Engaging with a diversity of contexts, locations and arts forms – including theatre, music and fine art – this collection brings together theoretical, political and practice-based perspectives on the question of 'evidence' in relation to arts practice in social context. Chapters critically interrogate the potential of approaches ranging from narrative case studies to randomised control trials and ethnographic performance. Case studies include, among others, singing in prisons, music and mental health and community theatre in South Africa.

For those involved with the arts in social contexts there often exists a powerful sense of the value and impact of the work. First-hand experience provides examples of how the arts can provide new opportunities, change lives and forge community connections across a diversity of contexts from education to hospitals, mental health to prisons. However, while arts in social context projects are frequently able to produce stories of tremendous impacts, in the context of reduced and competitive budgets such evidence is often of the wrong sort or not 'enough'.

This collection is a unique contribution to the field, focusing on one of the vital concerns for a growing and developing set of arts and research practices. It asks us to consider evidence not only in terms of methodology but also in the light of the ideological, political and pragmatic implications of that methodology.

Matthew Reason is Professor of Theatre and Performance at York St John University, UK. Publications include Documentation, Disappearance and the Representation of Live Performance (2006), The Young Audience: Exploring and Enhancing Children's Experiences of Theatre (2010) and, co-edited with Dee Reynolds, Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Contexts (2012).

Nick Rowe is associate professor in Arts and Health at York St John University, UK. Publications include Playing the Other: Dramatising Personal Narratives in Playback Theatre (2007).

Acknowledgements
PART 1 – At the Crossroads of Evidence and Knowing - Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe
Chapter 1: A Philosophy of Evidence
Chapter 2: A Pragmatics of Evidence
Chapter 3: Evidence, Ethics and Power
Chapter 4: Art making, Affect and Documentation
PART 2 – Researching Arts Impact: A Diversity of Approaches
Chapter 5: Thou Art, I am: Discovery and Recovery in the Art Making Process - Olivia Sagan, Bishop Grosseteste University, UK
Chapter 6: Capturing the Intangible: Exploring Creative Risk-taking through Collaborative and Creative Methods - El Stannage, York St John University, UK
Chapter 7: The Performance of Prison Theatre Practices: Questioning the Evidence - Caoimhe McAvinchey, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Chapter 8: An evident difference: Evaluating the impact of quality in the arts - Katya Johanson and Hilary Glow, Deakin University, Australia
Chapter 9: Narrative, Resilience, Evidence: Storying Sheffield - Brendan Stone, University of Sheffield, UK
Chapter 10: On the need for diversity of methods in researching arts and health practice - Stephen Clift, Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, UK
Chapter 11: Researching applied arts through ethnographic performance: Perspectives from African contexts - Kennedy C. Chinyowa, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa
Chapter 12: Do you see what I see? Blind spots in evaluation methodologies - Nicola Shaughnessy, University of Kent, UK
PART 3 – Practice-based Perspectives to Arts in Social Context
Introduction - Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe
Chapter 13: A community based theatre arts program for adults with disabilities: catalyst for change, in people and research? - Natalie Russo, Melissa Luke, Luis Columna and Elizabethe Ingram, Syracuse University, USA.
Chapter 14: Investigating the perceived benefits of shared musical experience - Chris Bates and Liz Mellor, Leeds College of Music and York St John University, UK
Chapter 15: Turning Up the Gain: The Shaping of Technology Mentors' Attitudes Within the Inclusive Music Recording Studio - John C. Coggiola, Deborah A. Cunningham, & James S. Abbott, Syracuse University, USA
Chapter 16: Arts for Arts Sake - Michelle Baharier and Sunil Chauhan, Cool Tan Arts, UK
Chapter 17: Confronting the challenge of communicating with, documenting and evaluating creative practice with artists facing barriers to the mainstream art world - Jennifer Gilbert, UK
Chapter 18: Chasing the 'pot of gold' - Linda Boyles, Arts and Mind, UK
Chapter 19: Cross Cultural Bridge Building – Celebrating cultures and creating new ones - Matthew Hahn with Lungile Dlamini & Marius Botha, UK and South Africa
Chapter 20: Dear Younger Me: Writing, Songwriting and Choral Singing While Incarcerated as a Means to Bridge Communities and Build Identities - Mary L. Cohen and Perry Miller, University of Iowa, USA
Chapter 21: Foot in mouth, mouth in trough... Experience, witness, testimony, the gift of disadvantage and new approaches to deep engagement - Scott Rankin, Big hART, Australia
Conclusion: Evidence in the Age of Austerity - Reason and Rowe
Endnotes
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index