Introduction: The Anthropology of Creations

This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropology of creations, and identifies some central concerns and definitions. Juxtaposing emic and etic perspectives, I derive several principles to guide the study of creations. Culture consists of creations, which are products of minds, and exist in three media: thoughts, behaviours and artefacts. Only by being expressed as bodily movement or material culture can creations be transmitted to others. Creations are embedded in webs of mental, behavioural, and artefactual associations that vary across individuals, groups, and time. Imaginations generate creations by representing and manipulating mental images, primarily through recombining and recontextualising elements of pre-existing representations. Purposeful imagining is conscious, goal-directed, and subject to agents' executive control. Autonomous imagining generates imagery independent of conscious control, typically in dream or trance; its creations are often attributed to spiritual others. Innovation is the process of imaginative conception, realisation, social adoption, and cultural incorporation of creations. Innovation not only changes but also maintains living traditions.