Creativity in Spaces of Possibilities for Sustainable Urban Development: An Empirical Study of Four Cultural Initiatives in Hanover, Germany

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Sacha Kagan

Creativity is a central feature of educational processes that aim for an artistic communication of sustainability challenges in the city. The study reported in this article empirically explores the deployment of social creativity in cultural initiatives struggling with issues of (un)sustainable urban development in their city (Hanover, Germany). On the one hand, individual characteristics of creativity are explored. On the other hand, forms of collective creativity are of interest, as well as the synthesis of individual and collective creativity under the concept of social creativity.

Original languageEnglish
JournalWorld Futures
Volume77
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)481-507
Number of pages27
ISSN0260-4027
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11.2021

Bibliographical note

The empirical research grounding this article was carried out within the framework of the “City as Space of Possibility” (“Stadt als Möglichkeitsraum”) Research Project at Leuphana University Lüneburg (2015–2018), which was supported by the “Niedersächsisches Vorab” advanced funding program from the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony (Germany). I want to thank my colleagues within the “City as Space of Possibility” Research Project, namely: Volker Kirchberg, Antoniya Hauerwaas, Ute Stoltenberg, Ursula Weisenfeld, Annette Grigoleit, Patricia Wedler, Verena Holz, Julia Barthel, and several students assistants who visited a few events and meetings of KdW and provided me with their impressions and field notes. Over the duration of the empirical research, I was regularly supported by a part-time student assistant (namely Tim Bauer in the first year of the project, and then Elisabeth Böhnlein in the following two years), who contributed to fieldwork, filming, transcriptions, coding of the material and interpretation of the coded material. Another student assistant, Anna Oldiges, also contributed to the coding efforts in the final months.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

    Research areas

  • Collective creativity, individual creativity, social creativity, spaces of possibility, sustainable urban development
  • Sociology