Dear all,
RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group (UGRG) will organise a session entitled “Creative Urban Geographies and Urban Geographies of Creativity” in this year’s RGS-IBG Annual Conference.
If you are interested in contributing to this session, please submit your abstract (no more than 300 words) to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSciV6MAhK06sIdfKlIwd17OR0imfhKUit0FDjLjM4fg6CYa7w/viewform?usp=header by Friday 21 February 2025.
Best regards,
RGS-IBG UGRG Committee
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Creativity has been regarded as a positive concept referring to the human intellectual capacity to imagine, innovate, and produce various things. It is typically seen as belonging to artists adopting an avant-garde lifestyle outside the traditional norms formed around family, religion, and the state. Discussions around creativity also crystallize around whether it belongs to humans or non-humans, such as AI technologies and potentially cyborgs.
Geography has experienced a creative “(re)turn”, dealing with various artistic practices as a source of alternative forms of knowledge and methods for multiple fields in geography (Hawkins, 2013; 2019). This “(re)turn” has incorporated various art forms such as poetry, literature, performance, and film into geography as well as other innovative and technological methods, such as urban walking and exploration, mobile phones, and videos (Kelly, Lally and Nicholson, 2023; Marston and De Leeuw, 2013; Veal and Hawkins, 2020). “Creativity” also refers to alternative lifestyles, spaces and experiences emerging at the community level as possible solutions to neoliberal agendas and urgent crises. This can include delivering well-designed, affordable housing, and creating sustainable food and energy networks via DIY or tactical urbanism (Deslandes, 2013; Iveson, 2013; Webb, 2018).
Creativity is central to discussions on urban restructuring and development, particularly in the context of “creative industries”, and the rise of “creative classes” working in knowledge-based and cultural sectors, including R&D, software professionals, fashion designers, architects, and artists (Florida, 2002; 2003). These extend to different geographies, and urban, suburban, and rural realms (Batabyal and Nijkamp, 2023). Creativity in this context can be taken as a response to the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and efforts to transform urban spaces, cultures and how creative classes work and live (Florida, 2023).
Much attention has also been given to “creative cities”, i.e. cities developing around creative and cultural industries to increase urban economic development (Cunningham, 2002; Evans, 2009; Landry, 1994; Landry and Bianchini, 1995; Scott, 2006). This process might exacerbate existing inequalities and exclude disadvantaged groups from urban spaces, while transforming the city for the benefit of neoliberalism, thus increasing polarisation (Miles, 2013; Morgan and Ren, 2012; Mould, 2018). In this context, arts and other creative practices have been incorporated into events such as art festivals or spaces such as museums and art galleries, while radical and alternative ones are excluded (Mcauliffe, 2012; Mould, 2024).
This session aims to question creativity from the angle of urban geography. Are there creative urban spaces, and can we talk about the creativity of urban geography as a field of study within geographical sciences?
This session is open to papers on a wide range of relevant topics, including but not limited to:
– Creative urban geographies: how do urban geographies use creativity (methods, approaches and forms of knowledge), such as cognitive mapping, artistic practices and graffiti-based approaches?
– Creative urban morphology, smart urbanism, and planning for sustainable and smart cities
– Creative urban spaces and practices: examples of alternative urban spaces and lifestyles
– Creative classes and their relationships with urban and regional transformation
– The dark side of urban creativity
– The intersection between AI, urban geography and creativity
References
– Batabyal, A.A. and Nijkamp, P. (2022) “Introduction”, in Batabyal, A.A. and Nijkamp, P. (eds.) The Creative Class Revisited: New Analytical Advances. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 3-20.
– Cunningham, S. (2002) ‘From cultural to creative industries: Theory, industry, and policy implications’, Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 102 (1), pp. 54-65.
– Deslandes, A. (2013) ‘Exemplary amateurism: Thoughts on DIY urbanism’, Cultural Studies Review, 19 (1), pp. 216-227.
– Hawkins H. (2013) ‘Geography and art. An expanding field: Site, the body and practice’, Progress in Human Geography, 37(1), pp. 52–71.
– Hawkins, H. (2019) ‘Geography’s creative (re)turn: Toward a critical framework’, Progress in Human Geography, 43 (6), pp. 963-984.
– Evans, G. (2009) ‘Creative cities, creative spaces and urban policy’, Urban Studies, 46 (5-6), pp. 1003-1040.
– Florida, R. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
– Florida, R. (2003) ‘Cities and the creative class’, City & Community, 2(1), pp. 3–19.
– Florida, R. (2023) “The Theory and Analytics of the Creative Class”, in Batabyal, A.A. and Nijkamp, P. (eds.) The Creative Class Revisited: New Analytical Advances. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, pp. 343-362.
– Iveson, K. (2013) ‘Cities within the city: Do-it-yourself urbanism and the right to the city’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37 (3), pp. 941-956.,
– Kelly, M., Lally, N. and Nicolson, P. (2023) ‘On art and experimentation as geographical practice’, Geohumanities, 9 (2), pp. 380-410.
– Landry, C. (2000) The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan.
– Landry, C., and Bianchini, F. (1995) The Creative City. London: Demos.
– Marston, S. A. and De Leeuw, S. (2013) ‘Creativity and geography: Toward a politicized intervention’, Geographical Review, 103 (2), pp. iii–xxvi.
– McAuliffe, C. (2012) ‘Graffiti or street Art? Negotiating the moral geographies of the creative city’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 34(2), pp. 189–206.
– Miles, M. 2013. ‘A post-creative city?’, RCCS Annual Review, 5. https://doi.org/10.4000/rccsar.506
– Morgan, G. and Ren, X. (2012) ‘The Creative underclass: culture, subculture, and urban renewal’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 34 (2), pp. 127-130.
– Mould, O. (2018) Against Creativity. London: Verso Books.
– Mould, O. (2024, Oct 25) ‘Creativity, capitalized’, Future Tense Fiction. Issues in Science and Technology. https://issues.org/futuretensefiction/creativity-capitalism-oli-mould/
– Scott, A.J. (2006) ‘Creative cities: Conceptual issues and policy questions’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 28 (1), pp. 1-17.
– Veal, C. and Hawkins, H. (2020) “Creativity as method: exploring challenges and fulfilling promises?”, in De Dios, A. and Kong, L. (eds.) Handbook on Geographies of Creativity. London: Edward Elgar, pp. 352-369.
– Webb, D. (2018) ‘Tactical urbanism: Delineating a critical praxis’, Planning, Theory & Practice, 19 (1), pp. 58-73.