Book chapter
Collaboration as a Tool for Transformative Justice: Writing, Songwriting, and Communal Singing
Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections, pp.105-121
Routledge
2024
DOI: 10.4324/9781003401582-9
Abstract
In this methodology chapter, I examine my experiences and development of collaborative scholarship, through twenty years of studying and facilitating prison choirs and music-making in prisons. Researchers often subscribe to the practice of maintaining an objective distance between researcher and those being researched. Many qualitative methods, however, have little or no separation between the researcher and the research population. The context of any research study impacts what type of methodology is most appropriate to answer the research questions. My research goals and therefore methods have evolved throughout my career. I originally applied traditional research methods to my work in prison, focusing on endpoints such as the impact of choral singing in prisons on participants' self-esteem and attitudes toward incarcerated individuals. As I continued to learn about historical, contextual, and personal aspects of prisons, however, I realized that creating spaces for relationship-building with underlying aims of building care for oneself and others and dismantling carceral logics are most important to me. This change necessitated new research methods which incorporated collaborative scholarship with incarcerated individuals. Through collaboration, possibilities exist for a fundamental shift in consciousness, bringing deeper awareness to complex and systemic personal and societal problems and providing shared possibilities for transformative justice.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Collaboration as a Tool for Transformative Justice: Writing, Songwriting, and Communal Singing
- Creators
- Mary Cohen
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections, pp.105-121
- Publisher
- Routledge
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781003401582-9
- Alternative title
- Collaboration as a Tool for Transformative Justice
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2024
- Academic Unit
- School of Music; Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984737129602771
Metrics
1 Record Views