Creativity and Cultural Improvisation [Hardcover]

There is no prepared script for social and cultural life. People work it out as they go along. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation casts fresh, anthropological eyes on the cultural sites of creativity that form part of our social matrix.

The book explores the ways creative agency is attributed in the graphic and performing arts and in intellectual property law. It shows how the sources of creativity are embedded in social, political and religious institutions, examines the relationship between creativity and the perception and passage of time, and reviews the creativity and improvisational quality of anthropological scholarship itself.

Individual essays examine how the concept of creativity has changed in the history of modern social theory, and question its applicability as a term of cross-cultural analysis. The contributors highlight the collaborative and political dimensions of creativity and thus challenge the idea that creativity arises only from individual talent and expression.

Creativity and Cultural Improvisation: An Introduction --Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen * Improvisation and the Art of Making Things Stick--Karin Barber, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham * I. Art, Intellect and the Attribution of Creative Agency * Section Introduction--Tim Ingold, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen * Design, Innovation and Agency in Pattern Construction--Amar Mall, Department of Anthropology, University College London * Creating or Performing Words Visually--Fuyubi Nakamura, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford * Creativity, Subjectivity and the Dynamic of Possessive Individualism--James Leach, King's College, University of Cambridge * II. Creative Appropriations and Institutional Contexts * Section Introduction --Melissa Demian, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, and Sari Wastell, Department of Anthropology, GoldlÁ