Pathways Indra Congress: Cultural Literacy for Social Change

ABSTRACT

The Indra Congress is a global network of community artists, cultural practitioners and educators. An alternative mediator of arts and culture for intra- and inter-personal social change, it provides a safe space for youth to communicate social issues. The network actively participates in a biannual programme where representatives of the different Indra hubs come together in a face-to-face congress. The art-based approach challenges stereotypes, prejudices, inequalities and descriptive myths in order to build bridges, to promote empathy and to help develop positive relationships. In this article a reflection on Indra practise and the use of arts for social change is related to critical questions and the on-going discussions about cultural literacy. The analysis relates to the analogy upon which the Indra Congress draws its practice namely that of the description of the god Indra’s net and intersecting points. It starts with an experiential analysis of the Pathways, Indra Congress event and its host, ARROWSA. The article further analyses how themes of diversity and local and personal narratives intersect with critical cultural diversity. As such, it promotes that the Congress embodies a practice of cultural literacies, that promotes the sharing of differences and commonalities through collaboration in the arts and culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical cultural diversity
• cultural literacies
• Indra Congress
• arts
• social change

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Professor Tim Prentki is a director of The Indra Congress Community Interest Company (see https://www.theindracongress.com/ accessed on 27 August 2020).

2 ARROWSA (Reg 088–058 NO) is a registered voluntary non-profit organization (see www.arrowsa.blogspot.com accessed on 27 August 2020).

3 Ongezwa Mbele’s poem, titled Migrant Labour Love, emailed to authors, 24/06/2020.

4 https://www.theindracongress.com/ accessed 21 December 2019.

5 https://www.theindracongress.com/arrowsa-and-indra-background/ accessed 28 March 2020.

6 See www.arrowsa.blogspot.com.

7 http://www.southrootsint.com/.

8 https://alharah.org/en/.