Quinlan Elizabeth, Thomas Roanne, Ahmed Shahid, Fichtner Pam, McMullen Linda, Block Janice
Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan , Saskatoon, SK, Canada , S7N 5A5.
School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Ottawa , ON, Canada , K1H 8M5.
Soc Theory Health. 2014 Aug;12(3):291-312. doi: 10.1057/sth.2014.9.
The use of popular expressive arts as antidotes to the pathologies of the parallel processes of lifeworld colonization and cultural impoverishment has been under-theorized. This article enters the void with a project in which breast cancer survivors used collages and installations of everyday objects to solicit their authentic expression of the psycho-social impacts of lymphedema. The article enlists Jurgen Habermas' communicative action theory to explore the potential of these expressive arts to expand participants' meaningful engagement with their lifeworlds. The findings point to the unique non-linguistic discursivity of these non-institutional artistic forms as their liberating power to disclose silenced human needs: the images 'spoke' for themselves for group members to recognize shared subjectivities. The authenticity claims inherent in the art forms fostered collective reflexivity and spontaneous, affective responses and compelled the group to create new collective understandings of the experience of living with lymphedema. The article contributes theoretical insights regarding the emancipatory potential of aesthetic-expressive rationality, an under-developed area of Habermasian theory of communicative action, and to the burgeoning literature on arts-based methods in social scientific research.
将流行的表现艺术用作应对生活世界殖民化和文化匮乏这两个并行过程之病态的解药，这方面的理论研究一直不足。本文通过一个项目填补了这一空白，在该项目中，乳腺癌幸存者利用日常物品拼贴画和装置来真实表达淋巴水肿对心理社会的影响。本文运用尤尔根·哈贝马斯的交往行动理论，探讨这些表现艺术拓展参与者与生活世界有意义互动的潜力。研究结果指出，这些非制度化艺术形式独特的非语言话语性是其解放力量，能够揭示被压制的人类需求：这些图像为小组成员“代言”，让他们认识到共同的主体性。艺术形式中固有的真实性主张促进了集体反思以及自发的情感反应，并促使小组对淋巴水肿患者的生活经历形成新的集体理解。本文为审美表现理性的解放潜力提供了理论见解，这是哈贝马斯交往行动理论中一个未充分发展的领域，同时也为社会科学研究中基于艺术的方法这一新兴文献做出了贡献。
