To Democratize,First Decolonize: Approaches Beyond Eurocentric and Colonial Epistemologies in Creativity

Data Collection

We identified publications through targeted searches using a combination of keywords through major library electronic databases (ProQuest, Science Direct, Scimago, Google Scholar). Keywords were identified (e.g., “creativity AND decolonization,” “creativity AND indigenous epistemology” etc.) to cover a range of intersections where this interdisciplinary scholarship could exist, not limiting our search by discipline. Initial scoping searches focused closely on the intersecting concepts by combining terms relating to the relevant populations and creativity (e.g., “indigenous,” “African American,” “BIPOC,” as paired with “creativity,” “creative thinking,” or “innovation” etc.). This approach identified a range of relevant articles, conceptual work, or studies; but, in reading these works and following breadcrumbs to others, we saw that we might miss relevant articles which used additional related keywords. Thus, another round of searching opened up the process to a range of population-relevant terms such as “decolonizing,” “anti-racist,” or “Global South.”

Finally, we searched for 10 initial combinations of keywords to pair creativity with multiple non-white, non-western positionalities. Our inclusion criteria were methodologically broad, as we were agnostic to methods and allowed for some important conceptual or theoretical work. The result was a gamut of literature, mostly limited to the past decade (2010–2021) to contain the scope (with notable exceptions for important, older contributions to this literature that were frequently cited as foundational articles). We saved the 50 most relevant search results for each of the 10 combinations of keywords. With 10 combination keywords and overlapping search results, we ended up with 304 articles, book chapters, and books.

Sifting was carried out in three stages, as with other types of qualitative reviews. Thus, papers were reviewed first by title, then by abstract, and finally by full text, excluding at each step those which did not satisfy the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Meade & Richardson, 1997). Both authors read all 304 abstracts and conclusions to identify contributions to the conceptualization of creativity. Not all articles were equally relevant but many contributed to our review by identifying some key literature from before 2010 that did not appear in our search. We ended with around 50 articles that are included in the analysis.

Thematic Analysis

Our thematic coding process examined the literature and focused on identifying the concepts that explicitly described the onto-epistemological nature of creativity from a decolonization perspective, or that offered a critique of dominant Eurocentric paradigms. In several rounds of shared meaning-making, we identified patterns and coalesced these into themes. For example, themes of spirituality, connection with the body, non-human agency, and dialectic resilience appeared frequently and recurrently within and across scholarship, addressing multiple non-white, non-western epistemologies, also allowing us to follow the “breadcrumbs.” For some themes, there were no easily accessible original sources as the concepts were rooted in millennia-old epistemological traditions (e.g., eastern Indian tantric yogic traditions). In such cases, we exhausted our understanding of the theme when new patterns stopped emerging—thus seeking “saturation” in qualitative analysis (Guest et al., 2020).

Maori Epistemology

In a Maori learning paradigm, “ngatairongo,” the union of the six senses of hearing, sight, taste, smell, touch, and intuition, are part of a creative framework that acknowledges the importance of “being.” Royal (2003) noted that this focus on being also assumes a sense of oneness with the environment, learning to be, or to become attuned to the tangible and intangible qualities of life and learning through ngatairongo (the six senses). Maori knowledge stresses the importance of a holistic knowledge through and by the integration of mind, body, and soul. In Maori epistemology, creativity is seen as being attuned to the universal flow, which connects with the idea of flow experience (Czikszentmihalyi & Robinson, 1990) or integration of the mindbodysoul in the moment of an experience.

Nishnaabeg Knowledge

Simpson (2014) elaborated that Nishnaabeg-Gikendaasowin, or Nishnaabeg knowledge, originates in the spiritual realm, “coming to individuals through dreams, visions, ceremony and through the process of gaaizhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang—that which is given lovingly to us by the spirits” (p. 10). To access this knowledge, creative beings have to situate themselves within and align with “the forces of the implicate order through ceremony, ritual and the embodiment of the teachings one already carries” (p. 10). The process of gaaizhi-zhaawendaagoziyaang is a creative process because it allows for a simultaneous connection and interaction with the spirits of ancestors, living plants, animals, and humans. Creativity, here, does not reside in the mind of an individual but is situated in a continuum of ancestral traditions, rituals, and knowledge systems that are inseparable from nature.

East Indian Approaches

Bhawuk (2019) reflected on traditional east Indian Indigenous creativity, noting that since all theories are grounded in cultural worldview, theories of knowledge in culture drive theory of creativity. Suggesting that culture shapes creativity and, because Indian culture has valued spirituality for millennia, he noted how creativity is grounded in spirituality in India and connects spirituality with the Hindu and Buddhist concept of self—including a metaphysical self, allowing for an examination of the external and internal journeys that people pursue toward creativity.

Bhawuk also noted that learning and creativity are not separate, but are conjoined processes: “one learns as one creates and one creates while learning” (p. 152). He demonstrated how Western conceptions of the creative process map onto connection points with the Indian philosophy of creativity. In Indian philosophy, however, these points of the process may be seen as spiritual, toward a goal of “nididhyasana or deep meditation in which the thought is internalized. . . . The gap between thought and action is completely eliminated,” resulting in a flow of creative process where the creator is one with the creation. Through meditation and yoga, in east Indian traditions, there are also implications for reaching a spiritual oneness between the mind and body and between the mindbody and the world—counter to Descartean separation of mind and body. We explore this further in the next theme.

Chicanx Feminism

Chicana, feminist, queer scholar Gloria Anzaldúa (2015) described in great detail the role of spirituality in the creative process, further demystifying it. She emphasized that the dismissal of spirit as a supernatural concept rests on the notion that spirit is detachable from the body, capable of leaving the body. She argued that the spirit is not something separate from matter, disconnected from the mindbody—and, in a creative process, an artist transforms latent, unconscious processes into a product through imagination. Here, creativity is spiritual and art a spiritual discipline. Describing the creative process of connecting the world outside with the body, she noted:

My naguala (daimon or guiding spirit) is an inner sensibility that directs my life—an image, an action, or an internal experience. My imagination and my naguala are connected—they are aspects of the same process, of creativity. Often my naguala draws to me things that are contrary to my will and purpose (compulsions, addictions, negativities), resulting in an anguished impasse. Overcoming these impasses becomes part of the [creative] process. (p. xi)

We also explore Anzaldúa’s work and its implication in greater detail in the next theme on the role of the body in creativity.

Tensions

The integrated and inseparable dimensions of creative existence as knowing (mind), doing (body), and being (soul) are rarely implemented in most westernized school settings (with the exception of some holistic education; e.g., Hindle, 2010). Simpson (2014) argued that Indigenous ecological innovations or knowledge are often considered worthwhile (e.g., irrigation systems, soil maintenance innovations, or medicinal plant knowledge); yet, western science ignores how this knowledge is acquired, maintained, and developed since spiritual Indigenous epistemologies are so radically different from “scientific” epistemology. For instance, pharmaceutical companies are often interested in medicinal plants from tropical rainforests. Researchers interview Indigenous healers (Cox & Elmqvist, 1994) about useful plants, and analyze them for active substances. But, because they ignore Indigenous explanations, they may be confronted with contradictions, where healers may use different plants for treating the same illness, or categorize many plants as “magical use” with no scientific explanation for its effect. If a pharmaceutical researcher or company is able to develop a medicine, the Indigenous knowledge is exploited, while beliefs that led to knowledge creation are ignored.

Acknowledging the interconnectedness of spirituality and creativity to inform innovation runs counter to neoliberal approaches that pathologize mental and physical health, perpetuate the abuse of the environment, and address technological exploitation with more technological acceleration. This has implications for how society approaches the issues of, for instance, mental health and wellbeing (e.g., incorporating the role of regular meditation and yoga as spiritual processes of healing instead of drugs), decolonization (e.g., reconnecting Indigenous people with their lands to rekindle epistemological traditions and creative processes by supporting landback movements), climate change and the environment (e.g., rethinking the planet as a sick being in need of healing and not a machine to be fixed or resources to be exploited), vegetarianism (e.g., ethical dilemmas in consuming agential beings), among innumerable problems that require creative thinking.

De Mori (2016) and Simpson (2001) noted that most Indigenous traditions across the world, from Anishinaabe in Canada to Maori in New Zealand, have the spiritual traditional ecological knowledge, abilities, and tools not only for creating environments but to save the planet. De Mori (2016) proposed that “if the holistic ontologies including gods, spirits, animals, etc. can be sustained and developed, future creativity can be complementary and fertile in dialogue with the creations of economic and scientific modernity” (p. 44).

East Indian Approaches

Epistemologies informed by eastern traditions like meditation and yoga have also marked the spiritual mind-body connection as a necessity for creativity (Easwaran, 2007; Sen and Sharma, 2011). The term yoga translates to “yoking” of the mind and body. Indian texts describe the process of connecting with the inner self as an act of re-creation or re-activation of what is already latent in the unconscious (as practiced in “Shaktism” [feminine energy] and the kundalini form of yoga). In classical Indian epistemology, this practice is categorized as a tantra. Timalisina (2017) noted that tantric traditions, in particular, utilize the body as a field for visualization to gain greater access to the mechanism of the mind.

Traditional Indian texts explicitly connected the exploration of the inner self and mindbody connection-making with creativity, noting that the inspiration for creativity lies in the search and development of a relationship between inner and outer worlds. Sen and Sharma (2011) note that a creative individual tries to self-extend by achieving “identification with the subject matter” and becoming the creation in their feelings (p. 276).

Chicanx Feminism

Similar to classical Indian texts, Anzaldúa (2015) centered the body in the creative process, defining creativity as a reordering and rearrangement (a rereading and rewriting) of pre-existing elements through the unification of body and mind:

For me, writing is a gesture of the body, a gesture of creativity, a working from the inside out. My feminism is grounded not on incorporeal abstraction but on corporeal realities. The material body is center, and central. The body is the ground of thought. (emphasis added; p. 5)

Anzaldúa argued that “the creative process demands the reconciliation of conflicting impulses and ideas” and calls for a higher awareness of consciousness that brings a deeper connection between the mind, body, and soul. In conceptualizing creativity, she described it as “a liberation impulse . . . to use the capacities of the mind, body, and soul, and other inner resources collaboratively, to create” (p. 40). She also clearly described soul as being the “imaginative possibility in our nature” (p. 177). “You make soul when you make art,” connecting it with John Keats coinage “soul-making” and Indigenous Mexican culture of “making face, making soul” (p. 41).

Anzaldúa (2015) further emphasized the need to go beyond binaries and dualism, developing the concept of nepantla, an in-between liminal space, an “overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems, where you are aware of the changeability of racial, gender, sexual, and other categories rendering the conventional labelings obsolete” (p. 119). She described being in nepantla as experiencing reality as “fluid, expanding and contracting” (DeMirjyn, 2020, p. 3). Anzaldúa (2015) used nepantla as a concept to explain liminality in ways that have called for less rigidity in what counts as knowledge:

In nepantla you are exposed, open to other perspectives, more readily able to access knowledge derived from inner feelings, imaginal states, and outer events and to “see through” them with a mindful, holistic awareness. Seeing through human acts both individual and collective allows you to examine the ways you construct knowledge, identity and reality, and explore how some of your/others’ constructions violate other people’s ways of knowing and living. (p. 122)

Her work underscored the significance of accepting one’s own femininity and sexuality as a natural part of a creative process, seeing beyond the subject-object divide—a way of knowing that “questions conventional knowledge’s current categories, classifications, and contents.”

African American Feminism

Renowned African American, critical feminist, queer scholar bell hooks (2014) connected the need to acknowledge discussions on spirituality with the need for a feminist shift in epistemology. In a connection to the body, hooks (2003), too, connected creativity with the role of feminism and sexuality, and how patriarchy has been a barrier to breaking the mind/body dichotomy. She writes, “those of us who have been intimately engaged as students or teachers with feminist thinking have always recognized the legitimacy of pedagogy that dares to subvert the mind/body split and allow us to be whole” (p. 193).

Disconnection with the body and dismissal of its role as a ground for thought not only severs the spiritual connection in the creative process but is linked with suppression of identities associated with the body that are non-normative, such as blackness, femininity, and the gamut of sexuality (Gallop, 1988). Union of the mind and body call for individual, societal, and systemic shifts to center blackness, feminism, indigeneity, and queer sexuality.

Tensions

While Anzaldua’s descriptions of mind-body connections in creativity were similar to eastern Indian yogic traditions, there were key differences. Anzaldua’s process was feminine in all aspects where mind, body, spirit, and soul were described in feminine terms. In yogic traditions, not all energy is feminine, and, instead, there is a complementing masculine-feminine yoking of mind-body.

The boundary between the mind and body—the way it is described in much African American and Chicanx literature, and Asian approaches—is intentionally blurred. These approaches challenge the western Descartean mind-body dichotomy and recenter on the role of the body in the process of knowing and creating, and the possibilities of knowledge being held in, and enacted or created, through the body (Anzaldua, 2015; hooks, 2014). The Cartesian separation of the body from the mind could be seen as having impacted the fields of creativity and education in profound ways. As a society, how we approach treatment, care, and well-being for minds and bodies, ourselves and those we serve, are reflective of our view of the mind and how creativity happens.

Mind-over-body is an assumption that has shaped academic fields like psychology, education, and creativity. Recent work in mindfulness, neurosciences, and psychoneuroimmunology, however, have begun to consider the body as inseparable from the mind (Tang et al., 2015). Descartes’ centering of (hu)man existence on thought, by stating “I think therefore I am,” is counter to most non-western views of the mind, and misrepresentational, even according to recent western research. Being inclusive of non-western epistemologies and ontologies means addressing assumptions about the mind in the fields related to psychology, such as creativity and education.

The creative significance of mindbody connections has been captured in western discourses in nonrepresentational theory (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988). In youth literacies, too, Leander and Boldt (2013) explored how centering the body in their observation of reading shaped how they saw the body itself as text, composed of spatial, behavioral, and gestural modalities. In Deleuze and Guattari’s (1988) rhizomatic onto-epistemology, the simultaneous togethering of the mindbody opens up new possibilities for creative experience and expression. Yet, this western thought, too, brings its own tensions in how it frames ideas that long preexisted contemporary western notions. As Tuck (2010) questioned:

How do I attribute Deleuze’s notions of rhizomatic interconnectedness, a notion at the very center of his philosophies, when for hundreds and thousands of years, interconnectedness has been the mainstay in many Indigenous frameworks, both tribal and diasporic? How do I as one person account for the interface of these concepts without falling into the traps put in place by the colonizers’ and academy’s long history of exploiting, romanticizing, and mining of Indigenous knowledge and the US tradition of “playing Indian”? It’s an issue of false inventions and giving credit where credit is due, and again an issue of describing and engaging in contentious, complex ideas. (p. 646)

Resilience+Resistance

Scholarships that address creativity in African American communities have noted resistance and resilience as being creative strategies that have helped Black folks move from a place of pain to power (Drake-Burnette et al., 2016). Drake-Burnette et al. noted that resistance as a creative strategy has been engaged by various Black women, enabling them to “make a way out of no way,” for them to continue to love, grow, and thrive (2016, p. 173). Creativity is often framed in the literature as a way to produce something new out of dire situations. Hajdukowski-Ahmed (2011) examined creativity as representing a form of resilience amid forced migration through the experiences of Indigenous and refugee-ed women. Sharing three qualitative studies that explore creativity for women of color refugees originating around the world (Iran, Cambodia, Bosnia, Siberia, Chile, and Argentina), she noted that creative projects and artmaking are highly associated with healing from trauma to promote resilience and growth. Given the effects of violent displacement often encountered by BIPOC communities, the sociocultural contexts that refugee women occupy may make the verbal telling of traumatic experiences difficult. Here, non-verbal forms of creative communication become a space for healing.

We also found frequent references to the work of humanistic psychologist Adelbert Jenkins. In his writings about the experiences of African Americans (e.g., Jenkins, 1995, 2005) he emphasized how living with the ongoing trauma of societal oppression has not merely been about passive forbearance, but about active, creative engagement with their circumstances. Thus, he described creativity for Black Americans as an act of resilience and resistance to oppressive norms. Jenkins framed African American creativity in terms of Rychlak’s (1994) notion of psychological agency, specifically dialectical thinking capacity, as a means of sustaining resilience. His focus on dialectic thinking capacities emphasized the creative imagination of oppressed people.

Dialectical Thinking

The tendency of human thought to consider alternative possibilities, even in a seemingly straightforward or grim situation, is a defining aspect of the term dialectical. Although dialectical thinking does not guarantee the most accurate thinking, Jenkins (2005) noted, “It does allow for creativity, and keeps an individual from being only stimulus bound. For our purposes, I think it captures particularly well one aspect of human potential that African Americans have drawn on to survive” (p. 29). Jenkins engaged in historical analysis of notable African American creatives to consider the ways that creativity and resilience connect, spurring imagination through dialectical thinking. For example, he reflects on how prize-winning African American novelist and essayist John Edgar Wideman (1994) noted:

The historical mind of African people captive in the American South learned how to get over. From daily encounters with this land, its peoples, weather, its tasks, this mind fashioned visions, dreams, an immaterial, spiritual realm with the density, the hard and fast integrity of rungs on an iron ladder. Invisible ladders leaning on air with iron rungs people could climb. The unwillingness of southern whites to share or cede space or acknowledge black humanity. . .were palpable barriers embodied in the southern landscape. . . . The minds of my forebears found means to negotiate paths over, under, around, and through this resistance, this danger, [they] envisioned freedom, the possibility of transcending all barriers. (p. 102–103)

Rychlak (1994), too, noted that dialectical view stands in contrast to a singular view of meaning that tries to define events with one particular interpretation, clear of ambiguous or alternative connotations. A key feature of this dialectic capacity is its imaginative power leading to new and liberating behavior, or at least an alternative vision that sustains a sense of humanity (Drake-Burnette et al., 2016).

Vernacular Technology

Fouché (2006) brought together notions of resistance and resilience into a theory of African American creativity by considering their experiences from where they stand in American society rather than from the dominant position that reflects back on Black lives. While Fouché’s theory emerged slightly earlier than the parameters of this literature review, we include it as seminal work that inspired more recent work on this topic (Gaskins, 2014, 2019) by recasting African American artistic and aesthetic creativity as American “survival technology,” where Black communities of practice have voluntarily subverted or remixed dominant technologies using local (cultural) practices. He specifically considered creativity in the Black experience as reflected through technology:

Black vernacular technological creativity. . .. Replete with rebellion, resistance, assimilation, and appropriation in forms we would often not recognize and in places we are not accustomed to looking. It is from this space that we can see how Black people reclaim a level of technological agency by redeploying, reconceiving, and re-creating material artifacts in their world. By focusing on Black vernacular technological creativity and engaging in uncovering the multiple layers of Black communities and their interactions with technology, we can avoid making the “they are all the same” essentialization of the marginalized mistake regarding African Americans. (p. 658)

Black vernacular technological creativity emerges from resistance to existing technology and strategic appropriations of the material and symbolic power and energy of technology. This theory categorizes Black vernacular technological creative acts in three ways: redeployment, reconception, and re-creation. Fouché suggested that redeployment occurs when the material and symbolic power of technology is re-interpreted but still has its traditional use and physical form (e.g., blues musicians extending the assumed capabilities of a guitar without changing the instrument). Reconception involves redefining technology in a way that transgresses its designed function and assumed meaning (e.g., using a police scanner to observe police activities). Re-creation requires the redesign and creation of a new material artifact after rejecting the original form/function (e.g., DJs and turntablists developing new equipment).

The goal of Fouché’s framework is to express a view of creativity not centered on the white experience of creating artifacts but to instead consider the many ways that Black people have creatively engaged technology in America, often as a means of resisting, rethinking, and moving creatively beyond common assumptions or narratives. This theory has been extended and used as a framework for scholarship around other forms of Black creativity, particularly as related to digitality and education (Gaskins, 2014). Gaskins’ (2014, 2019) work used this theory with other marginalized cultures’ approaches to art and technology to show how techno-vernacular creative production methods have the potential to engage underrepresented groups.

Tensions

Spirituality was not a common theme in scholarship around Black and African American creativity, at least not in the same paradigms as seen in Indigenous epistemology. Spiritual aspects in African American creativity were more in line with Judeo-Christian worldviews that treat nature as separate from human beings. Interestingly, spirituality in literature from African scholars was more aligned with Indigenous worlding (Adjei, 2007; Chinweizu, 1987). Unlike perspectives in Indigenous and/or African scholarship, African American psychologists and creativity scholars tend to align with naturalist epistemologies and western cognitive views of creativity in which thought and individuality are central.

As an example of plurality, we see tensions between scholars of color working from within western paradigms and even western scholars moving out of western paradigms. We emphasize, again, that different perspectives (north and south, western and non-western) are not dichotomous, contrary, or monolithic, but instead complementary to each other and diverse or pluralistic within themselves.

Another tension within the theme of resilience+resistance is a consistent story of the continual and ongoing struggle of Black people in oppressive systems. Creative expression has seldom been separated from resilience and resistance to systems. As Bettina Love (2019) wrote, Black people “want to do more than survive.” Creativity does not need to be only about resilience and resistance, but also about playing, healing, and thriving (Love, 2019). The obvious systemic reality here is that Black lives can be at risk even with an innocent act of play, being six times more likely to be shot to death by police (Equal Justice Initiative, 2020; e.g., Tamir Rice or countless other cases). In schools, too, when Black children are at a higher risk of suspension from school (Gibson et al., 2014), they are removed from creative learning opportunities. Democratizing creative educational experiences means tackling policing in educational systems in its many different forms, in and out of schools.

Beyond Naturalism

As discussed earlier in the first theme of spirituality, naming different onto-epistemological views helps identify the key distinctions between dominant and non-dominant paradigms. Dominant ontological views in the modern globalized world ascribe “agency for creation exclusively to human individuals (or legal entities like associations or enterprises) rather than to non-human entities (like birds or masks)” (de Mori, 2016, p. 49). This is based on the ontology of naturalism.

Naturalism is difficult to define because it varies across academic disciplines. A working definition understands naturalism as an ontological view that rejects the “supernatural” and acknowledges western modern science as the most effective (though not the only) approach to knowing nature and reality. Ways of knowing nature are restricted to what can be explicitly observed, often using tools to extend our senses and measure experience.

Historically, naturalism has also been a dominant paradigm in creativity and education. Naturalist traditions see “inspiration” as coming from the outside and the creative process as happening inwardly, coming from the individual (Deliège & Harvey, 2006). De Mori (2016) argued that the separation of “inspiration” as something “natural” and “creativity” as something “cultural,” do not allow for any other ontological systems than naturalism. From a naturalistic ontological perspective, denoting inspiration as something natural, and creativity as individual and cultural, may seem instinctive, but this is not so in other ontological systems.

Non-Human Agency

In animic, totemic, or analogic traditions, “non-human agents have to be considered as a part of creativity, as entities concerned with creation inasmuch as they actively contribute to the outcome of any human action” (de Mori, 2016, p. 50). Non-human beings are given agency and, in some instances, personhood. The personification of land and beings across non-western cultures is an acknowledgment of their creative agency. Non-human beings like animals, plants, rivers, mountains, or objects and artifacts, may be endowed with agency, even intentionality and identity (Cajete, 1994) in creativity. Some scholars (Bignall & Braidotti, 2019) have pointed to how this has developed into posthuman theories about creativity, which have emerged as an alternative to a traditional focus on human-centered creativity (Chappell, 2018). De Mori (2016) noted how this affects how the creative agency is assigned:

If Lilienthal was “inspired” by birds and their wings, the birds are ignored in the discussion about patents or rights. If Picasso was inspired by masks brought from Africa, the masks are likewise ignored (as are the creators of the masks in Africa). . . . Anybody might behold flying birds or African masks, but only a genius like Lilienthal, or Picasso, is assumed to be able to transform such an impression into a genuine invention or work of art. What I called “the European tradition”, or the “modern, globalized world”, therefore ascribes agency for creation exclusively to human individuals (or legal entities like associations or enterprises) rather than to non-human entities (like birds or masks). (p. 49)

A recurring theme in Indigenous knowledge traditions involves creation as the interaction of human beings with non-human agents (Simpson, 2014). Without the requisite contribution of non-human entities, no artwork or invention would happen (Zurba & Friesen, 2014). The keenness of the human mind is more central in western creativity views, as opposed to being an important but de-centered component of creativity in some Indigenous worldviews.

Tensions

Latour (2010) noted that the othering of non-human beings and non-white beings is a political act, “For purely anthropocentric—that is, political—reasons, naturalists have built their collective to make sure that subjects and objects, culture and nature remain utterly distinct, with only the former having any sort of agency” (p. 483). Walsh and Mignolo (2018) suggest that the concept of nature as separate from human beings is also an invention—a product of the epistemology that puts Eurocentric knowledge systems above the rest of the world, as the objects of their study (Said, 1985). The move beyond Eurocentrism is a decolonial move to connect humans and other beings/elements, and develop caring reciprocal relationships with the land (Tuck & Yang, 2012).

For the field of creativity, this could mean shifting policy and practice to better inform landback and decolonization movements, as de Mori (2016) noted,

Only if Indigenous and traditional peoples can continue to apply their epistemologies, they can be full and serious members of a globalizing world full of diversity. . . . We have to adapt legal and economic systems to sustainable methods of innovation that are synchronized with the seasons and the tides rather than with the ever-accelerating thrill of competition. We have to creatively adapt systems to include agencies that are more extensive—why not granting patents for innovation, titles of possession, or authorship for art to ecoscapes, to human/non-human collective entities? (p. 58)

Decolonization is rooted in the reconnection of the Indigenous people with the land. This has global political implications. This would require transdisciplinary and systemic innovation to consciously integrate marginalized voices and ways of being-knowing-doing in academia. In the next section, we address the potential implications of the four major themes for creativity theory and practice—for research and practice.

Decolonizing Methodology

Linda Tuhiwai-Smith (2021) noted that, from the vantage point of the colonized, “research” is unavoidably tied to imperialism and colonialism, such that the word “research” itself is a distasteful word across the Indigenous world’s vocabulary:

When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful. It is so powerful that indigenous people even write poetry about research. The ways in which scientific research is implicated in the worst excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world’s colonized peoples. (p. 1)

However, she noted that deconstructing the story of colonization and including the voices of those who have been silenced does not improve their current conditions. It provides words but does not prevent people from suffering or dying. Many communities live within political and social conditions that perpetuate extreme levels of poverty, chronic ill health, and poor educational opportunities (as much in the “first world” nations as in “developing” countries).

Within social realities that demand anti-colonial creative innovation for complex problems—questioning imperialism and the effects of colonization is not merely academic. Denial or ignoring the historical formations of such conditions denies people equity, even claims to humanity, or a sense of possibilities. Tuhiwai-Smith (2021) noted that, from within these spaces, increasing numbers of indigenous academics and researchers have begun to address social issues within the wider framework of self-determination, decolonization, and social justice. There are implications here for creativity research. Democratizing the field has methodological implications for expanding the possibilities of what creativity “research” looks like and who performs or enacts it. Tuhiwai-Smith also framed the impetus for Indigenous research to develop methodological frames and agendas more aligned with Indigenous worldviews:

It appalls us that the West can desire, extract and claim ownership of our ways of knowing, our imagery, the things we create and produce, and then simultaneously reject the people who created and developed those ideas and seek to deny them further opportunities to be creators of their own cultures and their own nations. (p. 1)

In Decolonizing Methodologies, Tuhiwai-Smith (2021) described 25 different Indigenous research projects globally that draw upon methodologies built on their own cultural creative qualitative methods, with more techniques than we might cover here (e.g., claiming histories, testimonies, storytelling, remembering, representing, and many others—notably “democratizing” and “creating” are offered as methods in themselves). Zavala (2016b), too, argued that community-led grassroots action research allows for resisting and healing from the impacts of ongoing colonialism.

Democratizing, as a research method in Indigenous terms, is a process of extending participation outwards through reinstating Indigenous principles of collectivity and public debate. Making space for scholars grounded in Black, Indigenous, and other non-western ways of knowing in the creativity research field—ways that might redefine rigor—is an important step to decolonizing and expanding our notions of what creativity is and what it offers.

Decolonizing Epistemology

Centering Black and Indigenous epistemologies in creativity research and practice mean reevaluating the ways of thinking-doing that dictate what is considered legitimate knowledge creation. Decolonization is not about rejecting or challenging existing scientific methods but about questioning underlying assumptions that limit what counts as science. We elaborate on two major epistemological shifts, each as a subtheme: moving beyond binary thinking, and rethinking our relationship with the land (and the planet).

Potential Questions for Research

Spirituality and Aesthetics in Teaching and Learning

Spirituality, based on the similarities across definitions in our review, might be described as a sense of oneness between the mind and the body, and the inside of the body with the outside world. This closely relates to the feeling of sublime, wonder, and amazement, which have been captured in scientific studies, and connect with philosophers like John Dewey (Girod & Wong, 2002). These feelings, however, are also closely related to fear, as Immanuel Kant noted. Kant suggested rationality as a tool to conquer the fear in the sublime (Spivak, 1999). The aesthetic shift to non-western epistemologies calls for a different understanding of the sublime, where conquering feelings with rationality is not the only way. Addressing the sense of oneness between humans, nature, and the universe is largely supported in the fields of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, although psychology and social sciences somewhat align with Kantian and Descartean views. Spirituality as a secular, experiential feeling/process also allows for a way to be more respectfully inclusive of multiple religious beliefs in the school systems without avoiding the issue completely or favoring a dominant religion.

Our review shows a conceptualization of mind and body as inseparable, and human agency as interconnected with the non-human entities, beings, planet, and environment. From this emerges a churning of plural knowledge systems across Indigenous traditions, East Asian and Indian practices, and western academia. The intentional connecting of the mind-body-planet is deemed a spiritual process, where the body is fully involved in the learning and creating of new knowledge and seen as unified with the mind. In yogic traditions, mindful meditation and awareness are part of creativity, to support holistic connections between the mind and body. Importantly for schooling, it is explicitly not a religious process in any way, but a life-centered one.

Considering mindfulness, meditation, yoga, breathwork, and other mindbody connectivity as key components of the creative process would require that creative educational experiences allow time to guide students to ground themselves in their body and the environment. Including mindfulness activities as part of the creative process can help students directly experience themselves as agents in a bigger creative process. While some schools and educators are already engaged in mindfulness in education, this is often done in one-off ways where a few minutes are given to a practice aimed at calming children to improve behavior or increase focus (Henriksen et al., 2020), rather than seeing meditation or mind-body activities as integrated with school knowledge and especially with opportunities for creativity. Mata-McMahon et al. (2019) found that, in an early childhood education context, “educators believe opportunities for creative expression and free play, engagement with nature, contemplative practices (e.g., mindfulness), relationship building and moral/character development are related to nourishing children’s spirituality” (p. 2233), so a key step could be connecting with this increasing interest in mindfulness to bring it to classrooms and into the creative curriculum.

Cutting Across Knowledge Disciplines

Transdisciplinary projects that cut across subject matters and epistemologies allow students to connect with the community and cultural needs to address social justice, and offer students new opportunities to connect home and culture with school, respectfully. We might consider how to actualize this by drawing on the decolonizing design movement in framing relevant projects and learning. Design (or design thinking) has, at times, been connected to creativity in education, as a frame for students’ or teachers’ thinking. The decolonizing design movement, however, considers how design knowledge/efforts are often framed by colonizing approaches that lead to solutions that tend mostly to account for the interests of western white majorities; whereas decolonizing focuses on design work where the designer’s role requires honoring Indigenous knowledge and practices, decentering Eurocentric perspectives, and thinking about new possible futures that are non-oppressive and non-hierarchical (Rodríguez Rivera et al., n.d.).

Western design focus, mostly, is to generate innovation through design thinking principles that draw from a narrative of global salvation, ignoring non-western ways of thinking. Tunstall (2013) points to other social projects that aim to work with and alongside Indigenous practices in order to create “a world where many worlds fit,” which is a central goal of decolonizing design models (Rodríguez Rivera et al., n.d.). By engaging some of these models in school projects, students might engage in social learning projects with an ethos that supports democratic creativity for all, considering: how can students design solutions that understand humans to be part of a vital system and not as the absolute top of the world’s ecosystems? How do we seek to learn and create in ways that are about more than just production and tangible results (where sustainable design still operates under neoliberal structures and capitalist interests), and move toward trying to be stewards of this earth?

A move toward decolonized and democratic creative education suggests that teachers and students localize themselves by understanding the land they stand on, asking: Whose land is it? Whose land was it? What are their practices? What are their stories? What are their aesthetics? How do we honor these?

Supporting Landback: Reconnecting With the Land

A perspectival shift about where creativity comes from might support the kind of posthuman ethical creativity that emphasizes and values creative solutions that are charged with an ethos to save the planet. The importance of landback cannot be overstated. We need to reconsider what it means to be inclusive of students whose knowledge, language, and culture have been systemically erased, ridiculed, or appropriated. How do we respectfully reestablish Indigenous students’ connection with the land as a being? There is a need for paradigmatic shifts as we consider the benefits of being informed by Indigenous onto-epistemologies of the planet. Education would also need to help young people consider how to radically define “problems,” what is considered a problem and why, and what counts as solutions. For example, are students allowed to question capitalism and its impact on the planet in the classroom?

By considering nondominant epistemologies as credible foundations for theorizing, we allow for new openings in how we can solve existing and future problems. Education for creativity has a role in terms of supporting creative thinking skills in schools in ways that are intrinsically tied to Indigenous ethics. In this kind of educational practice, creativity does not exist on its own but in communal actions. Creative projects in school could go beyond seeking novel and effective solutions to intimately and ethically consider the connected, communal nature of problems, and the ethics of solutions that teachers and students devise together toward social and environmental justice.

Spaces for Black and Indigenous Students to Thrive

Creating spaces for blackness and indigeneity to succeed and thrive creatively in schools is the first key step. Dunn and Love (2020) argued that “centering Black joy within antiracist pedagogies allows Black people to be more than their struggles and setbacks, and to see Black folx creativity, imagination, healing, and ingenuity as a vital part of antiracism” (p. 191). This is only possible by creating a system that does not punish students for acting, speaking, thinking, or simply looking different, but rather supports restorative justice and rethinks how we deal with behavioral “issues” in the classroom.

Potential Questions for Practice

Further, we could question, as a field, how to create educational experiences that allow for a transepistemological existence—away from a monolithic view of what counts as knowledge or creativity. How do we incorporate spirituality, sexuality, femininity, and non-human agency (and their intersections) in an educational system that denies credibility to them? How do we address the violence of separating people from their lands? Until we address these, new generations will continue to lose connection with their traditional ways of being.