Introduction

Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, case studies, and community-based contexts, the selected articles this special issue of Cultural Trends examine a series of questions associated with the relations between funding policies and modes of cultural production, statutory accountability and artistic creativity, happening and archiving: how do we assess the extent to which AfR projects contribute to reconciliatory processes of healing, witness testimony and intercommunity engagement, rather than merely reinforcing disagreement and prejudice? Does AfR possess the conceptual and definitional robustness required to adequately understand how its positive reconciliatory outcomes are realized? How are funding practices, arts activities, community responses and management processes archived within this context, and is this archive intentionally skewed to tell the right story about AfR? Are reliable evaluative tools available to measure how AfR achieves a shift out of, and away from, conflict? If evaluations are typically based on audience response (as opposed to more detailed and grounded evaluative techniques that measure positive relational change between communities in conflict), how much emphasis should be placed on the forms, genres, and situations of given AfR activities (for example, theatre, film, exhibition, creative writing, mural art, musical performance, etc.), and the particularity of their audiences.