Banal Creativity: Using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to Reveal Mechanisms that Exclude Racialized, Gendered, and Disabled Creators

• Main Author: Jones, David Robert
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2021
• Subjects: Academically Gifted; Actors; Association (Psychology); Autism; Beliefs; Bias; Children & youth; Cloning; Computer Assisted Instruction; Creativity; Dance; Disability; Discourse analysis; Disproportionate Representation; Dissertations & theses; Duplication; Education; Essays; Gender; Gender Discrimination; Geographic Location; Gifted; Group Membership; Ideography; Individual Characteristics; Innovations; Literature reviews; Meta Analysis; Misconceptions; Paradigms; Philosophers; Philosophy; Power; Psychology; Recognition (Achievement); Resistance (Psychology); Resource Allocation; Sex discrimination; Social Discrimination; Social exclusion; Statistical Analysis; Structural Analysis (Linguistics); Students; Success; Values
• ISBN: 9798535532349

I applied Foucauldian discourse analysis to understand how creativity research discourse excludes racialized, gendered, and disabled creators. The discourse plane consisted of the three most prominent peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the exploration of creativity as a human trait. Within this plane, power manifested across a nexus involving publishers, organizations commissioning the journals, editorial boards, and a handful of prolific actors with various roles. Additionally, the enactment of power reflects capitalist and consumerist values. Those with power, who regulate creativity research discourse, permit the study of elements that comprise or contribute to creativity, what benefits creativity provides, more perfectly measuring creativity, fostering creativity. Speaking is permitted to the degree that it elaborates and/or refines this pattern of discourse. Those permitted to speak are highly credentialed and employed in higher education, most often White and sometimes Asian, male, and most often working in Europe and North America. The discourse plane suggests that potential creators are students and workers, demonstrating that notions of creativity are less often concerned with the human experience of creativity. Instead, creativity entangles with beliefs about who can be productive and how does productivity serve the economy. The analysis revealed hegemonic practices underlying peer-reviewed publication related to creativity research discourse. Initial ideas for curtailing those hegemonic practices include researching beyond classrooms and workplaces. Additionally, constructing a more perfect model of creativity entails recruiting a more diverse population upon which to model the trait.