Academic Paper Suggests Art Therapy Needs ‘Decolonization’
“Furthering the Field of Expressive Arts Therapies Through Acts of Decolonization”
Much of academia has been reduced to a series of progressive concepts and talking points.
The College Fix reports:
Art therapy needs ‘decolonization,’ academic paper argues
Art therapy is offered through a “Western ideology” lens and needs “decolonization,” according to a recently published academic paper.
Titled “Furthering the Field of Expressive Arts Therapies Through Acts of Decolonization,” the 35-page paper explores how colonialism, under the guise of “Western ideology,” not only killed “millions of Native American Indians,” but continues to negatively influence art therapy and other aspects of society.
The article is Lesley University grad student Leticia Alcuran’s capstone thesis. A pending grad of its Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences, Alcuran examined “how decolonization can further the use of expressive arts therapies by addressing racist structures and ideologies that impact the mental health field.”
From this perspective, Alcuran, a dance instructor at a California high school, wrote that colonialism permeates expressive art therapies and gave suggestions on how to fix it.
The College Fix emailed Alcuran and asked her if decolonization is the only thing that can improve art therapies and if there are other perspectives of art therapy other than the “Eurocentric view” or “Western ideology” views. She did not respond to the requests for comment sent in the past three weeks.
In her thesis, she argued the only way to end colonialism is not by creating “an eloquent diversity statement posted on a front page of an institution’s website, and it is not a metaphor, nor is it a metonym for a social justice movement.”
Instead, the country must return to Native Americans and other “marginalized” communities their land and way of life.
She wrote colonialism has silenced and taken this away from Native Americans and other “marginalized” groups through domination, so much so that “Western ideology has become the standard within the mental health field and continues to harm marginalized communities.”
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Comments
“Art therapy needs ‘decolonization,’”
That’s like telling me that man-buns require ambergris-infused hairgel.
Never mind the prescription — the premise itself is beneath my notice.
So what does all this have to do with art therapy?
Art therapist demands decolonoscopy to screen for metastatic culture.
Colonization was, mostly, a good thing. Western cultures have their flaws, especially the Spanish colonial culture, but even that was far superior to the cultures it replaced.