Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work

Creative workers have been celebrated internationally for their flexibility in new labour markets centred on culture, creativity and, most recently, innovation. This book draws on research with novice and established workers in a range of specializations in order to explore the meanings, aspirations and practical difficulties associated with a creative identification. It investigates the difficulties and attractions of creative work as a personalized, affect-laden project of self-making, perpetually open and oriented to possibility, uncertain in its trajectory or rewards. Employing a cross-disciplinary methodology and analytic approach, the book investigates the new cultural meanings in play around a creative career. It shows how classic ideals of design and the creative arts, re-interpreted and promoted within contemporary art schools, validate the lived experience of precarious working in the global sectors of the creative and cultural industries, yet also contribute to its conflicts. 'Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work' presents a distinctive study and original findings which make it essential reading for social scientists, including social psychologists, with an interest in cultural and media studies, creativity, identity, work and contemporary careers.

About the Author

Stephanie Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the Department of Social Sciences at the Open University, UK, author of Narratives of Identity and Place, co-editor of Exploring Social Lives and editor of Ethnographic Research: A Reader. Karen Littleton is Professor of Psychology in Education at the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology at the Open University, UK, and co-author of Social Processes in Children's Learning and Dialogue and the Development of Children's Thinking.