Channelling discomfort through the arts: an intercultural project on Covid-19

MELINA PORTO; IRINA GOLUBEVA; MICHAEL BYRAM

Conferencia; 21st IALIC Conference: Language, culture and interculturality: Global debates, local challenges; 2021

Channelling discomfort through the arts: an intercultural project on Covid-19Melina Porto, Irina Golubeva & Michael ByramAbstractIn this presentation we describe an intercultural telecollaboration project undertaken in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic intended to offer students constructive and creative ways of responding to the suffering involved. Through arts-based methodologies (Rowsell, 2017) and pedagogies of discomfort (Zembylas & McGlynn, 2012), Argentinian and US undergraduates explored how the theme was expressed artistically in their countries, and then communicated online, using English as their lingua franca in mixed international groups, to design artistic multimodal creations collaboratively to channel their suffering and trauma associated with the pandemic. To evaluate the project, qualitative data were collected comprising the students? artistic multimodal creations, their written statements describing their creations, and pre and post online surveys. Our findings indicate that students began a process of transformation of disturbing affective responses by creating artwork and engaging in therapeutic social and civic participation transnationally, sharing their artistic creations using social media. Our project highlights the powerful humanistic role of language and intercultural communication education in universities involving artistic expression, movement, performativity, and community engagement in order to channel discomforting feelings productively at personal and social levels. Rowsell, J. (2017). Passing through: Reflecting on the journey through community arts zone. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 12(1), 1-3. Zembylas, M. & McGlynn, C. (2012). Discomforting pedagogies: Emotional tensions, ethical dilemmas and transformative possibilities. British Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 41-59.Melina Porto is a Researcher at the National Research Council (CONICET) and Professor at Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina. Her research interests include the intercultural dimension of English language teaching and intercultural citizenship education in the foreign language classroom.Irina Golubeva is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her main research interests concern the development of intercultural competence and multilingual awareness, internationalization of Higher Education, and conceptualization of intercultural citizenship.Michael Byram is Professor Emeritus at Durham University School of Education. His professional career began in foreign language teaching in secondary education, followed by training teachers and research on language teaching at Durham.