From Wise Humanising Creativity to (Posthumanising) Creativity

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that the concepts of creativity in education put forward to date can only go so far in addressing the rapid, unpredictable changes inherent in the 21 st century and the accompanying policy and practice challenges we face. The chapter shifts away from conceptualisation such as 'wise humanising creativity' and proposes a different articulation of creativity which may allow us to think about and action creativity to meet these challenges. This (post-humanising) creativity overcomes problems of humanistic conceptualisations as it allows for a full range of 'players' within the creative process, it incorporates a different, emergent take on ethics and is willing to see the future too as emergent, rather than always 'to-bedesigned'. The chapter culminates by offering examples of (post-humanising) creativity in action, aiming to bring alive how it can address our policy and practice dilemmas.liberalism" (p.5) which emphasises "markets, competition and choice " (p.11, Hall and Gunter, 2016). In this chapter I would like to demonstrate that the concepts of creativity in education put forward to date can only go so far in terms of addressing the challenges we face. I am proposing a different articulation of creativity, one influenced by the posthuman turn, which may allow us to think about and action creativity to meet the challenges. I will argue that a posthuman take on creativity overcomes problems of previous humanistic conceptualisations because it allows for a full range of 'players' within the creative process, it incorporates a different, emergent take on ethics and is willing to see the future too as emergent, rather than always 'tobe-designed'.And so, in this chapter, I discuss (post-humanising) creativity. I take as my starting point Wise Humanising Creativity (WHC), an idea which I co-developed with the late

A Sociocultural Theory of Creativity: Bridging the Social, the Material, and the Psychological

“…What it tries is to “socialize” their vocabulary—for example, ideas become perspectives, creative potential is both personal and relational—and, in doing so, to reveal the material, embodied, social, symbolic, cultural, and developmental roots of the concepts and relations that are commonly used in creativity studies, at least in psychology. Given that sociocultural psychology is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor, building on insights from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and philosophy, its theories of creativity can also open up the field to new paradigms, from material engagement theory (Malafouris, 2020) to post-humanist approaches (Chappell, 2018).…”

“…The literature on constraints and creativity is also inclined to consider material properties (Stokes, 2005) although often the focus is on how constraints are perceived, represented, or self-imposed rather than an analysis of the physical environment of creative people. Overall, this is a tendency widely spread within the psychology of creativity: to depict materiality as an external context, something that constrains, guides, and facilitates creative expression “from the outside.” Without proposing the other extreme position of blurring the line between what is human and nonhuman, psychological and material (for example, in discussions of posthumanism and new materialism; e.g., Chappell, 2018), what we need is an account that firmly recognizes materiality as part and parcel of creativity. Objects are not agents in the same way humans are, and yet, no human agency is possible without material support, social interaction, and especially without their interdependence.…”

How Creativity in STEAM Modules Intervenes with Self-Efficacy and Motivation

“…The layer of communal engagement is particularly important regarding the societal level of Responsible Research and Innovation, and the idea that innovators need to be mutually responsive within and beyond their communities. The concept of communal engagement [38] acknowledges that creative working shapes the ideas and thinking of people who then only exist in groups with shared identities. Their body of thought can, however, be challenged by the inventiveness of other groups.…”

Creative Pedagogy and Environmental Responsibility

“…In the broader literature on creative pedagogies described above and, indeed, in the CREATIONS definition itself, there is a dominantly humanist conception of creativity in research and practice. Our recent research is moving away from this (whilst acknowledging its influence) as we are increasingly engaged with new materialist theorising (Chappell, 2018;Hetherington et al, 2019c). Therefore, the articulation of the relevant features in this chapter is rooted in a new materialist stance.…”

“…Broadly, this is in response to the synergies we find between the embodied, relational dialogic stance at the heart of Chappell and Craft's (2011) earlier articulation of creativity and our theorising of creativity, which acknowledges the enmeshed (from Braidotti, 2013) or entangled (from Barad, 2007) nature of human-otherthan-human relationships 4 in order to be able to creatively respond to the educational challenges of rapid and unpredictable change. Chappell's (2018) (post-humanising) creativity situates embodied dialogue at its heart, with objects, environments and humans intra-acting as embodied, agentic and entangled actants. Creativity is dispersed through the intra-action rather than humanly centred.…”