Art, health and community in Chile 1992-2012: an auto-ethnographic perspective

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative research emanating from the perspective of the researcher as well as from her own self-observation. This reflection is being proposed in relation to 20 years of professional activity in the sociocommunity field, initially through the use of artistic resources, and later, as an art therapist in Chile. In this manner, using the Emic outlook as described by Kenneth Pike (1967), this research is a reflection on and a becoming aware of the development of the field of art therapy in this country.

The researcher/author has played different roles related to the field of arts in health, popular education, psychosocial intervention and art therapy. Thus, she has become an actor/researcher who has learned to be observant of her own culture, and who uses a constructivist perspective to discuss links between arts, health and community in Chile in between 1990-2012. She describes topics linked to health from a perspective of promotion and recovery, as well as its ties to creativity, popular art and thereconstruction of the social fabric through the analysis of the experiences developed in Chile and their references to the traditional Latin American psychosocial work.

Keywords: Psychosocial support, creativity, popular education, art therapy, Latin America.