“Editorial Letter, Issue 4.1,” Community Change (2022)
As executive editor of the peer-reviewed, indexed academic journal Community Change, I authored this editorial letter with collaborators John Marshal and Lara Nagle to introduce published articles centered on the theme of transmission.
From the abstract: “In this issue, contributors explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated myriad ways that transmission occurs, not only in an epidemiological sense but in the transmission of political ideas and action, resources, cultural practices, and (mis/dis)information, among other things. In addition, as society transitions out of the deepest waves of this pandemic, what central topics drive community change scholars and practitioners in the wake of COVID-19, an event in world history that both exacerbated existing inequities and led to innovative adaptations?”
Arts and Community Change: Exploring Cultural Development Policies, Practices and Dilemmas (2015) addresses the growing number of communities adopting arts and culture-based development methods to influence social change. Providing community workers and planners with strategies to develop arts policy that enriches communities and their residents, this collection critically examines the central tensions and complexities in arts policy, paying attention to issues of gentrification and stratification.
I authored chapter two–“Rivers and Bridges: Theater in Regional Planning”–with Robert H. Leonard, which focuses on the Building Home project (2010-2013) in southwest Virginia.
“Playing for the Public Good: The Arts in Planning and Government,” Animating Democracy (2012).
When governmental and civic entities employ the arts to engage people in public processes, they often find new and effective ways to motivate participation, make decisions, and solve problems. In communities of all sizes, coast-to-coast, the arts are enhancing grassroots community planning activities and initiatives in participatory democracy. Artists and their creative practices are enlivening the workings of civic committees, town hall meetings, and action plans, at the same time they are engaging community members in education, advocacy, and policy efforts related to local and regional issues vital to the public well-being. This paper highlights a wide range of arts and culture-based projects or programs that broaden participation and deepen meaning beyond typical planning processes and/or governmental systems and structures. It offers a brief history of and context for the roles of arts and culture in public planning and governmental processes and characterizes the various drivers, intents and outcomes, and orientations in arts infused planning and civic processes in these projects. While investing in the arts has proven effective in producing jobs and capital, economic prosperity is but one benefit of activating the arts in community. Arts and culture also play a crucial role in increasing, diversifying, and sustaining public participation; navigating contentious issues; and fostering productive public dialogue and decision making
Jon Catherwood-Ginn 