Channelling discomfort through the arts: A Covid-19 case study through an intercultural telecollaboration project
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2021-11-18
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Citation of Original Publication
Porto M, Golubeva I, Byram M. Channelling discomfort through the arts: A Covid-19 case study through an intercultural telecollaboration project. Language Teaching Research. November 2021. doi:10.1177/13621688211058245
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© The Author(s) 2021. Non-commercial use only. No derivative uses.
Subjects
Abstract
In this article we argue, in the context of the current dominance of the performative and
instrumental drives characterising the accountable university, that language and
intercultural communication education in universities should also be humanistic,
addressing ‘discomforting themes’ to sensitise students to issues of human suffering and
engage them in constructive and creative responses to that suffering. We suggest that arts-based methods can be used and illustrate this with an international project created in
response to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. In this way language and intercultural
communication education can become a site of personal and social transformation.
Through arts-based methodologies and pedagogies of discomfort, Argentinian and US
undergraduates explored how the theme of the Covid-19 crisis has been expressed
artistically in their countries, and then communicated online, using English as their lingua
franca, to design in mixed international groups artistic multimodal creations
collaboratively to channel their suffering and trauma associated with the pandemic. This
article analyses and evaluates the project. Data comprise the students’ artistic multimodal
creations, their written statements describing their creations, and pre and post online
surveys. Our findings indicate that students began a process of
transformation of disturbing affective responses by creating artwork and engaging in
therapeutic social and civic participation transnationally, sharing their artistic creations
using social media. We highlight the powerful humanistic role of education involving
artistic expression, movement, performativity, and community engagement in order to
channel discomforting feelings productively at personal and social levels.