Prelims

Half Title Page

HISTORY

Series Page

ARTS FOR HEALTH

Series Editor: Paul Crawford, Professor of Health Humanities, University of Nottingham, UK

The Arts for Health series offers a ground-breaking set of books that guide the general public, carers and healthcare providers on how different arts can help people to stay healthy or improve their health and wellbeing.

Bringing together new information and resources underpinning the health humanities (that link health and social care disciplines with the arts and humanities), the books demonstrate the ways in which the arts offer people worldwide a kind of shadow health service – a non-clinical way to maintain or improve our health and wellbeing. The books are aimed at general readers along with interested arts practitioners seeking to explore the health benefits of their work, health and social care providers and clinicians wishing to learn about the application of the arts for health, educators in arts, health and social care and organisations, carers and individuals engaged in public health or generating healthier environments. These easy-to-read, engaging short books help readers to understand the evidence about the value of arts for health and offer guidelines, case studies and resources to make use of these non-clinical routes to a better life.

Other Titles in the Series:

Forthcoming Titles

Title Page

HISTORY

BY

ANNA GREENWOOD

University of Nottingham, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2023

Copyright © 2023 Anna Greenwood.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80455-188-2 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-185-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-187-5 (Epub)

Dedication Page

For Hanni and David

Contents

About the Author

Anna Greenwood is Professor of Health History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is the author of several books and articles examining various aspects of modern health history, focussing on social and cultural dimensions. Her works include examinations of western medicine under British colonial rule, the dissemination of British retail pharmacy along global pathways, the history of Florence Nightingale, and the history of addictive products in the sponsorship of modern professional sport. She is an advocate for the health humanities and is co-editor of a series for Intellect Books: The Global Health Humanities.

About the Case Study Authors

Andres S. Dobat works at Aarhus University in Denmark as an Associate Professor doing research and projects which make archaeology and heritage relevant for all – be it as a building stone for inclusive and democratic societies or to mitigate mental health challenges.

Geoffery Z. Kohe is Senior Lecturer in Sport Management and Policy in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Kent. He has interdisciplinary research expertise in global, transnational and local sport and physical activity landscapes, with specific emphasis on organisational politics and capacity building, stakeholder network formations and national and international governing body relationships.

Coreen McGuire is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century British History at Durham University. Her first book Measuring Difference, Numbering Normal showed how the data sets used in interwar audiometry and spirometry impacted disability definition. She was recently awarded a 5-year Wellcome University Award for her project, ‘When Categories Constrain Care: Investigating Social Categories in Health Norms Through Disability History 1909–1958’.

Chris Russell works at the Association for Dementia Studies, at the University of Worcester, UK, as a Senior Lecturer. He is the author of several articles on dementia, citizenship, leisure and physical activity. He is currently Co-editor of a new book, Leisure and Everyday Life with Dementia, to be published by Open University Press in Autumn 2023.

Aja Smith, Ph.D. Anthropology, is a post-doctorate in Andres Dobat’s Vetektor Buddy Program, Aarhus University. Her research has revolved around professional training, personal development, self-therapy, contemporary spirituality, multispecies anthropology and methodology, and has mainly been based in Denmark. Her work is published in Ethos, Medical Anthropology and the creative writing outlet Antrostorier.

Foreword: Creative Public Health

The Arts for Health series aims to provide key information on how different arts and humanities practices can support, or even transform, health and wellbeing. Each book introduces a particular creative activity or resource and outlines its place and value in society, the evidence for its use in advancing health and wellbeing and cases of how this works. In addition, each book provides useful links and suggestions to readers for following-up on these quick reads. We can think of this series as a kind of shadow health service – encouraging the use of the arts and humanities alongside all the other resources on offer to keep us fit and well.

Creative practices in the arts and humanities offer a fantastic, non-medical, but medically relevant way to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. Intuitively, we know just how important creative activities are in maintaining or recovering our best possible lives. For example, imagine that we woke up tomorrow to find that all music, books or films had to be destroyed, learn that singing, dancing or theatre had been outlawed or that galleries, museums and theatres had to close permanently; or, indeed, that every street had posters warning citizens of severe punishment for taking photographs, drawing or writing. How would we feel? What would happen to our bodies and minds? How would we survive? Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of removal of creative activities from human society before and today many people remain terribly restricted in artistic expression and consumption.

I hope that this series adds a practical resource to the public. I hope people buy these little books as gifts for family and friends, or for hard-pressed healthcare professionals, to encourage them to revisit or to consider a creative path to living well. I hope that creative public health makes for a brighter future.

Professor Paul Crawford

Acknowledgements

Growing up as the daughter of a research scientist and a yoga teacher, I was caught between two world views. One was rational, delineated by rules, striving for cure and betterment through a dedication to learning, scientific experimentation and observation, and one was more fluid, reaching towards health and wellbeing through an ongoing journey of mind, body and spirit expansion. While my father worked in a laboratory and lectured to halls full of medical students, my mother brought equilibrium and companionship to members of our community, as she guided them through their sun salutes in the local church halls. In our suburban semi-detached house, allopathic medicine and a holistic view of health co-existed under one roof.

It seems quite fitting that I am now a Professor of Health History. Historians need rigour, discipline, imagination and creativity in equal measure. While history relies on evidence, it is nothing without interpretation. What is less discussed is that history can also provide us with new avenues and toolkits to think about and experience the world. These insights and techniques, furthermore, can improve health and wellbeing. They can do this at the personal, communal and structural levels, both mentally and physically.

This modest contribution to the Emerald Arts for Health series probes the role that reading, writing, advocating with and participating in history can play in extending health and wellbeing. I am very conscious that it represents a start rather than a definitive guide and I take full responsibility for any faults, omissions or oversights. It is a work which sits on the shoulders of many excellent researchers. While it has been a joy reading so many various insightful contributions to the subfield, this book can claim to be no more than an accessible introduction, signposting areas where people can look to access more in-depth analyses.

My thanks are particularly extended to the case study authors who are presented within this book. Andres Dobat, Geoffery Kohe, Coreen McGuire, Chris Russell and Aja Smith: I am really thankful for your insightful contributions and for allowing me to showcase your research in this way. I also extend my warm thanks to Paul Crawford, who as well as being a source of constant encouragement, has taught me the benefits of thinking outside of the box. Additional thanks go to the publishing team at Emerald and the two anonymous reviewers who fed back on the proposal and improved the book’s content through their shrewd recommendations. Thanks also to the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. I was privileged to take part in its Visiting Fellowship programme which, as well as introducing me to some wonderful Health Humanities scholars, provided me with some much-needed time to write up this work. It also allowed me to test some of the ideas within a seminar format and engage with enlivening discussions and feedback. Last, but by no means least, I am extremely grateful to Lisa Clarkson, whose eagle-eyed copy editing – executed with such grace and good humour – has been an immeasurable help.

I am in no doubt that this small volume is not as eloquently expressed as what my wordsmith father would have achieved. Nor is it as insightful and generously crafted as anything my mother would have guided. Nevertheless, this book curiously reflects my parents’ composite influences and – because of that – it is symbolically offered as a token of my enduring love for them: Hanni (1932–2012) and David (1935–2015).