The Creative Merge: At the Intersection of Creativity and Capitalism in a UNESCO City of Literature

The Creative Merge: At the Intersection of Creativity and Capitalism in a UNESCO City of Literature Public Deposited

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Hampton, Lisl
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology

Abstract

The City of Literature program within UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network operates within a framework of creativity, capitalism (including tourism), nation, heritage, and power. My task here is to understand how the breadth of the term creativity is used and understood across different registers within the program. I examine the history of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and its broader context of creative tourism. My analysis is based in part on an examination of cultural policies, interviews I conducted with people affiliated with Cities of Literature, and an analysis of the language of documentation that has come out of the Creative Cities Network. I also turn to some recent academic work on creative tourism and on cities to situate the Creative Cities Network in a scholarly context. Finally, I discuss the creativity of reading as understood through reception studies and ethnographic studies of readers and reading.

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