The aesthetic rationality of the popular expressive arts: Lifeworld communication among breast cancer survivors living with lymphedema

The use of popular expressive arts as antidotes to the pathologies of the parallel processes of lifeworld colonization and cultural impoverishment has been under-theorized. This article enters the void with a project in which breast cancer survivors used collages and installations of everyday objects to solicit their authentic expression of the psycho-social impacts of lymphedema. The article enlists Jurgen Habermas' communicative action theory to explore the potential of these expressive arts to expand participants' meaningful engagement with their lifeworlds. The findings point to the unique non-linguistic discursivity of these non-institutional artistic forms as their liberating power to disclose silenced human needs: the images ‘spoke' for themselves for group members to recognize shared subjectivities. The authenticity claims inherent in the art forms fostered collective reflexivity and spontaneous, affective responses and compelled the group to create new collective understandings of the experience of living with lymphedema. The article contributes theoretical insights regarding the emancipatory potential of aesthetic-expressive rationality, an under-developed area of Habermasian theory of communicative action, and to the burgeoning literature on arts-based methods in social scientific research.