Creativity in Everyday Literacy Practices: The contribution of an ethnographic approach

Abstract

In this article we explore creativity in everyday literacies. We arguethat much creativity can be found in the seemingly mundane and repetitiveacts of text production and text use that are part of everyday life and work.Such creativity can only be identified, however, if we look beyond the textsthemselves and examine the practices of making and engaging with texts.Once we leave aside conventional text-based notions of creativity, whichfocus on aesthetic features of language, we can understand creativity as a‘popular’ and ‘ubiquitous’ event. To support our argument, we giveexamples from two different contexts: research on literacy in a parishcommunity in the North-West of England and a study of literacy in relationto community-based tourism in Namibia.