Arts-Based Memory Cafés as Participatory Action Research: A Methodologial Framework for Dementia-Inclusive Community Development

Background Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Arts-Based Research (ABR) have increasingly been recognized as promising approaches for dementia-inclusive community engagement. However, existing studies often treat arts activities as supportive interventions rather than methodological practices, provide limited operational guidance for replication, and rarely examine how participatory infrastructures can be sustained across diverse community contexts. This study presents a methodological account of the Action Research Mobilization (ARM) Memory Café model and examines how arts-based Memory Cafés function as participatory research infrastructures for dementia-inclusive community development. Methods The study employed an arts-based Participatory Action Research design implemented across 26 urban, suburban, rural, and remote communities in British Columbia, Canada between 2023 and 2025. Memory Cafés were intentionally embedded within community settings, including libraries, museums, recreation centres, schools, Indigenous community spaces, churches, and community halls. Data were generated through participant observation, reflexive field notes, post-session debrief discussions, participant feedback, storytelling exchanges, implementation documents, and documentation of arts-based activities such as music, movement, visual arts, reminiscence work, storytelling, and playback theatre. Analysis was conducted through iterative cycles of action, reflection, adaptation, and co-analysis involving researchers, artists, clinicians, community partners, volunteers, care partners, and persons living with dementia. Findings The findings demonstrate that arts-based Memory Cafés operate simultaneously as participatory research environments, relational infrastructures, and community interventions. The cafés fostered social connection, relational belonging, trust-building, stigma reduction, experiential knowledge exchange, and dementia-friendly community awareness. Artistic modalities generated embodied, affective, and relational forms of knowledge often inaccessible through conventional interview-centred methods, while sustained participation enabled the redistribution of expertise among persons living with dementia, caregivers, artists, clinicians, and community members. Across diverse settings, iterative adaptation, reflexive practice, and community co-ownership supported scalable yet contextually responsive implementation. Conclusions This study advances methodological scholarship by reconceptualizing Memory Cafés as durable participatory infrastructures rather than discrete support programs. The ARM model demonstrates how relational continuity, co-creation, reflexivity, aesthetic engagement, accessibility, and community adaptation can be operationalized within arts-based PAR to support dementia-inclusive community development. Beyond dementia research, the findings offer a transferable methodological framework for researchers seeking to integrate Arts-Based Research, Participatory Action Research, implementation, and community-engaged knowledge co-production across diverse community contexts.