Documents 

Cette recherche se situe dans le domaine des arts populaires et communautaires et dans une perspective pédagogique des arts du cirque. Elle porte davantage sur les aspects relationnels et artistiques que sur les aspects techniques des arts du cirque. Ces derniers sont abordés dans la perspective plus large du développement de la personne. La présente étude fait appel aux sous-champs disciplinaires de la résilience et de la créativité, dans un contexte pédagogique l'éducation populaire. Il s'agit d'une étude descriptive qui se fonde principalement à une expérience personnelle de terrain tout en se référant à des documents portant sur Cirque du Monde, un programme d'action sociale fondé par le Cirque du Soleil et Jeunesse du Monde. L'objet de la recherche est de faire la lumière sur la pédagogie alternative - dite circulaire -préconisée par ce programme et plus particulièrement d'exposer les moyens dont dispose l'artiste social afin de favoriser le développement de la résilience chez les jeunes participants des ateliers de cirque social. Pour ce faire, cette étude s'appuie notamment sur les écrits de Paulo Freire sur la pédagogie des opprimés, sur ceux de Boris Cyrulnik pour aborder la résilience et sur ceux de Yves Saint-Arnaud pour cerner l'expérience créatrice et la relation coopératrice. L'intention qui sous-tend cette recherche vise une meilleure compréhension du rôle de l'artiste social dans son interrelation avec des jeunes qui vivent des difficultés et l'exclusion de leur communauté. [résumé de l'auteur]

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, culture has gained increasing importance in strategies designed to deal with new trajectories of urban areas. Post-industrial cities seek to revive former industrial, contaminated and waterfront sites and their city centers, as they are aiming to establish themselves in the new arena of the global market place.

This paper looks at the relationships between investments in cultural resources/activities and urban regeneration processes, and in this respect, how culture can be considered a determinant to the accumulation of human and social capital. It examines the transformation of the Saint Michel district located in metropolitan Montreal. The Saint Michel area is experiencing a radical change in its social, economic and environmental profile due to its transition from the industrial-led development model to the post-industrial model in which investments in cultural and creative activities/industries – particularly the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil and TOHU – La Cité des Arts du Cirque – are supplying new opportunities for the local area in a metropolitan dimension. What impacts does such clustering have on the social and human capital of the vast majority of the populations that live within this area?

Based on a theoretical review and empirical investigation, the paper presents some clarification of the role of cultural investment in the definition of an emerging sustainable social scheme within the community to promote the development of local social and human capital. We know that cultural habits do not change quickly, and our research shows that organizations need to be proactive and seek very actively the participation of the local community if they want to see changes. Our case study highlights the fact that it is important to invest actively in mobilization, local information and promotion and to do so with the cooperation of local community organizations to attain some form of bonding with the local population, have the positive effects expected in terms of involvement in the community and act as a lever for local socio-economic development. [authors sumamry]

This book is designed for readers who care about their communities and are willing to create institutions and negotiate for meaningful roles for young people (cf. Rabkin and Redmond 2004). Explanations supported by theory and research from across the disciplines address the need to think and to think hard about where and how the arts and young people fit together and in concert with moral reason, societal inclusion and environmental justice. To do otherwise is to risk denying the benefits that can come from the ingenious insights and seemingly endless energies and imaginative powers of the young. This book calls on us to think beyond “using” the arts for instrumental redirection of young individuals seen as being out-of-step with the larger society.