Open Anthropology: The Public Journal of the American Anthropological Association, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2021
Many of us marvel at the extensive improvisation and innovation we have called up recently as bil... more Many of us marvel at the extensive improvisation and innovation we have called up recently as billions of people have had to abruptly change their ways of interacting with one another in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on the human capacity for creativity to guide pandemic responses—medically, physically, and socially. In this issue of Open Anthropology, we consider several fundamental questions about creativity from an anthropological perspective. How does creativity relate to tradition? Where does creativity come from? Who creates and under what circumstances is creativity encouraged or restrained? Are there particular contexts that foster or inhibit creativity and innovation? And finally, how can creativity be taught or learned? The articles in this collection clearly demonstrate that we inhabit a shared creative world where people constantly improvise and experiment, circulating new ideas that open new possibilities for further actions and interactions. In short, being human is itself a creative practice.
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Papers by Cathy Costin
logistical characteristics they assume are actually rare in antiquity, and in part because they are based on narrow, Euro-centric models that privilege some types of products and modes of organization over others.