Creative community connections: arts-based research with newcomer Syrian refugee mothers in St. John’s, Canada

Toll, Haley (2024) Creative community connections: arts-based research with newcomer Syrian refugee mothers in St. John’s, Canada. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This arts-based research explores Syrian refugee mothers’ experiences of belonging and well-being in a hybrid online art therapy group in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intercultural study is informed by the intersubjective aesthetic arts-based research and art therapy paradigm (Chilton et al., 2015). In addition to a thorough literature review and consultation with the Knowledge Holders, fourteen community leaders also informed the study design. Four Knowledge Holders (ages 29-46) who participated were mothers who relocated to Canada within the past seven years. Arts-based and written data were gathered from five art therapy sessions, individual interviews, the researchers’ reflexive art, and an arts-based member-checking session. Data was analyzed with arts-based and qualitative methods. Results indicate that artmaking can help Syrian refugee mothers voice their experiences by eliciting memories and insight through embodiment, enhancing mood, creating a safe space to foster communication, and by becoming a symbolic way to share information. The Knowledge Holders connected their experiences of belonging in NL to the following major themes: hospitality from locals; vocational opportunities; and identity continuity. Experiences of wellbeing were connected to their family and children’s welfare; experiencing awe in their daily lives; feeling safe through peace, justice, and freedom; and a resilient mindset. Finally, the Knowledge Holders created meaningful connections within the group through artmaking by engaging in shared reciprocity through co-creation, increasing empathetic resonance, and by symbolically validating relationships within the group through concretization. The findings increase understanding on how artmaking in an art therapy group can support refugee Syrian mothers who have relocated to Canada, in addition to providing insight on their unique experiences of well-being and belonging in St. John’s. Moreover, the findings also provide insight on therapeutic mechanisms of change related to artmaking. They highlight how artmaking can expand expression, connection, and discussion of belonging and well-being during a global pandemic through a hybrid online art therapy model that spans across different languages, cultures, and provinces. Since the research involved continual adaptation that balanced changing pandemic policies with the Knowledge Holders’ preferences to meet in-person, it also underlines the resiliency of a collaborative model of shared decision making between the community organization, researcher/art therapist from a university, and the Knowledge Holders. Recommendations involve expanding the art therapy group to include mothers who have relocated to different provinces from different countries. Integrating program evaluation, staff interviews, and validated culturally informed pre-post assessments is recommended to ascertain outcomes related to art therapy’s effect on the Syrian refugee mothers’ experiences of belonging and well-being.

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