The more things change, the more they stay the same
creativity as the next colonial turn
pp. 293-296
in: Alan , E. Paul Hart, Michael A. Peters (eds), A companion to research in education, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
The emergence of creativity as a master discourse variously promises benefits, threatens loss, and for some, holds no change. In response to Hay and Kapitzke, this response piece argues that what is promised as new in a discourse of creativity is actually a perpetuation of imperialism and colonialism as experienced by Aboriginal peoples. Drawing on the example of the discourses of ecological and sustainable development, I examine how the underlying paradigms and knowledge regimes remain unchallenged and therefore, unchanged, and thus serve to re-inscribe the erasure, exclusion and silencing of Aboriginal peoples. The discourse of creativity serves not as a vehicle of social, political, economic and educational transformation but of re-invention of previous master discourses. Thus the caution: that as things change creatively, the more they creatively stay the same?