Creativity in everyday literacy practices : the contribution of an ethnographic approach.

Papen, Uta and Tusting, Karin (2008) Creativity in everyday literacy practices : the contribution of an ethnographic approach. Literacy and Numeracy Studies, 16 (1). pp. 5-25. ISSN 1441-0559

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Abstract

In this article, we explore creativity in everyday literacies. We argue that much creativity can be found in the seemingly mundane and repetitive acts of text production and text use that are part of everyday life and work. Such creativity, however, can only be identified if we look beyond the texts themselves and examine the practices of making and engaging with texts. Once we leave aside conventional text-based notions of creativity, which focus on aesthetic features of language, we can understand creativity as a ‘popular’ and ‘ubiquitous’ event. To support our argument, we give examples from two different contexts: research on literacy in a parish community in the North-West of England and a study of literacy in relation to community-based tourism in Namibia.