Abstract
This chapter introduces the method of serial reproduction as a way of analyzing social creativity as an ongoing cultural process. The method allows us to situate creativity in its social and historical context, as well as the intricate networks of interactions that condition novel products. Furthermore, it highlights the ways in which the process and product of creativity are deeply intertwined, rather than analyzing them as disconnected as has typically been done in creativity research; in other words, creative products are analyzed as part of a cultural stream in view to understanding social and psychological processes. The chapter begins by describing the intellectual foundations of the method in an early school of anthropology focused on cultural contact and change. It then proceeds to illustrate different ways of using the method to study social creativity in both laboratory and real-world settings. The latter examples come from research on the dynamics of street art in Egypt after the 2011 uprising.
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Notes
- 1.
Bartlett was here synthesizing two competing anthropological approaches of the 1910s: cultural evolution and diffusionism. The former emphasized everyday creativity of people within a society, while the latter pointing more to the spread of innovations from a few sources. In Bartlett’s approach contact with outside society serves as a stimulus to creativity from within it (see Wagoner, 2017a, 2017b).
- 2.
The word ‘peace’ under the Brazilian flag makes sense in the context of the political upheavals Brazil was going through at the time of data collection, especially protests for and against the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff.
- 3.
Recife is home to the first Jewish synagoge in Latin America, dating back to the Dutch settlement there. The jews fled the city when the Portuguese took over but many jewish symbols found their way into the local culture. For example, the star of david can be found on local coyboy hats!
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Wagoner, B. (2019). The Dynamic Display of Social Creativity: Developing the Method of Serial Reproduction. In: Lebuda, I., Glăveanu, V.P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Social Creativity Research. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95498-1_9
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