Advocacy

EthnoArts personnel promote and share about what EthnoArts is (and is not, to help correct misconceptions) and how it integrates with a wide variety of domains with partners, churches, people, and ministries. This is an important part of each EthnoArts worker’s job, but it is hard to define specifically what is required as each situation is different.

EthnoArts personnel desire to see communities and artists making well-informed and independent choices about their culture, artistic expressions, community, and future. Rather than making decisions for a community, EthnoArts workers desire to encourage and support them with information, research, and tools. While EthnoArts personnel usually highly value the most local expressions of art for their uniqueness and value and may communicate that when and where it is appropriate to do so, they also respect the community’s authority to be the final decision-makers and gatekeepers. Whether the EthnoArts person is serving cross-culturally or working within their own culture (or a closely related one), sensitivity is needed to respect and honor relationships and culture, allowing everyone to have a voice in the decision-making process. Autogenic approaches (Saurman 2013) involves the insider’s own engagement in researching and reflecting on their own cultural art forms. The EthnoArts worker  advocates to spark, encourage, or assist individuals or a group in this autogenic process. The process should be internally motivated in at least some aspects so that it can grow organically into benefiting the community in a sustainable process.