Arts-based research and social justice in sport and leisure

Arts-based research comprises a set of methodological approaches that work in radically different ways in the service of personal, social and cultural understanding, and change. It responds to Denzin's challenge to "re-animate the social world" by privileging accessibility, engagement, and multidimensional sensory interaction. It opens up alternative ways of thinking, feeling, relating, and experiencing through diverse creative means of communication. In this chapter, the authors offer a rationale for arts-based approaches to social justice research by considering three examples of arts-based projects in the field of sport, leisure, and physical activity. These examples feature a range of arts genres including film, music, song, live performance, and story (first-person testimony). The authors engage with public responses to these examples, demonstrating the personal, social and cultural meaning, and impact of the work, and showing how arts-based research can generate community, solidarity, and personal or social change. The authors propose that arts-based research offers a means to radically democratise social justice research and scholarship.