The Sociomateriality of Creativity in Everyday Life

This paper explores the sociomateriality of creativity in everyday life. Whilst creativity research has traditionally been concerned with the intellectual and individual skills promoting creativity, such as the ability to apply divergent thinking, this author anchors creativity in social practice. It is suggested that: (1) creativity is an everyday phenomenon resulting in continual processes of ‘‘making the world;’’ (2) there is a close relationship between human beings and material tools in the creativity process; and (3) there is a close relationship between continuity and renewal, meaning that materials, tools, things, institutions, normative practices and ‘‘ways of doing’’ already in the world are taken as starting points for new creations.