models recognise synergies between artistic, social, economic and political agendas, and unite and energise them in the realm of civil society. QAC is responding by refocusing policies and programs to embrace these new models and by developing new modes of community engagement and arts facilitation. In 1999, a major restructure of the arts council network saw suffragan branches become autonomous Local Arts Councils (LACs), analogous to local Cultural Industry support organisations. The resulting network of affiliated LACs provides a potentially highly effective mechanism for the delivery of arts related products and services, the decentralisation of cultural production, and the nurturing across the state of Creative Community Cultures which equip communities, more than any other single asset, to survive and prosper through an era of unsettling and relentless change. Historical, demographic, behavioural (participation), and attitudinal data are combined to provide a picture of arts councils in seven case study sites, and across the network. Typical arts council members are characterised as omnivorous cultural consumers and members of a knowledge class, and the leadership of dedicated community minded people is identified as the single most critical factor determining the extent of an LAC's activities and its impact on community. Analysis of key issues leads to formulation of eight observations, discussed with reference to QAC and LACs, which might guide navigation in the regional arts field. These observations are then reformulated as Eight Principles Of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation, which provide a framework against which we might evaluate arts policy and practice.