Providing a critical overview of our understanding of creativity, this text addresses fundamental issues in the field. The contributors address questions such as: How is the creative person socially constructed? And what are the economic and social factors in the production of art?

This Handbook brings together an international cast of experts to explore the social nature and context of creativity studies, focusing on methodology as a key component in advancing the social study of creativity. Two decades on from the pioneering work of Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser, the authors present a timely appraisal of past and present work in social creativity studies, and look ahead to future developments within this field. The authors collectively offer a rigorous examination of the methodological and empirical issues and techniques involved in studying social creativity. They examine the phenomenon as a form of communication and interaction within collaborative relationships; contending that creativity happens not within a vacuum but instead from a nexus of personal, social and contextual influences. This comprehensive work is organized in three parts, focusing first on the various methodological approaches applicable to the social in creativity studies. It secondly turns to empirical findings and approaches relating to the social nature of creativity. In the book’s final part, the authors offer reflections on the state of social research into creativity, pinpointing areas requiring further methodological scrutiny and empirical verification, and areas that may inspire further theoretical or applied work. Combining classic ideas with cutting-edge, emerging methods, this work provides a vital methodological ‘toolbox’ for investigators within social creativity.

"What is everyday creativity? A capacity, a strategy, a process, all of these. It is a capability that is an intimate part of our daily lives and our personalities, yet it remains, for most of us, underdeveloped and, unfortunately, underacknowledged. Editor and leading creativity researcher Ruth Richards writes, "Everyday creativity is ... fundamental to our very survival. With our everyday creativity, we adapt flexibly, we improvise, we try different options, whether we are raising a child, counseling a friend, fixing our home, or planning a fundraising event." In this provocative collection, an interdisciplinary group of eminent thinkers offer their thoughts on how embracing creativity--tapping into the "originality of everyday life"--An lead to improved physical and mental health and to new ways of thinking and experiencing the world and ourselves. They show how our creativity can help us live "in the moment," refine our views of human nature at an individual and a societal level, find spiritual meaning, and, ultimately, change our paradigms for survival-and for flourishing-in a world fraught with urgent challenges. Neither a dry treatise nor a manual, this anthology draws upon the latest research in the area to present a lively examination of the phenomenon and process of everyday creativity and its far-reaching ramifications for self, society, politics, human and cultural evolution, and our future"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).

This book examines research using anti-oppressive, arts-based methods to promote social change in oppressed and marginalized communities. The contributors discuss literary techniques, performance, visual art, and new media in relation to the co-construction of knowledge and positionality, reflexivity, data representation, community building and engagement, and pedagogy. The contributors to this volume hail from a wide array of disciplines, including sociology, social work, community psychology, anthropology, performing arts, education, medicine, and public health.

The axis of this book is the articulation between the concept of collective subjectivity with the themes of social evolution and social creativity on the one hand, plus contemporary modernity and social change on the other. Drawing on theoretical ideas on reflexivity, creativity and history, it proposes a discussion of fundamental aspects of contemporary society, dealing with global modernity, economic sociology and social policy, via concrete discussions about Brazil and Britain.

The title Joy Forever refers to the false promise of a common happiness, constantly played out by the proponents of the creative class and creative economy the very promise that since Romanticism has been ascribed to art itself, a vow which remains unfulfilled. The aim of F/SUW s publication is to scrutinize the false promises of distributed creativity as an ideology of cognitive capitalism. The authors devote themselves to critical examination of the structural links between art, creativity, labour and the creation of value under contemporary relations of production. Some of them do not stop at a critical diagnosis but go further, reflecting upon potential alternatives to the status quo.

This open access book explores creative and collaborative forms of research praxis within the social sustainability sciences. The term co-creativity is used in reference to both individual methods and overarching research approaches. Supported by a series of in-depth examples, the edited collection critically reviews the potential of co-creative research praxis to nurture just and transformative processes of change. Included amongst the individual chapters are first-hand accounts of such as: militant research strategies and guerrilla narrative, decolonial participative approaches, appreciative inquiry and care-ethics, deep-mapping, photo-voice, community-arts, digital participatory mapping, creative workshops and living labs. The collection considers how, through socially inclusive forms of action and reflection, such co-creative methods can be used to stimulate alternative understandings of why and how things are, and how they could be. It provides illustrations of (and problematizes) the use of co-creative methods as overtly disruptive interventions in their own right, and as a means of enriching the transformative potential of transdisciplinary and more traditional forms of social science research inquiry. The positionality of the researcher, together with the emotional and embodied dimensions of engaged scholarship, are threads which run throughout the book. So too does the question of how to communicate sustainability science research in a meaningful way.