Introduction

The concept of Co-Creation has been interpreted in this volume from a variety of perspectives: approaches from the Global North and Global South, from the perspective of scholars working with artists and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) on Co-Creative projects, as well as from the angle of non-profit organisations, instigating projects that bring together artists and communities to Co-Create knowledge and new understandings in marginalised neighbourhoods. This present chapter draws on work by the author on the interface between two conceptual frames: the notion of Co-Creation (Carpenter and Horvath, 2018 ; Carpenter et al, 2021 forthcoming) and its intersection with the ‘Art for Social Change’ movement (Marcuse and Marcuse, 2011), exploring the role that creative arts collaborations can have in knowledge creation to effectuate social change.

The use of the term Co-Creation in this chapter aligns with that set out in the Introduction to this volume (Chapter 1): that is, the collaboration of a constellation of different actors (artists, local residents, researchers, community groups and other stakeholders) in cultural production, to address societal challenges such as marginalisation and stigmatisation (see Pahl et al, 2017 for a discussion of academic-artist collaborations). However, as the chapter will illustrate, the boundaries between these different actors are fluid, given that the notion of Co-Creation challenges the rigid binaries between ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ participants, and the boundaries between professional and non-professional artists. Wrapped up with this fluidity of roles is the way in which the balance of power plays out and shifts between different participants in a Co-Creation project.

This chapter seeks to demonstrate that, while the methodology of Co-Creation holds critical potential as a tool to challenge stereotypes and marginalisation, it nevertheless operates within the structural constraints of deeply embedded power hierarchies and hegemonic discourses that dominate received narratives. Drawing on the example of a Co-Creative project, the Street Beats Band (SBB), a communitybased percussion band in Vancouver, Canada, the chapter argues that such projects have potential to build community, empower participants and effectuate change in daily lives. However, it also cautions against framing Co-Creation as a catch-all panacea for social exclusion and marginalisation, given the differentials of power that thread through urban society, related to class, gender, race and postcolonialism.