Layers and dynamics of social impact: Musicians’ perspectives on participatory music activities

Participatory music activities designed to fulfill both artistic and social aims have become widespread across the world. Such activities are often linked to the generation of social impact. In the present research, we explored musicians’ perspectives on the social impact of these activities. A total of 47 musicians with experience in leading participatory music activities in various settings in Belgium completed a survey; 21 took part in follow-up, in-depth interviews. We used a constructive grounded-theory approach to analyze the data. The findings of previous research, typically exploring participants’ perspectives, suggest that social impact should be understood as effects on participants that persist after the activity has taken place. Our findings suggest, by contrast, that musicians who lead participatory music activities conceptualize the social impact of their work as layered and dynamic: layered meaning that social impact can be situated on the level of the musicians’ intentions, the core aspects of their practice, and its effects on themselves as musicians, on participants, and on the wider society; dynamic meaning they see these layers as interacting with and influencing each other. These findings may contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the social impact of participatory music activities and have implications for practice, policy, and future research.