Last modified: 2011-02-11
Abstract
Creativity belongs to the spirit of our times. In contrast to the past when creativity was mostly associated with genius and even with madness it is seen today as an asset available to everyone. Creativity was democratised and constitutes an element in a wide range of social areas. In order to solve problems and generate innovations in education, politics, arts, management and industries people are invoked to utilise their creative potential. While I argue that creativity is an omnipresent term in diverse social fields I also claim that there are some fields in which the notion of creativity fulfils a more crucial role in constructing its object as for instance Creative Industries. Previous attempts to define creative industries draw primarily on product properties, vocational and sectoral categories as well as on structural characteristics, such as forms of organisation and labour conditions. Despite these attempts the question of difference and similarity between creative industries and the rest of the economy is not fully answered and, therefore, still an essential one.
In order to contribute to this debate I argue in this paper that a different approach is needed which turns the attention on interactions rather than on customary categories. The creative industries are constituted by a wide range of interrelated activities. Thus, the activities are embedded in complex interaction networks where individuals have to negotiate and come to an agreement. This negotiation is framed by several logics at the same time. An encounter of a graphic designer with a costumer might as well be framed by the logic of the market as by the logic of inspiration. Furthermore, the logic of reputation might also be relevant because creative workers rely strongly on other people’s judgements in order to define their own positive worth. It is agreements and conflicts like these, which my Ph.D. project is focusing on. On the basis of the theoretical framework concerning ”orders of worth” within such interactions, which was first developed by Boltanski and Thévenot, I search for logics inherent to certain interactions and explore how these logics interact with each other. Detecting these logics I aim at a better understanding of the world of creativity.