Creativity and Cultural Improvisation

edited by Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen, Dep. of Anthropology).
Oxford-New York, Berg, 2007 (hardcover) - ASA Monographs
ISBN 13: 978-1-84520-526-3

This volume is the outcome of the 2005 Conference of the Association of Social Anthropology of the Commonwealth, held at King's College, University of Aberdeen, in April of that year ( I was there!).

IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT VOLUME.

Quoting the authors (Introduction of the volume, p. 21):

"Apart from an opening chapter by Karin Barber and a closing chapter by Clara Mafra, this book is divided into four parts. The first, corresponding to the generative aspect of improvisation, explores the creativities of life and art, and considers the issues involved in the attribution of creative agency, for example in the fields of the graphic and performing arts, and of intelectual property law. The second part, corresponding to the relational aspect of improvisation, shows how the sources of creativity are practically embedded in social, political and religious institutions, and in dispositions of power and authority. Part III is concerned with improvisation in its temporal aspect, focusing on the relation between creativity and the perception and passage of time in history, tradition and the life-course. The final part takes up the improvisational quality of the way we work, looking at the creativity of anthropological scholarship itself. How, if at all, does the generation of new knowledge in the dialogic contexts of encounters between ethnographers and their subjects, or between teachers of anthropology and their students, differ from the generativity of those interpersonal encounters in which all social and cultural life subsists? For some of the answers, and for many more questions, read on!"

I think that the cover's image is Tim's, who is also a cello player.
I have a great admiration for this extraordinary person.