Introduction: The Anthropology of Creations

Abstract

This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropology of creations, and identifies some central concerns and definitions. Juxtaposing emic and etic perspectives, I derive several principles to guide the study of creations. Culture consists of creations, which are products of minds, and exist in three media: thoughts, behaviours and artefacts. Only by being expressed as bodily movement or material culture can creations be transmitted to others. Creations are embedded in webs of mental, behavioural, and artefactual associations that vary across individuals, groups, and time. Imaginations generate creations by representing and manipulating mental images, primarily through recombining and recontextualising elements of pre-existing representations. Purposeful imagining is conscious, goal-directed, and subject to agents' executive control. Autonomous imagining generates imagery independent of conscious control, typically in dream or trance; its creations are often attributed to spiritual others. Innovation is the process of imaginative conception, realisation, social adoption, and cultural incorporation of creations. Innovation not only changes but also maintains living traditions.

Keywords:

• Creation
• Imagination
• Innovation
• Invention
• Tradition

Notes

[1] This collection derives from the symposium, ‘Artifacts of Imagination and Innovation in Pacific Oceania’, held at the meeting of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, Santa Cruz, CA, USA on 12 February, 2009. In addition to the papers that appear as articles in this collection, Miller (2009) and Stewart and Strathern (2009), though pursuing publication elsewhere, participated in the symposium and contributed to the development of this collection as a whole. I dedicate whatever may be judged of value in this article to the memory of my father, Ivar Kaas Lohman (1917–2009), in thanks for past conversations that continue to inspire creations.