AFAC announces Research on the Arts Program – Cycle 2 (2019-2021)
Deadline: 01-Sep-2020
The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) have announced the second cycle of their joint Research on the Arts Program (RAP).
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The AFAC-ACSS research grants are a funding opportunity that aims to support research on all art practices across disciplinary boundaries and methodological approaches on key themes of concern to, and in, the Arab region.
Research on the arts aims to answer a specific analytical question concerning artists, art practices and/or art production. Additionally, the processes and practices involved in connecting, producing, thinking, and communicating art and culture work, in specific contexts, may be documented and analyzed.
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This program supports research on the arts not only for what they reveal about aesthetics but for what they uncover about society. Social, economic and political contexts matter, and the question for researchers becomes how arts engage with the surrounding environment. Social scientists, humanists and art practitioners, working singly or collaboratively, are encouraged to produce knowledge on how social, economic and political processes shape the arts (practices and production) or vice-versa and explore the role and status of artists in the wider community. Forms and functions of works produced by artists and their relationship to the broader society are equally of interest.
This program also encourages academics and art practitioners to undertake research on the arts with the broad aim of empowering the production of different kinds of knowledge and encouraging dialogue between academia and practice. Art research can be academic or practice-led however the research output must include a written component, where theory, context, connections, reflection, and systematic investigation are shown and communicated.
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The program aims at canvassing a broad range of research proposals from across different countries and disciplines. AFAC also encourage research that studies more than one country or region. They particularly invite interdisciplinary proposals that link the arts, humanities and social sciences. Quantitative as well as qualitative projects are eligible and mixed-methods approaches are encouraged.
Areas
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This program supports research projects at any stage of their development. Research proposals can be submitted for new or ongoing projects and may include:
Preliminary or “pilot” phases of a project
Longer-term projects combining fieldwork and analysis
Analysis and write-up of previously concluded data collection
Extensions of previous projects that seek to bring in new cases and examples
Comparative projects extended to include further locations
Program Output
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The proposed outputs of the project must be commensurate with the research plans and must include a substantial written component such as publications (web and/or print) and scholarly resources (e.g. visual products, websites, databases, curricula, bibliographies, maps, policy briefs). The output of preliminary research may be a fully developed research proposal, while projects including data analysis and write-ups may have substantial journal articles or full-length book manuscripts as outputs.
For the purposes of this program, films and documentaries are not considered as suitable project outputs.
Possible Topics
The role of official and unofficial institutional processes in giving rise or constraining the emergence of art.
The impact of the expansion of art markets, economic restructuring and constrained public funding on the arts.
The impact of neoliberal models of institutions and organizations on the arts.
The definition of artistic work, artistic identity and audiences.
The relationship between artists and the state; the role of official institutions in providing support or undermining artistic production.
The effect of technological innovations and computer technology on artistic dissemination and the production of new forms of artistic expressions.
Impact of laws, cultural policies, culture industry and practices on the form and content of art works.
Access of diverse publics to the arts.
Art spaces as aesthetic and/or political spaces.
The role of the arts in class and status reproduction; how current social inequalities reflect on the arts.
The role of arts at particular historical moments and what they reveal about society.
Meaning, measurement and impact of arts.
Arts as tools of inclusivity and exclusion.
Public perceptions of the arts.
Elitism vs. populism in the arts
The impact of exile, displacement and migration on art production.
Funding Information
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Grants are available to individual researchers (up to USD 15,000), teams of researchers or collectives (up to USD 25,000), and institutions (up to USD 35,000).
Timeframe
Grants are for the duration of 18 months for individuals, teams and collectives (starting December 2019 and ending May 2021) and for up to 24 months for institutions (starting December 2019 and ending December 2021).
Eligibility Criteria
Nationality/Residence
Applicants must be citizens of an Arab Country (defined as a member of the league of Arab States) or nationals of an Arab Country (defined as long-term residents, even if they don’t hold citizenship as in the case of refugees or stateless residents) and must be based in the Arab region.
In the case of teams and collectives, the team leader must be a citizen/national of an Arab country and must be based in the Arab Region. However, teams, collectives and institutions may include Arabs in the diaspora or non-Arabs, but at least two members of the team/collective/institution must be citizens/nationals of an Arab country and must be based in the Arab region. For institutions, the institution must be based in the Arab region. (Branches of foreign international organizations are not eligible to apply).
Disciplines
This program is open to researchers from diverse backgrounds in arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as allied fields. Arts and humanities disciplines include art history, comparative literature, contemporary art, curatorial studies, fine arts, graphic design, architecture, languages and literature, folklore studies, media studies, musicology, performance arts, and visual arts. The core social science fields include disciplines such as anthropology, demography, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. Allied fields include education, gender studies, cultural studies and urban studies.
Interdisciplinary proposals are encouraged.
Individuals, Teams, Collectives and Institutions
The program is open to individual researchers, research teams, collectives of researchers and institutions (universities, research centers, arts centers, Research NGOs, etc.). For the purposes of this call:
Individual researchers could be academics or art practitioners Research teams include researchers from the same or different institutions, geographies and disciplines who have an interest in conducting multidisciplinary research on the topic of arts.
A collective is an independent group of researchers that has been working collaboratively on a specific theme for years and has a mission statement, a set of practices or a set of outputs that reflect its identity and purposes.
Institutions could be a university or a university department, a think-tank, a research NGO etc.
Research teams, collectives, and institutions must present their applications in teams of up to four members, including a principal investigator and co-investigators.
Educational Requirements
Individuals
An applicant should be:
A holder of a Ph.D. degree in one of the disciplines or fields described above; or
An art practitioner with at least ten years of practical experience.
Teams, collectives and institutions
Teams and collectives may comprise up to four research team members.
Team structure may take one of two forms:
A Ph.D. holder (principal investigator) in one of the disciplines or fields described above, and up to three team members including (at least) MA degree holders and/or art practitioners.
An art practitioner with at least ten years of experience after graduation (principal investigator) and up to three team members including (at least) MA degree holders and/or art practitioners.
ACSS grantees (principal and co-investigators) who have benefited previously from an ACSS grant are only eligible if their grants were closed before March 2017. AFAC grantees who have a current open grant are not eligible to apply.
Selection Criteria
Final decisions are based on the following evaluation criteria:
Contribution to Knowledge (Research Question/Significance and Originality)
Theoretical and Conceptual Coherence and Literature Review
Methodology including research ethics,
Outputs (Dissemination/Potential Impact/Relevance to the Arab region)
Feasibility (CVs/Researcher’s Qualifications/Timeline/Budget)
For more information, visit https://www.arabculturefund.org/Programs/8