Ethnoarts Best Practices

We know from long experience that communities can enhance the completion of their language and culture development goals by drawing on their arts. But how do you choose which ethnoarts activities are appropriate at a given moment in a program? And once you’ve decided on an ethnoarts activity, how do you make it happen? This tool is meant to help three types of people answer these questions: Program Managers, Arts personnel, and strategic planners and managers.

The ideas here are incomplete, meant to 1) highlight the most common arts-related solutions; 2) point users to resources for additional activities; and 3) provide ideas for innovating new solutions. We draw most of these materials from field teams and Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach Their Kingdom Goals (2013, William Carey Library).

Katie Frost and others have gathered the wisdom of many people to provide some concentrated guidance in engaging with local arts. We can't claim they are best practices for every context, but they provide a great framework.

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