The stickiness of Muslim Neighbors: Evaluating an interfaith arts-based community initiative

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the development of an evaluative framework for Muslim Neighbors, a grass-roots interfaith arts-based initiative in a small midwestern city. A review of literature discusses the unique contributions of the arts and religion (specifically interfaith initiatives) in peacebuilding and community development (two related processes). Then, methods of evaluation for interfaith peacebuilding and socially engaged art (SEA) are synthesized to create an evaluative framework for Muslim Neighbors. This framework is put to work evaluating how Muslim Neighbors addressed Islamophobia and built relationships between different faith groups in its local community. This study concludes that the intersection of interfaith peacebuilding and socially engaged artmaking provides a fruitful structure for building relationships, fostering diversity, and increased civic participation.

KEYWORDS:

• interfaith peacebuilding
• socially engaged art
• participatory action research
• evaluation
• community art

Introduction

“So, who are our Muslim Neighbors?” This question introduces the photonarrative exhibition, Getting to Know Our Muslim Neighbors, one element of a grassroots initiative that ran from late 2015 until summer 2018 in a small city in the rural Midwest. Muslim Neighbors is an interfaith, arts-based, community initiative aimed at addressing Islamophobia, fear of Muslims because of their religion. Islamophobia is rooted in a simplistic understanding about Islam and a “pattern of linking Muslims and Islam with terrorism, violence, and orthodox ideals” in the media (Ahmed & Matthes, 2016, p. 17) pitting Islam as a political force against “the West” (Ahmed & Matthes, 2016; Chitwood, 2015). 9/11 was a catalyst moment for this media discourse and the resultant proliferation of interfaith groups, particularly involving Muslims who up to this point had more often been guests rather than active participants or hosts (Fahy & Bock, 2019). At various times, Muslim Neighbors hosted panel discussions led by local Muslim Americans at Christian churches and civic institutions, interfaith dialogues, meals, and the photonarrative exhibition. The networks formed enabled the creation of an active interfaith leaders organization that continues to engage with various community issues, dialogue with local leadership, respond to current events from a faith-based perspective, and build supportive relationships among different faiths in the community.

As one of the four project leaders, I oriented myself primarily as a community artist and activist with faith-based motivations. I did not begin to think intentionally about ways to evaluate and communicate what happened until faced with the conclusion of our work together. This lag time demonstrates what scholars have found: those engaged in interfaith work often struggle with monitoring and evaluation primarily because their reasons for participating are internally motivated (Orsborn, 2019; Woodrow et al., 2017). Equally challenging was finding language that communicated the spiritual, aesthetic, and secular experiences and goals of the project and those involved.

This article focuses on the development and implementation of an evaluation framework through participatory action research, utilizing two recently published evaluation frameworks from interfaith peacebuilding (Woodrow et al., 2017) and socially engaged art (SEA; Borstel & Korza, 2017; Woodrow et al., 2017). What do these overlapping fields of interest offer in terms of theorizing and communicating what is happening within projects, like Muslim Neighbors? How do these frameworks, together, inform strategies for evaluation in which participants with varying motivations and experiences actively engage? The remainder of this article will provide a brief overview of literature exploring the intersection of art and faith in community building and then present evaluative parameters synthesized from this discussion. Finally, this framework is put to work with Muslim Neighbors to offer useful evaluation strategies for others engaged in community work crossing disciplinary boundaries.

Methodology

Participatory action research (PAR) is an orientation toward research, community work, and teaching based on foundational values of relationship, collaboration, and working toward social change. Kindon et al. (2010) offer a wonderful volume on PAR, focusing on the role of connecting in this process. Like Delacruz (2013), my orientation toward community work, like Muslim Neighbors, is “a hybrid of community-oriented arts-based public engagement, social activism, and action-research oriented inquiry” (p. 261) that sometimes begins as a formal research study and other times begins with a conversation. This study focuses on the development of an evaluative framework, utilizing common PAR methods (participant observation, recorded interviews and informal conversations, meetings, and storytelling) and drawing from a review of literature of socially engaged art (SEA) and interfaith peacebuilding that, when employed, functioned as an analytic framework.

Muslim Neighbors began with a conversation between friends and grew to include four primary leaders: two Christians (myself included) and two Muslims. Together, we made decisions about what we would do as Muslim Neighbors. Reflecting on the project after its conclusion, one Muslim partner described our process:

We’d each have ideas for certain things, and we’d share them. [You] never forced us to do something that we were not comfortable with. There was always a dialogue, and then if we both agreed, yes, this would be something good, it would align with what Muslim Neighbors was about, and it would maybe propel the mission on further, then we’d definitely do it … I think that the decisions were very much as the group. ‘Would this be something that would work? Would we be comfortable doing [it] or is there any potential issues we need to be aware of?’ And then discuss those, have candid conversation, and come to a conclusion. There weren’t a whole lot of issues that didn’t fall within the framework of ‘Do we think this will achieve what we’re hoping to achieve?’ It didn’t lose any of the initial goal. It was just right in there, but it grew to something broader. (personal communication, 26 June 2018)

The initiative first presented panels of Muslim Americans at Christian churches to share their experiences and offer a space for non-Muslims to ask questions. Panels, a form of interfaith dialogue, are a common interfaith activity with a goal of informing and are typically events in which people of different faith traditions come together constructively for three major purposes: 1) truth seeking, 2) individual religious experiences, and 3) socially engaged action (McCarthy, 2007). Muslim Neighbors’ socially engaged action is interfaith peacebuilding, which focuses on the engagement of people who define themselves as religiously motivated from different faith traditions, institutions, identities, narratives, and groups to support peace (Woodrow et al., 2017). Peacebuilding is more than the end to violent conflict; it encompasses efforts to build peace through addressing and transforming the underlying structural, relational, cultural, political, and economic drivers of conflict (Woodrow et al., 2017), in this case attending specifically to Islamophobia.

After the first panel event, I offered my services as a community artist/researcher to create a photonarrative exhibit utilizing methods developed in previous work (Smith, 2017). The exhibit documented the experiences of local, young Muslim Americans. The addition of a photonarrative project expanded the ways we shared stories, offered opportunities to engage with and get to know Muslims at a variety of comfort levels, and opened new venues for our work: coffee shops, hospitals, libraries, and more. For example, one of the first venues for the exhibit was a local coffee shop. People who may have not noticed the local Muslim community were now living life amongst over a dozen large-scale portraits of their Muslim neighbors. The initial dialogue relationships, as Orsborn (2019) found, “laid the groundwork for a coordinated response … showing how the shift to action is not necessarily usurping dialogue, but, in many cases, adding a critical layer” (p. 57).

The arts are not currently represented in the common repertoire of interfaith activities, which typically include candlelight vigils, issued statements of solidarity, and the dialogue gathering (Fahy & Bock, 2019). However, the arts are increasingly used as a means for conflict transformation (Beller, 2009; Cohen et al., 2011a;2011b; Mitchell et al., 2020), playing a vital role in “transforming relationships … and building the capacities required for peace” (Brandeis University, n.d.) and offering modes of expression that embrace paradox, nuance, and multiplicity.

With the addition of photonarrative and more intentional attention to alternative forms of dialogue, interfaith language was not sufficient. SEA language provided additional questions to consider. What various “forms of living” (Thompson, 2017) activated new networks and relationships in our community? How did place-specific identities and the relationships between cultural groups develop opportunities for all sorts of folks to actively participate (Smith, 2016/17/17)? How did our work together advance public awareness of issues like Islamophobia and the siloed efforts of our religious (and community) institutions in addressing hunger, homelessness, mental health, addiction and more? We were mindful not to center our work around a single issue and reflected on our identities, beliefs, and experiences while building relationships; the social and political work becoming a by-product of “harnessing the energies of the various religious communities for community good” (McCarthy, 2007, p. 204). How we went about doing this work, as both interfaith peacebuilding and socially engaged art, offered an opportunity to experiment with recently developed evaluative frameworks from both fields (Borstel & Korza, 2017; Woodrow et al., 2017).

Considering art and religion in community building

The arts and religion each provide unique contributions to community building. This section will focus on the attention given to arts and religion within community development and specifically on the way that socially engaged art and interfaith peacebuilding evaluation frameworks have developed in recent years.

Overall, there has been little attention from the social sciences given to the interfaith movement. Fahy and Bock (2019) attribute this to the centrality of theological concerns. Theologians, like Klaasen (2019), have examined the role of religion in community building. While there is literature exploring the role that the arts and religion separately play in community building, such as Smidt’s (2003) volume exploring religion and social capital in America, there are very few exploring both. Wuthnow (2008) explored the intersection of religion and the arts, providing empirical evidence that religion and the arts intersect in important ways.

Looking at notable studies on the contributions of art and the contributions of religion to community building and social capital, both the arts and religion facilitate opportunities for community education, increased social cohesion (Fahy & Bock, 2019; Otte, 2019; Todd et al., 2017), developing relationships and collective identities (Lowe, 2000; McCarthy, 2007), and increased civic engagement (Smidt, 2003). Lowe (2000) provided empirical evidence for the usefulness of art as a tool for community development paralleling the call for further studies on arts’ role and impact in peacebuilding (Wood, 2015). Otte (2019) found that the arts lead to increased social cohesion, particularly regarding the arts’ ability to bridge, which includes recognizing and understanding others across difference. Curry (2003) examined the role of religion in bonding and bridging social capital across six small towns in Iowa. Curry (2003) concluded that bridging social capital combined with sufficient bonding social capital, the quality of which was determined by religious worldview, led to healthy communities exhibiting sustainable institutions. This study emphasized the diversity among these seemingly monolithic communities, suggesting further study of underlying differences, particularly with regard to motivations for engaging the world outside one’s community, how one participates within institutional structures, and how one is grounded in one’s (religious) identity.

The question of motivation for engagement and participation is where Wuthnow (2008) identifies the crossover between religion and the arts. Wuthnow (2008) found “large segments of the public not only view the arts through an aesthetic lens but also associate the arts with a personal quest for meaning, purpose, and transcendence” (p. 138). The issue of personal motivation presents challenges for evaluating interfaith work, which interfaith initiatives often struggle doing (Orsborn, 2019; Woodrow et al., 2017). Yet, the larger trend that Fahy and Bock (2019) identify in the interfaith movement toward social action rather than dialogue and understanding suggests that increased attention to measurable impacts is not far behind evidenced by the development of an evaluation handbook for peacebuilding initiatives (Woodrow et al., 2017).¹ The challenge of language remains, however, in part because of those faith-based motivations. The goals and impacts of interfaith work are often described in spiritual terms, unfamiliar to secular stakeholders (Fahy & Bock, 2019; Woodrow et al., 2017). The Faith Matters guide for designing, monitoring, and evaluating interreligious² action for peacebuilding aims to provide a shared language while also prioritizing the role of religion and importance of values in design, implementation, and evaluation (Woodrow et al., 2017). However, arts-specific considerations are not present in this guide.

Orsborn (2019) found it difficult to measure impact partially because of the complexity of factors contributing to the intended change in the case study of an interfaith initiative aimed at addressing Islamophobia in the United States. According to Pew Research, attitudes changed positively toward Muslims over the time the initiatives existed (Lipka, 2017, Aug. 9, Aug. 9), but Orsborn did not identify a direct causal link between the initiative and attitude change, acknowledging other contributing factors such as increased public engagement with American Muslim voices via media and culture. On the other hand, McCarthy (2007) found in a survey of 25 interfaith organizations across America that nearly all participants indicated that the relationships nurtured by informal conversations were the most significant aspect of their interfaith work. The formal settings that encourage networking, support, and relationship building were sustained by outside, more informal encounters. The opportunity for encounter is a significant aspect of interfaith work, as is the focus on relationship. Proximity alone does not present a significant factor in facilitating interfaith work as Agrawal and Barratt (2013) found, however it does contribute to creating spaces for interactions and encounters that can lead to attitudinal shifts toward the religious “other.” Moreover, “interfaith dialogue and collective action have been championed as both conduits for social cohesion and antidotes to religious intolerance and violent extremism” (Fahy & Bock, 2019, p. 2).

What we can glean from these studies on religious associations, and specifically interfaith initiatives, is that they contribute to community building by providing opportunities for developing relationships between individuals and institutions that can affect attitudinal shifts (McCarthy, 2007; Orsborn, 2019), encourage civic engagement (Fahy & Bock, 2019; Smidt, 2003), and foster diversity (McCarthy, 2007). Continued consideration of the role that religion plays in these processes, particularly within the interfaith context where individuals from different faith communities collaborate, can provide valuable insight on the role of bonding and bridging in communities. An area of focus specific to the evaluation of such projects includes examination of the motivations for participation, how participants understand their religious identity, how they participate in various institutional structures, and how these things inform the project.

Evaluation of SEA

The specific art form examined in this paper is broadly known as socially engaged art (SEA), though a brief look at the conversations around evaluating SEA demonstrates that there is no formula for defining these works let alone evaluating them. I follow Thompson’s (2012) broad description of the process of creating forms of living that activate communities and advance public awareness of pressing social issues (p. 8). Among SEA, there is a spectrum concerning the quality of relationships and collaborations and its relationship to the aesthetic value which has sparked controversy among art critics, most notably Claire Bishop and Grant Kester in their 2006 ArtForum debate (Bishop, 2006; Kester, 2006, ; Thompson, 2012). This debate demonstrates the variety of theoretical frameworks guiding analysis of these works. For example, Thompson (2012) considers works within the context of neoliberalism and Bishop (2012) draws on poststructural theorists Rancière and Guattari to think about the artist and the social simultaneously, in tension. On the other hand, Kester (in Finkelpearl, 2013) asserts this approach has become canonized, leading to:

a potted cultural studies in which the artist selects a particular social, cultural, or representational system, identifies the often self-evident ideological compromises and complicities committed by its various participants and then boldly intervenes’ … confident that he or she has radically subverted, destabilized, or otherwise transformed the consciousness of all involved. (p. 177)

Finkelpearl alternatively proposes a reading through neopragmatism, the postmodern application of Dewey’s pragmatism by philosophers such as Richard Rorty that “focuses on social practice and political experimentation” (Bunnin & Yu, 2004, p. 467). This use-value approach is vastly different than the poststructural approach to artmaking and criticism that draws heavily on subversion and disruption of existing systems of truth without necessarily doing anything else. It is here that the work of Muslim Neighbors lands: a neopragmatic approach to socially engaged artmaking applied to interfaith peacebuilding.

Despite these varied philosophical foundations, all would agree traditional evaluation language has not been sufficient. Kester calls for “a more critical and reciprocal relationship between theoretical and artistic practice” (in Finkelpearl, 2013, p. 119) and Bishop (2012) stresses the importance of not collapsing these works into a calculation of social utility while also recognizing the need for different forms of evaluation than those of object-based practice. Bishop (2012) adds that “we need to recognize art as a form of experimental activity overlapping with the world … [and] support the progressive transformation of existing institutions through the transversal encroachment of ideas whose boldness is related to (and at times greater than) that of artistic imagination” (p. 45). For Thompson (2012), evaluation of such works is “a battle between efficacy and pedagogy between the symbolic, mediated, and practical” (p. 32). What these authors offer is a call for evaluation frameworks that focus on the role of the artist, the methodology, and pedagogy of the work, the quality of relationships developed among those participating, and the aesthetic and social value of the process and outcomes.

There have been answers to that call, including from organizations such as A Blade of Grass and Americans for the Arts. A Blade of Grass has developed a framework for evaluating artistic excellence, artists in leadership roles to promote social change, and relevance to participating communities, utilizing evidence collected through observations, interviews, and conversations with stakeholders (Cohen-Cruz, 2014). Animating Democracy, an Americans for the Arts program, also developed an evaluation framework called Aesthetic Perspectives for “projects at the intersection of artistic creation and civic engagement, community development, and justice” (Borstel & Korza, 2017, p. 5), providing a flexible framework to be applied across varied stakeholders, posing questions about social change as well as excellence as art and how its artistic qualities help achieve its aims. Aesthetic Perspectives is meant to establish a common language around how art contributes to positive social change. There are many examples using this evaluation framework, but none explicitly attending to interfaith initiatives (Animating Democracy, n.d.).

Both Aesthetic Perspectives and Faith Matters address the need for specific, yet transferrable language. What can be utilized from these models to discuss and understand what Patton (2011) calls the “muddled middle” of Muslim Neighbors? Comparing the language of both frameworks in Table 1 provides the basis of the evaluation framework developed in this study.

Table 1. Comparing Evaluation Criteria: Interfaith Peacebuilding and Socially Engaged Art.

Faith Matters (Woodrow et al., 2017)	sthetic Perspectives (Borstel & Korza, 2017)
Relevance	Communal meaning
Effectiveness	Risk-taking
Efficiency	Resourcefulness Coherence
Impact	Disruption Emotional Experience Sensory Experience
Sustainability	Stickiness
Coordination and linkages	Commitment Openness
Consistency with values	Cultural integrity

Methods and analysis: Developing an evaluation framework

To conduct this research, I utilized methods commonly employed in PAR including observation, thick description, interpretation, and drawing out the experiences of people the project is meant to engage and benefit. While A Blade of Grass positions the evaluator as a “supportive witness” (Cohen-Cruz, 2014, p. 3), I consider my role as active participant, as well as evaluator. This shifts the methodological focus from action research to PAR, in which various stakeholders participate in the evaluation and monitoring through collaborative inquiry. Not only is our work seeking to affect social change, but it also does so by actively building relationships and defining the vision, questions, methods, and assessment together. Being a participant-observer-artist-evaluator entailed keeping notes, documenting numbers of participants, planning activities, working with partners to discuss the project, make decision, revisit goals and aims, and reflect on what was happening; essentially, embedding action research strategies into the initiative.³ The cyclical nature of this approach to research and community work means that analysis is ongoing and informs actions rooted in the experiences and understanding of the participants and community context.

Three additional methods were utilized specifically to implement the evaluation. First, I created several maps, starting with a timeline of the project. This led to different iterations focused on relationships, networks, events, and key encounters. This practice helped identify varied factors that made particular forms of our work fruitful. It also proved to be an initial round of analysis for key experiences (Stringer & Ortiz Aragon, 2021, pp. 175–177). Though the leadership team did not do this together, it would have been a beneficial exercise to compare visualizations as well as details included or excluded. Second, I recorded interviews with project partners. The interview protocol was developed from a list of questions, key moments, and my mapping exercise to solicit verbiage for project goals, vision, and roles as well as description and reflection on the project events. Finally, I utilized the interviews, maps, and other project documentation to reconstruct telling moments utilizing thick description to explore context, emotional, and sensory experiences, and connections between relationships, “mediating third things” (Bishop, May 2006) and potential “stickiness” (Borstel & Korza, 2017).

A layered analysis enriched and extended understanding (Stringer & Ortiz Aragon, 2021). The layers were derived from Keifer-Boyd (2013) and Woywod and Smith-Shank (2013). I first developed a code to disassemble and reassemble the data collected, based on the language of interfaith building and SEA (see, Table 1). This included three foci: 1) reconstruction of context and journey, 2) holding in tension the quality of participation and the quality of the mediating third thing(s), and 3) evolving theories of change. These foci formed the basis of the recorded interviews with project leaders, as a form of face validity in which participants offer layered analysis of researcher’s coding. Finally, these foci informed the following layers of analysis: 1) reconstruction of telling moments, 2) the quality of participation, the mediating third thing(s), and evolving theories of change 3) evaluation, or the stickiness of Muslim Neighbors.

Layer 1: Reconstruction of telling moments

Projects such as Muslim Neighbors are a specific response to a local matrix of conditions. Cohen-Cruz (2014) suggests “outcome harvesting,” working backwards from what actually happened to original design to identify what led to the results, considering the ways in which both relationships and artistic qualities contributed to those outcomes. The goals of reconstructing the context and journey are:

• identify key decisions, points of risk-taking and resourcefulness

• understand the complexity and dynamics of faith, identity (particularly religious identity), politics, and place

• attending to the language used by various participants and how it stems from values and motivations for participation.

The following encounters weave together observations, interview transcripts, mapping, and project documents. They collapse chronological time in favor of the connections between various events, people, and places. The stories included were frequently shared at public events as anecdotal evidence of the impact of our work, discussed among project leaders, and included in all post-project reflections.

Encounter 1: The other side of the river

It is said that the setting for the television show Parks and Recreation is based on our city, which sits on opposite sides of a river, halfway between two much larger metropolises. It is a small city, supported by a growing and varied industry (primarily on the east side) and a large, public land-grant university (on the west side). There is a narrative of a liberal, white collar, educated, ethnically diverse, wealthy west side and blue collar, conservative east side, which is reinforced by the political affiliations of their respective mayors. On top of these frequently repeated narratives, there is a layer of “those city people” coming in search of jobs, more affordable living and better social services, coded language to comment on the growing African American population and perceived correspondence in crime. It is a rather transient population – from university students to individuals and families coming for social services. Within this constantly changing context there is a small Muslim community, supported by an Islamic Center on campus that serves both the student population as well as the small number of residential families. The next closest mosque is 62 miles away.

This first encounter occurred several months into our initiative. By this point, we had presented about a dozen panels as well as hosted community dialogues and the photonarrative exhibit at two other locations. The exhibit hung in the west side library, and we organized a hybrid event: part panel, part dinner, part dialogue. The room was full, with the photos surrounding the audience. Food from a local Mediterranean restaurant sat waiting at tables behind us. I lingered in the back, collecting notecards with questions on them and taking pictures. I like to stay behind the scenes, working. Our panelists sat at the front: two young men and a young woman wearing hijab. I welcomed everyone to the event, and our panelists introduced themselves. Graduate and professional students, all grew up locally. They shared experiences growing up and more recently since 9/11, 2016 primary elections, and various incidents around the country and world involving Islamic extremists. Then, the floor opened for questions. Two stuck:

There are already groups doing this. You are not the first or the only ones. More of a comment, and less of a question, and one I heard almost verbatim at another event a few weeks prior. In planning conversations following, our question was always, “Where? Who? Why haven’t we heard of them?” Evidence of unsustainable institutions and thin trust.

How do you address “preaching to the choir?” I look around the room and I see people who are already inclined to come to this sort of thing, who are already in a mind-set to seek diversity and learn more. So how do you reach people who don’t know they need to change? A question about the efficacy of our work, and the opportunities for actual bridging.

We responded about an upcoming event in a small, rural town the next county over, but I was uncomfortable with the change theory this question represented: someone needs changed and we know what that looks like. It was a nagging feeling that perhaps a different theory was needed moving forward. We were not only doing education events anymore and participation became more complicated. This was a point that not everyone in our group agreed with. I recognize that my views on this are deeply influenced by my identity as a Christian, White woman not having experienced the extent of what misinformation, stereotyping, and phobia can lead to for my Muslim partners, particularly the women who wear hijab. As a community researcher, I tend to look for opportunities to connect and avoid language that closes opportunities to participate and build relationships across differences. We never did come to a consensus on this point, nor did I sense that we felt the need to.

Encounter 2: A new county, a new audience

As a result of the first dialogue event at the coffee house, we were invited to bring the exhibit to the county hospital. To get there, you drive about a half hour through cornfields past hundreds of wind turbines along the interstate. The hospital is the largest building in this small town, and it sits at the edge of a field.

The day I installed the exhibit in a room next to the cafeteria, I received a string of safety alert texts about an incident at Ohio State – a young Somali man attempted to stab students outside a building on campus and was shot and killed by campus police. In the days that followed the installation, we received several online comments from a local pastor outraged that the hospital was promoting Islam and, “When is the week for ‘getting to know our Christian neighbors’?” (personal communication, 14 November 2016). I prepared my partner and the other Muslim participants, all doctors who had served this community for years, who had volunteered to lead discussion tables, for potential disruption. We decided to offer small discussion tables rather than a panel, to provide people the opportunity to ask questions in a less public manner (a suggestion from the doctor who had asked us to come).

So distraught by the convergence of these two events, I offered to give the opening remarks at our event; the one and only time I have done so. I remember being unable to hold back tears.

Muslim Neighbors began to address increased Islamophobia during the presidential campaign by offering panels of local Muslim Americans at churches, a chance for people to get to know their Muslim Neighbors. The goal [of the photonarrative exhibit you see here] was to create a counternarrative to the representations found in popular culture which shape so many of our ideas about who Muslims are, what they do, and where they belong. The stories that we share demonstrate a rich diversity. Just among those represented in our project, we have individuals from Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, big cities, and small towns. We have individuals whose parents immigrated here on student visas, those who parents came under political asylum, those whose families have lived in the United States for hundreds of years. We have African Americans, who were the first Muslims in the Americas before the US was even a country. We have individuals who practice Sunni, who have background in Nation of Islam, and those who refuse to identify with any particular sect. This gives you an idea of the rich diversity of Muslim Americans, who are developing a unique practice of Islam that brings together many cultures, practices, and histories.  

I don’t normally speak much in the beginning of these programs, but I wanted to share a little about some recent events. You may have heard about what they are calling the “Violent Incident” at The Ohio State University. This event struck close to home, and when I received text alerts that the campus was on lock down on Monday, I was devastated. There has been much tension on campus post-election – Muslim students afraid, incidents of racist comments in the classrooms, Muslim women who are spit on or had nasty comments thrown at them. When I learned that the young man responsible for injuring students and faculty was killed, I mourned. What brought a 20-year-old to a place where he sought to harm others? What could have prevented such an act? When I learned that he was Somali American, my heart broke. He was a resettled refugee and an American citizen. We won’t know the motivations for his actions, but let’s not forget that there are so many factors bringing a person to the place of harming others: Isolation. Trauma. No sense of belonging.  

I spoke with my good friend and research partner [who is Somali American] last night about how she and her family were faring. I asked her how this young man’s family was doing. Devastated of course. He was a son, a brother, a cousin. And there is great fear. Fear of talking about what caused him to snap. Fear of talking about getting others help. Fear of those outside their community who are throwing coffee on young women at Tim Hortons simply for wearing a headscarf. Fear of mourning a loved one who hurt so many others. Fear of not knowing how to bury him, acknowledging that his life had worth while recognizing that he was denying others that same dignity.  

I share all this because I want today to be a safe space to talk about these issues. Ask the Muslim Neighbors at your table how news reports and current events affect their daily lives. Ask them how they feel. Get to know them, not just as Muslims, but as people. I believe that in having these conversations, by opening our lives to each other, we can stop hurting each other and create communities where there are spaces for people to find the resources they need, to find support, and care, and acceptance. (personal communication, 1 December 2016 edited for conciseness)

I sat with that doctor and her friend, and three men from the local community. It was a challenging conversation and emotionally charged. At another table, four high-school students sat with their guidance counselor, a man carrying a concealed weapon, and two of our Muslim participants. I left feeling like my words were not heard, and that our conversations did not matter.

The pastor never showed.

This was definitely not preaching to the choir.

Later, we hosted the exhibit and a panel at the county library. It was a smaller room and a smaller audience. The portraits surrounded us, additional audience members. During the panel, an older man raised a question. The specific content is now blurred among all the other questions we have received but was one informed by misinformation about Islam. We later defined these types of questions as belligerent questions that had an accusatory element to them. This type of question was often responded to with a spirit of accountability. Our Muslim panelists were not alone: either someone from within the community we were visiting would speak up, either implicitly or explicitly, or the moderator would step in and remind everyone of what we were trying to achieve – a space to build bridges. We developed a habit of approaching the individual afterward to engage them in conversation, to address privately whatever their concerns were.

This man had already made up his mind. He was very firm in his position that the world around him was changing, and that included, but certainly was not limited to, Muslims coming into his community. “But he had a self-awareness too. He gave the impression that “this is where I’m at, right or wrong, I don’t like change, don’t expect me to start liking it” (personal communication, 26 June 2018). Months later, we reflected:

What was this man’s purpose for coming? He obviously did not expect to … if he expected to learn anything, he didn’t expect it to change his thinking or behavior. He didn’t seem set on changing anyone else’s mind though. So, it got me wondering, if what his biggest need there really was just to be heard. And if that was what he hoped to get out of it, I think he got that from our conversation afterwards. [We] did a lot of listening and responded in ways that indicated [we] heard what he said and [we] had our own thoughts too. I wonder what that meant for him to show up at that event and have a conversation with a Muslim, and to simply feel heard. (personal communication, 26 June 2018)

Layer 2: Context, third things, participation, and theories of change

Comparing these two encounters offers insights about the importance of context, the form, and quality of the third thing, and the different forms of and motivations for participation, and theories of change. In reflecting on each focus of this evaluation, I offer strategies for future implementation.

Context varies even within a single initiative. What it meant to be Muslim in our small city was much different that what it meant in the county. We were never asked in the city, for example, if we would be proselytizing for Islam. We were, however, asked this in the county where a fear of conversion and of change was expressed during both dialogue events. Not only were our visibly Muslim partners asked this, but I was also. More than once I was asked if I was Muslim despite my lack of visible identity markers (most notably hijab) and open association with Christianity. Yet, to assign a clear descriptor to these two communities as religiously monolithic or diverse would overlook individual motivation, participation, and understanding of (religious) identity. One conversation with local religious leaders of a large non-denominational church in the city brought this to light. We were attempting to establish a relationship with an evangelical church in the area known for active civic engagement and community development initiatives. They would allow us to rent their community space like any other organization but would not host an event or promote it to their congregants. Yet, some of their members attended our events and pursued opportunities to build deeper relationships within the interfaith context. This same institution refused to rent their space to the Islamic Center for their Eid celebration a few years earlier. To further nuance this example, around the same time, the leaders officially supported the building of a new Islamic Center. While we continued to have little success engaging the large, evangelical churches in our work, there were two evangelical pastors who became active members of the Interfaith Leaders group.

The mediating third thing

Examining the quality of the “mediating third thing” (Bishop, 2012) focuses on identifying and understanding the “objects” created that advanced the ideas of the artist and were most effective in transforming the participant and viewer, considering both the emotional and sensory experience. I hold the word “objects” loosely as it includes in Muslim Neighbors the various elements of our initiative, including events, conversations, intentional relationships, photographs, narratives, and website. Moreover, the “ideas of the artist” in our case were the underlying aims of the leadership team. This exemplifies a significant challenge of this work; the language of existing frameworks does not easily fit depending on how one’s role is defined (as artist, partner, community member, researcher, evaluator, etc.). In PAR, for instance, putting the artist at the center of these relationships and objects is at odds with the value of radical collaboration and aim of transforming the power relationships between researcher and community.

The exhibit offered a different entry point for those not willing or able to engage face-to-face. A website offered the opportunity to explore further. In public spaces, faces of those who looked both different and familiar (but identified as other by virtue of inclusion in the exhibit), confronted and challenged (in the case of the county) and affirmed (in the case of the west side) the expectations of community belonging. The most notable example of questioning and reimagining was the interaction with the man in Encounter 2. While his ideas about change and community belonging as far as we know did not change, there was a shift in relations that was significant indicated in the listening and honoring present in reflections afterward.

The form and quality of the third thing, in these cases, the events and conversations with surrounding exhibit, directly impacts the quality of participation. We were mindful of the feedback received from our community hosting partners about appropriate forms of dialogue and built on previous experiences of what worked and did not. We discussed how various elements of our work presented opportunities to participants and audience to reimagine the world and our relations anew, questioning existing systems of knowledge and values, and devising a new way forward together. Embedding questions about how context and identity inform mission, vision, and impact of “third things,” and other questions developed through the work together, into conversations among project partners throughout the duration of the initiative would improve the ability to monitor and evaluate these works.

Participation and audience

Quality of participation considers the relationship between artist, participant, and viewer as well as how the values of participants interact and inform decisions. This encompasses examining efficacy and pedagogy, and an exploration of the roles played and how those involved understood them, including personal motivations for engagement as well as understanding communal identities and how they intersect within the project (following Curry, 2003).

Not all participation is equal, nor should it be. Understanding who is engaged, with what, and to what extent is vital for communicating what is actually happening, how and toward what end. Our scale of participation ranged from 1) the small group of community partners making decisions about the direction of the initiative, planning events, engaging, and connecting networks of people to 2) participants who contributed their stories to the exhibit, offered their time as panelists, or hosts in the community who worked with us to bring the initiative to their locations to 3) those who formed the audiences for our various events. The audience at our events is further subcategorized as belligerent, misinformed, and oriented. The belligerent included those who had already made up their mind to remain misinformed. The misinformed audience included those who either did not know much about Islam or Muslims but were willing to learn. The already-oriented were those “in the choir.”

Evolving theories of change

Different audiences informed what it meant to transform or change in these different contexts: from addressing Islamophobia to activating networks to building a stronger community of support through story and dialogue, relationship building, and community education. Exploring the evolving theories of change over the course of the project and what change occurred considers the individual and collective, the scope of change, and follows questions of openness, disruption, and sustainability (what Aesthetic Perspectives calls “stickiness”).

Evaluations need to navigate these multiple and changing theories. For example, for the belligerent, the outcomes that we observed were not the changing of minds but rather a reorienting of relations, as demonstrated in the example of the older man in Encounter 2. However, for the misinformed, education was at the heart of the change theory. In fact, one of initial reasons we offered panels at Christian churches was based on the idea that most Christians just do not know any Muslims personally, which was, in our estimation one of the major contributing factors of increased Islamophobia among them (Lipka, 2017, Aug. 9, Aug. 9). For many, existing information about Islam comes primarily from media sources (Ahmed & Matthes, 2016), so increasing religious literacy and offering the chance to talk with a Muslim in their community was a crucial step (Chitwood, 2015). We shared the following example of this type of impact at numerous panels. In the spring of 2017, I accompanied a group of Muslim students to a university service day to take photos for the exhibit. Our group went to a home of an older woman to do yardwork. After a morning of raking and clearing garden beds on a freezing spring morning, she invited the group inside for snacks and hot drinks. She recognized one of our partners from a panel she attended a few weeks earlier. She told him that shortly after attending the panel, a coworker made a comment about Muslims that was incorrect and (probably) unintentionally hateful. Rather than saying nothing, she stepped in to respond to the comment. She told our partner that she was able to do this because of what she learned from him at our event.

Finally, Muslim Neighbors gave the already-oriented something to get involved in that aligned with desires they already had, increasing civic engagement. These “choir members” chose to attend our events and expressed interest in continuing involvement. Some became hosts for events at new locations. Others became community partners, inviting leaders to participate in, speak at, and advise at other religious and community activist groups. This activated new networks and cross-pollinated efforts toward community change.

Further study of the personal motivations at various levels of participation and how communal identities inform them are important to align the working theories of change with participant values in interfaith work.

Layer 3: Evaluative findings, or the stickiness of muslim neighbors

No matter how we position Muslim Neighbors, at its conclusion the hope is that something has happened. Aesthetic Perspectives calls this “stickiness,” which includes sustained resonance, impact, or value. The evaluative question remains: what evidence of change is there? How does the work support continued engagement on the issue at hand? Afterward, what do people remember about it? Assessing the effect of these projects is a tricky business, especially without a longitudinal view. Dwyer (2012, May 2) has identified a list of early signs of potential impact of SEA, which I have rewritten to include issues related specifically to interfaith work as seen in Table 2.

Table 2. Indicators of Potential Impact adapted from Dwyer (2012, May 2).

Indicators of Potential Social Change adapted from Dwyer (2012, May 2)

New relationships formed and existing ones strengthened (bonding), especially from those boundary-crossing opportunities (bridging) nurtured by the arts and interfaith work. In particular, “communities of commitment” and the particular mix of linkages and bonding and bridging social ties (Curry, 2003). New stories told, including recognition of previously untold stories. Whose stories are told, how and to whom? Public policy openings, even when not successful. New roles assumed by collaborators, both formal and informal. Subtle shifts in power, including empowerment of participants and partners; and Involvement of new leaders and artists who can spark subsequent engagements over future issues.

For Muslim Neighbors, there is indication that participation led to relationship building (the scope of which ranged from individual to community), fostering diversity, and increased civic participation. A final example addresses the way these three outcomes intertwine. The evening after the first Executive Order on Immigration was signed in January of 2017, I received several e-mails from people who knew me from Muslim Neighbors asking what they could do. Could Muslim Neighbors come to their church, organization, group? I had already been thinking about sustainability – how could the heart of this work, relationship building, continue when we all moved? One answer was to document our process on the website. Another was to train leaders in other cities to start their own initiative. For this particular moment, instead of planning individual events, I called on the network we had built over the previous year. We gathered for a faith leaders meeting to discuss how we could better support our Muslim and immigrant neighbors. This meeting resulted in the formation of an interfaith leaders organization, which continues to meet under different leadership with representation from the Muslim, Christian, Baha’i, Hindu, and Jewish communities. The organization hosts meetings, community education events in the form of interfaith panels, and opportunities to serve the community together. Many elements of Muslim Neighbors are evident in the workings of this organization, primarily the focus on developing relationships as a foundation for building (together) a better community, further situating Muslim Neighbors within the larger interfaith movement (Fahy & Bock, 2019; McCarthy, 2007). We do not have measurable impact regarding attitudinal shifts any more than Orsborn (2019), but what we do have are the relationships activated because of our dialogues, panels, and events as well as the organizational structure for the interfaith organization.

Conclusion: Strategies for monitoring and evaluation

The overlapping fields of interfaith peacebuilding and socially engaged art offer a pragmatic, collaborative approach to evaluation considering individual motivations, values, and identities. This article has presented an example of its application. Table 3 synthesizes the experimental implementation of the evaluative framework developed from the literature review in this study. Participatory action research strategies are embedded into project planning and implementation and address three key points: reconstruction of context and journey, the quality of participation and the “mediating” third thing, and consideration of the evolving theories of change. This framework offers strategies for those embedded as researchers/educators/artists and attends to the shifting postures such work entails. However, the specific methods and foci should be adapted to particular context, processes, and participants. Table 4 shows a list of questions to embed into planning conversations to facilitate reflective monitoring toward evaluative ends. Some are questions utilized in Muslim Neighbors. Others are questions I wished I would have asked earlier.

Table 3. Evaluative Framework.

Foci	What to communicate
(Re)construction of context and journey	What happened and how it came to be; narrative context; identification of networks, relationships, and spatial/geographic; context of change
(2) Holding in tension the quality of participation and the quality of the mediating third thing(s)	Communal identities and personal motivations and values informing participation, processes, and products. What was created, who created it, and how, and its value to the participant, the community, and of itself.
(3) Considering the evolving theories of change	What is considered success at various points of the initiative.
Methods of Collection	Uses of information	Timing
Participant Observation: keeping notes, documenting numbers of participants, planning activities, collaborating with partners to discuss the project, make decisions, revisit goals and aims, and reflect on what is happening as it happens.	For monitoring, decision making, and reconstruction narratives	Throughout initiative
Recorded interviews with project partners. Provide a list of key moments based on previous conversations and questions soliciting verbiage regarding project goals, vision, and roles.	To integrate multiple voices into reconstruction narratives and intentionally reflect on the process.	Post-project
Mapping of project: can use chronology, networks, relationships, and/or events as basis.	For evaluation and to identify points of sustainability, signs of potential impact or stickiness	Post-project
Reconstruct telling moments utilizing thick description to explore context, emotional and sensory experiences, and explore connections between relationships, “mediating third things,” and potential impact.	To support evaluative claims	Post-project

Table 4. Questions to embed throughout planning and implementation to track evaluation.

Consistency of Values (communal identity, motivations, and participation) Would this be something that would work? Would we be comfortable doing [it], or is there any potential issues we need to be aware of? What motivates us in this project? How do our beliefs and values align (or not) and how do they impact our vision for this work? Quality and impact of “third things” What are the things that create spaces for people to build relationships, learn about each other, share stories previously untold, and/or participate in a new way? How did these things communicate to participants and audience permitting the experience to reimagine the world and our relations anew? How did it reveal, reduplicate, or reflect the world? How did it question a value system (and what system) and devise a new language for moving forward together? Aligning “third things” with motivations and mission Will this achieve what we are hoping to achieve? Is it appropriate for the most vulnerable in our work? How do our personal motivations and beliefs inform and intersect in this thing? Theories and evidence of change and potential impact What is our working vision of change? How do these visions challenge, limit, or benefit the work? What evidence of change is there, and how do we know? How does the work support continued engagement on the issue at hand? Afterward, what do people remember about it? What signs of potential impact exist?

The difficulty in monitoring and evaluating such works has been discussed. One challenge that Muslim Neighbors faced was not clearly defining what we were doing using terms such as interfaith and peacebuilding among project partners. Woodrow et al. (2017) and Abu-Nimer and Katalin Nelson (2021) also recommend to developing a clear set of objectives for the work so outcomes can be tracked through both qualitative and quantitative means. While we reflected continuously about what we were doing and why, it was not until the conclusion of the project that we discussed specific objectives and outcomes. Subsequently, this case study does not offer specific evidence of measurable impact beyond anecdotal evidence. More examples documenting the use of these evaluative frameworks at work with grassroots initiatives is needed to provide more concrete evidence of impact and the role that diversity of individual motivation, participation and experience plays within the religious communities involved in interfaith work. It is my hope that these frameworks and examples will provide support to others engaged in interfaith work, offering strategies to better plan, discuss, and understand the work and its impact on participants, audiences, and the community.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. A more recent publication on evaluating interfaith peacebuilding offers additional exploration of challenges and strategies (Abu-Nimer & Katalin Nelson, 2021) but was not available at the time of this study.

2. The terms interfaith and interreligious are often used interchangeably, though there are distinctions. Agrawal and Barrett (2014) discuss the differences well, identifying a difference in principles as well as players. Interreligious dialogue focuses on understanding across all world religions while interfaith dialogue focuses on cooperation among the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I primarily use the term interfaith initiative and include all world religions as well as multiple purposes and forms of the work, including both cooperation and education.

3. Delacruz (2013) offers a wonderful example and description of embedding action research strategies