‘Arts education’ in the context of public policy.

In the context of public cultural policy, an optimistic perspective of arts education claims that it produces a positive social impact, particularly for people living in social disadvantage and who are at risk. It has been pointed out that community arts programmes produces positive psychological impact among youth offenders (^{Baker and Homan, 2007}); promote wellbeing and social capital (^{Atkinson and White, 2013}; ^{Jensen, 2013};) and that community activities in arts centres foster “resilience” and “can help reduce youths’ exposure to violence, drug abuse, gang activity or other stressors found in the inner-city streets” (^{Rhodes and Schechter, 2014, p. 827}).

Criticisms of such perspectives highlight that the state-organised culture is characterised by its instrumentality and the emphasis of the powers of the arts for the socially excluded (^{Belfiore, 2002}; ^{Belfiore and Bennett, 2007}). It has also been argued that governmental arts programmes have a “therapeutic role” to ‘improve’ young people (^{Mirza, 2005}); arts practices are “technologies of creative citizenship” (^{Grundy and Boudreau, 2008 p. 347}) and that arts programmes describe young people in “need of control from the state” (^{Hickey-Moody, 2013, p. 21}).

Situating her analysis in the 1990s, when New Labour deployed public cultural policy seeking to tackle social exclusion and promoting inclusion through the arts, ^{Bishop (2012)} argues that such rhetoric masks inequalities. Combating social exclusion through arts and culture echoes neoliberal agendas, where attention is paid to those whose behaviour needs to be corrected and to be ‘included’ in society e.g. the reduction of anti-social behaviour, drug consumption, and adolescent pregnancy. This resonates with Levitas, who argues that the political rhetoric on exclusion presents the “socially excluded as culturally distinct from the mainstream” (1998, p. 21). Furthermore, for ^{Bishop (2012, p.38)} a hierarchy between “active” and “passive” people is marked within the social inclusion policy context. For example, policy makers and cultural administrators are those who produce and understand the arts, meanwhile the poor are those that should be engaged with the arts “physically” rather than, for example, critical reflections about the world they live in (^{Bishop, 2012, p. 38}). In this sense, Bishop warns about the possible risks of such rhetoric for people living in social disadvantage, such as stigma.

This literature points out that the state-organised culture configures a perspective of arts education as a body of strategies to improve people, encouraging their human transformation. Furthermore, this reading is problematic because much of the responsibility is placed on individuals in a context where neoliberal agendas propagate individualisation and the privatisation of public services (^{Hickey-Moody, 2013} see also Yudice, 2003). Another point is that a hierarchical view is constructed by policy makers and cultural administrators who assume that arts and culture lift people who are in need of attention. ^{Miles and Gibson (2016)} highlight a logic of discrimination in policies seeking to give access to arts and culture:

policies that prioritised access to culture in the name of reducing social exclusion were at same time part of a process of discrimination, marking out and marginalising those people and places that did not associate themselves with established culture as passive, isolated and in need of (remedial) attention (p. 151).

Inspired by the above arguments, policy makers’ expectations and desirable outcomes on arts education are characterised by being instrumental and part of a process of discrimination. This is because people are seen as vulnerable, and through arts education and creativity, people are expected to improve, particularly those in a position of social disadvantage (^{Jaramillo-Vázquez, 2016}; ²⁰¹⁸). The next section examines how the local government has configured arts education. Attention is paid on the expectations and desirable outcomes.

Arts education in Mexico: a national project of social transformation

Arts education in Mexico has been part of a national project intending to modify people’s behaviour and values. Politicians and writers’ expectations have sought to tackle people’s “ignorance” and “barbarism” through “culture”, or rather, the state-organised culture. Arts education is then infused with ideals of social transformation, though such ideals are questionable not only in the light of a thorough examination, but also in examining such ideals on the ground, i.e. people’s motives for joining in a cultural project, as well as their social relations and practices. In the case of public cultural policy, its expectations and outcomes echo the arts education project launched soon after the Mexican Revolution.

In 1921, José Vasconcelos took on the directorship of the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP). Initiating an ambitious governmental cultural project, Vasconcelos intended to “redeem the indigenous for their barbarism” (^{Nivón-Bolán, 2006, p. 34-35}; ^{Rubio, 1978 p. 165}) and to unify a national identity (^{García-Canclini, 2004}, ^{Coffey, 2012}) through arts, reading activities and educational projects. Vasconcelos supported his arts education project so that indigenous population and lower social classes could leave behind their “limitations” in opposition to “enlightenment ideals” (^{Nivón-Bolán, 2006, p. 35}). Open-air painting schools, support to painters for their works including murals in the streets and musicians, were some projects that Vasconcelos boosted. Vasconcelos’s arts education project was not undermined by cultural administrators and policy makers.

In 1997 the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) came to power in Mexico City, prompting changes in the city, including tackling inequalities and democratic processes for all. For Mexico City inhabitants, the PRD government was a significant event because they hoped that the repression and dictatorship imposed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Revolutionary Institutional Party) (PRI) would come to an end in the city -and the country-. In order to tackle such situations and show the changes of the government, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas governmental team included writers, academics and representatives of civil organisations who were critical of the repression of the PRI governments. An example of this is the public cultural policy launched in 1997. Directed by Alejandro Aura, the Instituto de Cultura de la Ciudad de México (Institute for Culture of Mexico City) (ICCM) launched an arts education policy that aimed to emancipate and give access to arts and culture amongst people living in social disadvantage. The policy goals sought to open arts and cultural institutions and services in deprived areas of Mexico City and to promote “respect”, “tolerance” and to overcome “social problems” among citizens (Rosas-Mantecón and ^{Nivón-Bolán, 2006, p. 62}). The ICCM created 12 projects, all of them related to promoting art and culture, including theatre and cinema activities, street music concerts, dance and poetry, painting activities on streets, financial support of music organisations.

The ICCM opened a community arts organisation in a deprived area in the East of Mexico City in 2000, promoting access to arts and culture to local people. Although the organisation was initially considered to be for young people, in practice, children, young people and adults have visited it and joined in with workshops and arts projects. Because of the impact of the organisation amongst people and the interest in maintaining access to arts and culture to socially disadvantaged groups, subsequent leftist governments opened three more community arts organisations in deprived areas of Mexico City.

For cultural administrators, workshops and arts projects were fundamental activities in the organisations because they would contribute to fulfilling certain expectations, including to “increase people’s cultural criteria” and to “make up new publics” (^{Aura 2006, p.19}; ^{2002, p. 286}). My examination of policy documents shows this.

The Programa de Fomento y Desarrollo Cultural del Distrito Federal 2004 (PFDCDF, 2004) says that the “formación artística” (artistic formation) should contribute to “new life expectations”, “tackle individual and social undesirable behaviour” and “make up publics” (PFDCDF 2004, p. 116). It describes how workshops and non-professional arts courses would be implemented in deprived areas of Mexico City (PFDCDF, 2004). The Programa General de Desarrollo del Distrito Federal 2007-2012 (PGDDF, 2007-2012) states that arts education and creativity contribute to the development of individuals and their communities and promote “access” to the state organised culture (PGDDF, 2007-2012, pp. 51-55). Likewise, the Programa de Fomento y Desarrollo Cultural del Distrito Federal 2014 (^{PFDCDF, 2014}) highlights that arts organisations situated in disadvantaged areas of the city should offer a model of non-formal education conceived as arts education. This type of arts education is part of the teaching-learning processes which aim to promote “creativity” and “innovation” (^{PFDCDF, 2014, p. 29-30}) and as something that “reduces anti-social behaviour” (^{PFDCDF, 2014, p. 31}).

These expectations show that arts education is a strategy of intervention to do something “good” for people in position of social disadvantage. In line with these expectations, the Faro de Oriente documents echo such policy documents. The Documento Marco justifies the creation of Faro de Oriente as follows:

this project will be a space for the young people’s culture. [By creating the organisation] an oasis will be created: a place for art and beauty within a city zone threatened by crime and violence; a cultural service for a large zone of housing development and precarious buildings. Very far from the biggest cultural centres located in the South and Centre of the city, a space will be made for young people’s creative encounters and exchange of their experiences; for the exercise of tolerance and free time use with imagination and fun (^{ICCM, 1999, p. 13}).

Likewise, people were described as living in situations of “under-development” and facing “unemployment”, “illegal jobs”, “malnutrition”, “illiteracy”, “dropping out”, “familial disintegration and deprivation” and “high social backwardness” (^{ICCM, 1999, pp. 14-16}). These adjectives were reinforced in the statements of some staff members: “in the middle of barbarism, culture would be a thread for the social fabric and it can contribute to the making up of rules and high habits for coexistence” (González, 2003, p. 47).

The meanings attributed to arts and culture, the geographical area and its residents are problematic because a hierarchy is created by defining arts education as an instrument making something good for the, so to speak, vulnerable people. One of the risks of such meanings is that it constructs a negative social image for people experiencing social disadvantages and denies the “complexities of people’s lives” (^{Fraser, 2000, p. 112}) including their stories, struggles and agendas. ^{Fraser (2000)} argues that despite political intentions to give recognition to culturally diverse societies, “the problem of reification” refers to a lack of promoting “respectful interaction within increasingly multicultural contexts, but to [instead] drastically simplify and reify group identities” (^{Fraser, 2000, p. 108}). Because public cultural policy overstates arts education as a means to modify individuals’ behaviour, an examination of cultural policy and practice is fundamental. Examination of cultural policy on the ground is a bottom-up orientation where people’s experience is at the foreground of research. If people’s experience is the focus of attention, arts-practice would be examined from the circumstances, social relations and motives through which people engage with arts-practice. Research that take place on the ground, i.e. from ethnographic research, illuminates the misconceptions of policy makers when formulating policy, as well as the negotiations of people participating with the state organised-culture.

From evaluation to research: public ‘cultural’ policy on the ground.

Community arts projects, concerning arts education and creativity, have had significant value for governments. Both in Mexico and in the United Kingdom, these initiatives are part of policy agendas. In the case of the UK, since the 1990s (^{Oliver, 2009}; ^{Bishop, 2012}) public funding has been addressed to evaluate the social impact of the arts in health, education and social inclusion. Numerous reports have highlighted the “benefits” of the arts on the people (e.g. ^{Matarasso, 1997}; ^{Adamson, Fyfe and Byrne, 2008}; The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society; 2014), partly because this entails public funding. However, various criticisms have been addressed. On the one hand, it has been said that more quantitative methodologies have been used in search of evidence than qualitative (^{Miles, 2013}; ^{Sanderson, 2000}; ^{Walmsley, 2012}, ²⁰¹⁸). On the other hand, criticisms have highlighted a “causation” research model (^{Galloway, 2009 p. 127}) in which the arts have a cause and effect on the people; and the “rationalist model” (^{Sanderson, 2000}) focusing on whether policy goals have been achieved, using quantitative methodologies. Rational-oriented evaluations are top-down studies evaluating if policy expectations and desirable outcomes have been fulfilled in practice, and if these satisfy political agendas. This approach relies on control and hierarchy because the emphasis is on finding evidence of arts and culture and their benefits for the people.

In the case of Mexico, research examining cultural policy have been developed through ^{García-Canclini and collaborators’ works ([1989] 2004}, ¹⁹⁹¹, ¹⁹⁹⁸, ²⁰⁰⁸) and ^{Rosas-Mantecón (2005}, ²⁰⁰⁷, ²⁰⁰⁸). These works are empirical research that examine the relationship between publics and the state organised culture in festivals, museums and significant museum exhibitions. However, the importance of more evaluations and studies to understand the state-organised culture and publics has been addressed in recent years (^{Escobar, 2015}; ^{González, 2014}; ^{Ortega, 2015}). Previous research that examines people’s participation within state-organised culture has mostly applied quantitative methodologies and methods instead of qualitative methodologies (see for example the ^{Encuesta Nacional de Hábitos, Prácticas y Consumos Culturales, 2010}). While these reports show trends about the cultural activities of people, they say little about the context, relations and motives related to the arts experiences. In this respect, my point is to include more qualitative research illuminating such aspects.

Alternative research models and their inherent questions, rather than examining whether the arts produce social impact or whether a cultural programme is being well designed, instead concentrate on the processes and relations of participatory arts (^{Galloway, 2009}; ^{Oliver, 2009}; ^{Walmsley, 2018}). This entails to think about theories and questions for rethinking the relations of people with the state-organised arts. Galloway directs our attention to “what types of research approach are best suited to investigating the social effects of the arts?” (2009, p. 126). Oliver asks, “what is happening in the practice and process of a participatory arts project?” (2009, p. 322) and Walmsley focuses on “how people experience the arts and culture and why people want to understand its value?” (2018, p. 272). With these questions, examination is a bottom-up approach focused on understanding people’s relations with participatory arts. Inspired by these questions, I suggest that it is best to continue exploring not only how people experience arts-practices and creativity in institutional context, (^{Oliver, 2009}; ^{Walmsley, 2018}) but also to ask, what kind of relationships are done in the non-public space and how these relationships are reinforced in an institutional context? These questions are important because add knowledge to existing literature exploring research on people’s participation with arts and culture.

Understanding participation.

Since the 1990s, artists and curators have produced arts practices based on social relations and collective experiences. Conceptually, such practices are known as “relational aesthetics” (Bourriaud, 2006); “participatory arts” (^{Bishop, 2006, 2012}); and “socially engaged art” (^{Helguera, 2011}), in response to the conventional understanding of an individual artist. In her book Participation (2006) Bishop introduces a collection of texts that historically explore the notion of participation, which include the collective experiences of arts and a critical perspective concerning community public art. She contends that there are two approaches that relate to the field of participatory arts:

an authored tradition that seeks to provoke participants, and a de-authored lineage that aims to embrace collective creativity; one is disruptive and interventionist, the other constructive and ameliorative. In both instances, the issue of participation becomes increasingly inextricable from the question of political commitment (^{Bishop, 2006 p. 11}).

Applying this view to the study of cultural policy and practice, arts education and creativity implementation is an authored tradition, which can be characterised as interventionist because intends to produce a social effect; whilst the second approach, de-authored, is the space of collective art experiences, which I describe as ordinary, collective and spontaneous. Bishop leads our attention to the social experience of arts as a response to rigid views of individual and genius artists, and participatory arts, detached from political commitment and critical thinking. However, other perspectives on participation pay attention to forms of cultural participation, emerging outside the walls of cultural institutions.

^{Miles and Gibson (2016)} argue that within the context of cultural policy, “participation” is a concept with a narrow understanding because it focuses on specific expectations and implements from the state’s view, concealing the cultural participation that emerges through people’s everyday social relations. They argue for a need to pay attention to the rich forms of cultural participation emerging beyond the state-organised culture and how such forms “sustain social networks and define parameters of community” (^{Miles and Gibson, 2016, p. 151}). Taking these into consideration, ^{Miles (2013)} shows what is at “stake” in the processes of participation. His understanding of participation is in relation to the mundane, as he argues:

a far more committed sense of engagement is often expressed in discussions of everyday forms of participation, which in turn conveys the possession of considerable skill, expertise and learning; whether it be in banking, making puppets, choreographing dance club moves, propagating seeds or reading Muslim philosophy’ (^{Miles, 2013, p. 185}).

Inspired by these literatures, I suggest that participation concerns not only the relations from arts experiences inside the walls of cultural institutions, but also the social relations outside them, which are reinforced through ordinary social interactions. In this respect, arts organisations are rarely a temple where people form relationships in a passive way to transform themselves, but rather, places where people come together, generating encounters, meanings and arts experiences. As Walmsley says: “[arts organisations are] part of a complex and interconnected cultural ecology” (2018, p. 286).

If policy makers and cultural administrators focus their attention not only on quantitative evaluations and their outcomes, but also on the rich stories of people, relationships and processes that produce arts education in practice, policymaking concerning arts education would be deployed less instrumental and more attached to people’s experience. Ethnography and its methods enable understanding the circumstances and deep relations inherent in arts-practice.

Ethnographic research.

In order to understand people’s participation, ethnographic research was conducted at the arts organisation. I based this research around ethnographic questions such as: Why do people visit the organisation? Why do they carry out artistic activities? How do ordinary relationships emerge through their artistic activities? Although it is widely known that ethnography entails to observe and understand people’s points of view, there are broader dimensions of the term. Daniel Miller highlights that to conduct ethnographic research entails a set of “commitments” constituting a “particular perspective” (^{Miller, 1997, p. 16}). I discuss ^{Miller’s (1997)} ethnographic commitments in relation to this ethnographic research. These are:

These commitments point out that ethnography is far from the application of methods to collect data, but a “broader approach” (^{Macdonald, 2001, p.78}) and a methodological attitude. The ethnographic commitments allow for understanding the actions and relationships of research participants. I begin by discussing the first commitment.

In order to explore people’s experience at Faro de Oriente, I took the role of an ordinary member (a peer), allowing me to be in the presence of research participants. Being with them intended as much as possible to make a friendly relationship and take part in the ordinary activities (e.g. participation in workshops and arts projects). This was useful for examining the relationships and processes that emerged through participant’s arts-practice. In some cases, I visited with my peers’ places where they were exhibiting their visual works because my intention was to understand their personal context, which I was only able to do by “being in the presence of people” (^{Macdonald, 2001, p. 78}). This commitment is important because while existing studies of cultural consumption focus on surveys and interviews, little work has been focused on the relations, processes and personal context that emerge in community arts organisations. Paying attention to these elements it is possible to understand how and why people engage with the state-organised culture.

During my fieldwork, I was surprised by the social relationships, characterised by solidarity and mutual support; and the production processes when my peers made visual works. These production processes, or rather creative processes, were collective, collaborative and open, showing differences to institutional views on creativity (^{Jaramillo-Vázquez, 2018}). I think that only by being in the presence of people (^{Miller, 1997}), one would be able to see the day-to-day dynamics emerging from participant’s processes, including tensions and negotiations. In addition, having moved to the East of the city, I experienced part of the inequalities and reflected with my peers the negative image constructed in el Oriente, or rather, the East. For example, my peers and staff members told me that el Oriente is perceived as a place of violence and robbery; the area in Mexico City that experiences the greatest lack of basic services, such as a water supply, and where public transport is highly inefficient. Regardless of this, however, my peers said that “in the Orient of the city, not everything is like that” (fieldnote). They claimed that in their barrios there is culture too, emphasising local ceremonies, visits to natural places and sonideros (a kind of party where people from different neighbourhoods meet and a combination of music styles are played).

Paying attention to the ordinary processes of my peers at the organisation and understanding part of the sociocultural processes in the East, the examination of their visual works made sense. For example, the production of a mural, a collective work that was completed over nine months of production, represents a critical perspective of the inequalities and insecurity experienced in the East and a romantic view. One side of the work (a mural) shows semi-built houses trying to depict impoverished areas. This is accompanied with the image of one of the biggest dumping ground in the city and people selecting and collecting rubbish. The other side of the mural, however, shows local nature, ceremonies of the East and images of urban life, such as middle-class people using public transport to travel to work and to study school. The images also include fast food kiosks underneath long bridges.

When I accompanied my peers in the production processes, I asked them why they had decided to include such images and what kind of narrative they intended to provide. I was told that they had decided to include them to represent part of their ordinary and urban experiences, such as, taking the subway and bus very early in the morning for work and study at school. Likewise, they had decided to represent not only an idealised narrative about the East (e.g. local nature, ceremonies and urban life), but also a critical perspective. I was told that images of poverty were not only from the East, but the country. In this respect, it seems to me that my peers intended to neutralise the symbolic violence that they experienced as Easterners (^{Jaramillo-Vázquez, 2016}). The images were meanings attributed to their experiences and reflected part of their local identity. During the production of the mural, tensions among my peers emerged. This is because some people disagreed with showing impoverished areas and violence. They preferred to emphasise a more positive view of the East, representing natural areas and local ceremonies. However, other people considered that poverty, violence, and I would say, inequalities, were part of the social and cultural life in the East and the country. Therefore, they decided to include them in the visual work. “Being in the presence of people” (^{Miller, 1997}) is important, as it allows ethnographers to examine the ordinary dynamics emerging in organisations, including, processes, negotiations and tensions in the production of projects and activities. In the case of arts organisations, these aspects may remain invisible for quantitative studies (concerning the social impact of the arts) and qualitative interviews (in which analysts collect interesting materials, but do not show the whole picture, concerning actions and context). The second commitment explores this point.

Miller’s ethnographic commitment says: “to evaluate people in terms of what they actually do, i.e. as material agents working in a material world, and not merely of what they say they do” (^{Miller, 1997, pp. 16-17}). In order to examine this commitment, being there is crucial, because only by following people’s actions one would be able to observe whether and how people’s words and actions are coherent -or not- and why.

When I conducted research at the organisation, I had conversations and interviews with staff members who told me about the difficulties in the organisation, including lack of mundane materials for work, efficient internet to carry out their activities, rodents walking in their offices and insecurity of their contracts and payments. I occasionally heard that they had requested the Minister of Culture to pay attention to their demands, though they had received no answer. However, I did not see staff members taking actions to modify their difficulties (e.g. a meeting with the director, an official letter or even to stand up against what they considered unjust) during the time I spent at Faro de Oriente. These examples are material things or actions that are relevant for ethnographers, because they express whether research participants’ words are materializing.

When ethnographers listen to the words from research participants, it might be important to examine if they are trying to give us a ‘tidy account’ about what they say they do. If attention is paid to people’s actions, it reduces the risk of being driven to other ideas by research participants. As ^{Macdonald (2001)} says:

Those we are studying may wish to dissemble or at least to tidy up an account. In other words, what they say may be shaped through their own expectations of what they think we want to hear, or what they think we should not hear, or what they want us to hear (p. 86).

In the same way, research participants would highlight what the ethnographer should know, however, examination of actions neutralise research participants’ accounts. Another reason for paying attention to research participant’s actions is that, as time goes by in the field, research participants are busy with their own activities that somehow naturalise the presence of ethnographers. They forget to show or keep showing particular behaviours to ethnographers. The third commitment explores this point.

The third commitment is to “long-term investigation that allows people to return to a daily life that one hopes goes beyond what is performed for the ethnographer” (^{Miller, 1997, p. 17}). In the interest of producing ethnographic works, anthropologists will be interested in research participant’s actions rather than performances. Conducting long-term research allows research participants to naturalise the presence of ethnographers, therefore people’s performance reduces over time. For example, when I met my peers, I perceived they kept distance from me and were indifferent. Although I joined the activities they attended (e.g. workshops and arts projects) and participated as another peer, I realised that sometimes I ended up doing activities with the same people and talked more about myself (especially when a facilitator run activities in which we had to talk about our personal lives and places where we lived in). When the workshops ended, my peers walked to the organisation’s gardens and usually they sat inside a big tunnel that they used for painting graffiti and listening to music. Only my day-to-day presence allowed me to negotiate my presence with them. This negotiation included various aspects: to suspend recorded interviews for various months and prioritise informal conversations; to keep on participating in the workshops doing the same activities that they did, such as producing drawings, sculpture, performance; to dress the way my peers dressed (trying to produce symbolic identification); to talk about situations that were similar for my peers and I, such as the long distances we travelled to the centre or South of Mexico City and our interests concerning painters and museums. These negotiations were important for reducing the sense of distance and indifference from my peers. I came to realise that they had naturalised my presence when I was invited to have crisps or a beer soon after one workshop ended; or when I accompanied them to sit in the tunnel and chat conducting my informal conversations (and note-taking); and when it was fine for them to participate in formal interviews either at the organisation or at their homes. A long-term investigation allows ethnographers to get through people’s fabricated behaviours. In order to achieve this, negotiations in practice are important for establishing a more horizontal relationship with research participants. When I conducted informal conversations and interviews, I received information that was little associated with the research focus. It seems to me that this material is important because ethnographers may want to know part of research participants’ personal context and explore it in relation to their aims.

In Miller’s fourth commitment he emphasises that “behaviours be considered within the larger framework of people’s lives and cosmologies” (^{Miller, 1997, pp. 16-17}). Instead of knowing my peers through informal conversations and interviews, my intention was to examine their personal context. This was useful for understanding how their personal context was related to their mode of participation at the organisation. In this respect, I visited places with my peers where they were exhibiting their works; as well as museums and attending public conferences about arts. Although ethnographers do not necessarily need to explore every single aspect of people’s lives, examination of their actions in connection with their context, shed light on why their actions carried out at the organisation are relevant for them. My suggestion is not only to focus on relationships and processes of people inside organisations, but also focusing on the context as this will illuminate how and why people engage with the state-organised culture. The role of a peer provided rich materials for understanding the stories, agendas and relationships of research participants.

My role as a peer was useful for establishing a more horizontal relationship with research participants. A performative ethnographic approach in the field (Fabian, 1990 in ^{Alhourani, 2017}) responds to hierarchical power relationships between researcher and participants because the role of an ethnographer is not one of a “questioner, but rather, a provider of occasions, a catalyst in the weakest sense, and a producer (in analogy to theatrical producer) in the strongest” (Fabian, 1990, in ^{Alhourani, 2017, p. 212}). Taking the role of a peer allowed me to experience and engage with the relationships and creative processes of people, rather than being merely a bystander. In addition, this position allowed me to build a friendly relationship and reduce a hierarchical relation between researcher and participants. I suggest that I made a friendly relationship because during the field I conducted interviews at participants’ homes and ordinary interactions allowed me to realise that I was being perceived as peer. For example, when conducting interviews with them, I was invited to enter their homes and those who painted showed me all their visual works, telling me part of the context and their motives for doing it.

Although the ordinary relationships and processes were studied, other aspects were considered. Ethnographic knowledge was obtained from key cultural administrators’ interviews and examination of policy documents, revealing a complex grid of practices and discourses about institutional views on arts education and people’s ordinary experience. This type of examination echoes Macdonald (2011), arguing that “being in place means that our knowledge does not just rely on one source -it comes through an untidy mix of what we observe, what people say, how they say it, what they do next, what they experience” (Macdonald, 2011, p.5). Attention paid to institutional perspectives of arts education was useful for understanding the “polyphony” (Gellner and ^{Hirsch, 2001, p. 9}) or diverse voices implicit in the process of the ethnographic work, which may reveal power relationships. In addition, paying attention to institutional voices and people’s experiences in an arts organisation allows us to see the negotiations and contradictions. My role as peer allowed me, on the one hand, to form a direct relationship with participants and staff members. On the other hand, to conduct interviews with cultural administrators and examine policy documents.

From 2011-2012, I conducted fieldwork at Faro de Oriente and joined six workshops: painting, performance, community journalism, plastic recycling sculpture, graphic design and graffiti, which lasted 12 weeks. I conducted participant observation, semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with 33 research participants (19 male and 14 females). Observational fieldnotes and notes after informal conversations were collected. Semi-structured interviews were useful to elicit biographical data from my peers, to examine their motives for participating in the workshops and their reasons for coming to the organisation. Furthermore, living near the organisation and conducting five interviews at participants’ houses enabled me to examine people’s solidarity networks, which I understand here, as a response to deal with inequalities. Research participants I met were working class people from a humble background.

In this paper I seek to offer an “understanding of the processes (rather than the outcomes) of arts engagement” (^{Walmsley, 2018, p. 274}), emphasising the sociocultural context, participants’ motives for participating in arts education activities and their ordinary social relations. The following sections describe ethnographic accounts, focussing on three aspects: a) the solidarity networks of people (stories), b) people’s motives for visiting the organisation (motives) and c) people’s social relations within the organisation (mutual support).