Engaging communities: The impact of culture and art education in emergency and recovery situations

• In Event: Virtual Roundtable Session 2
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: It Takes a Community: Education, Culture, and Collective Resilience in Conflict and Recovery Settings

Proposal

Education through the arts plays a vital role in emergency and recovery contexts by fostering community engagement, psychosocial resilience, and cultural continuity among populations affected by crises. This panel explores interdisciplinary approaches to integrating artistic education in humanitarian settings, emphasizing the transformative potential of creative practices to support healing, identity reconstruction, and social cohesion.
Drawing from case studies and fieldwork in conflict-affected regions such as Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Romania, the presentations highlight innovative educational methodologies that bridge formal and non-formal learning environments. These approaches involve close collaboration between artists, educators, humanitarian actors, and local communities, aiming to co-create culturally relevant and empowering learning experiences (Buriel, 2024; Sensevy, 2011).
The panel builds on theoretical frameworks from didactics of action (Sensevy, 2011), cooperative engineering (Artigue & Gruson, 2019), and resilience theory (Ungar, 2011), linking these to practical experiences of arts-based interventions in fragile contexts. It further references recent discussions from the World Conference on Cultural and Artistic Education (WCCAE, 2024), which underscored the critical role of cultural education in post-conflict recovery and social justice.
Key challenges addressed include resource scarcity, security constraints, and the ethical imperative to respect local cultural identities while navigating complex political and social dynamics. The panel also investigates how arts education serves as a psychosocial support mechanism, particularly for youth in vulnerable situations, through practices encouraging narrative reconstruction, emotional expression, and community dialogue (UNICEF, 2022; Buriel et al., 2023).
Finally, the session situates these experiences within broader international policy debates, proposing recommendations for improved coordination among stakeholders and for developing sustainable, context-adapted educational programs that prioritize participation and local ownership.
By integrating academic research, field expertise, and artistic perspectives, this panel offers a comprehensive analysis of the impact of education through the arts in fragile contexts. It invites dialogue on the possibilities and limitations of creative education as a tool for resilience and social transformation, emphasizing participatory and cooperative methodologies.

Author

• Albane Buriel, Université Rennes 2