What is Puppetry Doing in Community Practice?

Abstract

The pursuit of social justice must include art and creativity to challenge systems of oppression and imagine a new world. Arts-based approaches, specifically puppetry, can offer social work researchers and practitioners another way of exploring complex community issues. While puppetry has been used as a therapeutic intervention with children, puppetry also has roots in community-based education and organising efforts that social work can learn from. Drawing upon empirical and theoretical literature, this paper describes how puppetry can aid in the creation of actionable knowledge that can promote social change within social work practice, research, and education.

Keywords:

• community practice
• puppetry
• arts-based methods

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This work did not receive funding.

Additional information

Funding

This work did not receive funding.

Notes on contributors

Greer A. Hamilton

Greer A. Hamilton (she/her), PhD, MSW is a transitional postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Her work examines how systems of oppression are embedded into the built environment and subsequently impact people’s health, well-being, and use of public spaces. As a researcher, she uses community-engaged and arts-based approaches to understand people’s experiences with places. Correspondence to: School of Social Work, University Michigan, 1080 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA. Email: [email protected]