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The Palgrave Handbook of Creativity at Work pp 287–307Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Creativity: Transformation of Adversity

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Abstract

In this chapter, we explore creativity as the transformation of adversity, by communities that live at the margins of our society. Creative survival tactics of the marginalized invite us to re-think ideas on creativity and expand our understanding beyond the confines of psychology, art, and organization. Our focus is on understanding how, in contexts of ongoing adversity, marginalized communities fluidly produce and reproduce their distinctive ways of surviving by using adversity as a form of creative capital. We explain how people engage in creative survival tactics, and that these practices may become so widespread they form an alternative economy based on creative survival. We bring this notion of creativity to life by highlighting insights from field research in Zimbabwe. The chapter shows how marginalized people build creative agency and sustain their livelihoods in the face of ongoing hardship, at the same time contributing to the economic productivity of society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This concept applies throughout the country—not only in the Shona lexicon as kukiya-kiya but also in Ndebele as ukusanganisa/ukudoba-doba and in English as “make a plan” (Jones, 2010).

  2. 2.

    We are grateful to the five respondents who took part in our research. Of the names referenced, Adam, Tawanda, Rudo, and Matthew are pseudonyms. Dexter is a well-known local character, and he was happy for his name to be used in this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. OCAD University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Alia Weston

  2. Kingston University, Kingston, UK

    J. Miguel Imas

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  1. Alia Weston
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  2. J. Miguel Imas
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Correspondence to Alia Weston .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

    Lee Martin

  2. Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries (CMCI), King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Nick Wilson

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Weston, A., Imas, J.M. (2018). Creativity: Transformation of Adversity. In: Martin, L., Wilson, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Creativity at Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77350-6_14

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