This is Research; Weston: Creativity: Transformation of Adversity

This research explores creativity as the transformation of adversity by communities that live in conditions of ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe. The research demonstrated how individuals expressed creative resilience despite extreme socio-economic and political uncertainty. This image depicts artist Dexter Nyamainashe with his Spectacular Machine. Dexter lost his job as a municipal tree-cutter and re-invented himself as an artist, creating elaborate mechanical sculptures from discarded waste materials he found in the street. This research repositions ideas on creativity and expands our understanding beyond the classical (colonial) confines of psychology, art, and organization. It demonstrates how creative agency is enacted in unanticipated spaces by people who are normally discounted as being creative or productive. Equally, it facilitates a greater appreciation of the ways that people sustain their livelihoods in crisis, and the substantial contributions they make to social and economic productivity. Dexter is depicted in this poster because he wanted his work to be shared with everyone

Mirrors: \u27Bleeding\u27 the Creation of Alternative Organization through a Liberating Ideology of Transformative Humanism

In this paper, we propose a new way of explaining the everyday practices of communities who socially organize to create sustainable grass-roots engagement. We discuss how this collective engagement is based on principles and values of socio-economic engagement that are fundamentally different to those associated with capitalism. We theorise that these community engagements are sustained by an organizational ideology of \u27transformative humanism\u27 that is founded on an ongoing struggle for emancipation. Our perspective is constructed through a combination of Frantz Fanon\u27s ideas on humanism, Manfred Max-Neef\u27s barefoot economics, and Paulo Freire\u27s pedagogies of hope and transformation. We suggest that movements such as this embody alternative ways for disenfranchised individuals to shape grass-roots social transformation from within because they are based on an alternative system of beliefs. We present examples of grass-roots engagement in Argentina and South Africa to demonstrate how disenfranchised communities organize together through transformative humanism

Critical Perspectives on Creative Women’s Entrepreneurship

For this project, a Good w/ Food dinner series was hosted for creative women entrepreneurs. A salient insight that stands out in this research is that the systemic challenges faced by creative women entrepreneurs -- such as the lack of appropriate supports structures, inadequate governmental policies, and lack of recognition of the types of work that creative entrepreneurs actually engage in -- is compounded by additional intersectional issues, such as gender discrimination in the available programming and entrepreneurial support structures. This reinforced the importance of this research and the need for the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub network to develop programming that addresses the systemic challenges faced by creative women entrepreneurs. The format of the dinners allowed participants to gain value by actively building authentic social relationships, while developing an understanding of the creative entrepreneurship ecosystem as it occurs through the lived experiences of participants at all stages of their careers. Insights from this project have been used to inform future program development and advocacy work done by OCAD University and the WEKH network

A postcolonial analysis of entrepreneurship in Africa

Global measurement of entrepreneurial activity shows that entrepreneurship in Africa is growing. Similarly, research on African entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial behaviour appear in an increasing number of scholarly articles. However we note an obvious neglect of a context sensitive approach to both the measurement of entrepreneurial activity and researching entrepreneurship in Africa. In this theoretical paper, we use postcolonial theory, and more specifically Edward Said’s idea about the misrepresentation of the Orient by the Occident, to illustrate how existing global measures of entrepreneurial activity fail to provide a real account of entrepreneurship for Africa. We then propose postcolonial theory as a useful analytical tool for researching Africa’s case. To justify this proposal, we analyse the region’s colonial history, large informal sector, heterogeneous population of entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship and current geopolitical changes. We then use Homi Bhabha’s concept of the ‘third space’ and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of subalternity to critically analyse entrepreneurship research in Africa. To end, we propose a shift towards methodologies which are more context sensitive, recognise the postcolonial setting of Africa and allow agency to emerge during fieldwork

Un(der)employed Youth: From Precariousness to Resilience

In this paper, we explore the experiences of Irish and Zimbabwean youth who live and work in precarious economic conditions. We study these youths’ experiences in a manner that traverses contexts under the question: How do un(der)employed youth in the Global South and Global North enact resilience and agency while navigating economic precarity? The paper builds on youth literature from both the Global North and Global South, emphasizing socio-economic precarity, youth agency, and resilience. We collected our data from interviews conducted in Ireland and Zimbabwe. Methodologically, the paper follows a postcolonial narrative approach to study these experiences. Our findings show that, in the 21st Century, youth in Ireland (from the Global North) and Zimbabwe (from the Global South) have distinct lived experiences of economic precarity. Our findings also show that when applying a postcolonial gaze, these youths’ experiences are not as clear-cut or distinct as the literature suggests. We conclude warning against unrealistic (neo)colonial comparisons between youth from Global North and South, which create stereotyped assumptions that (mis)inform policy and support interventions created in response to perceived challenges

Travelling concepts : performative movements in learning/playing

This paper examines the generative interplay between learning and playing in managing and organizing by taking a performative approach that theorizes learning/playing as an assemblage in which playing and learning emerge as co-evolving processes in practice. Addressing the methodological challenges associated with this performative approach, the learning/playing assemblage is probed using travelling concepts, which attend to the dynamic movements rather than the stabilities of organizing, functioning as proposed by Vygotsky as both a research tool and an emergent result of research. This notion of ‘travelling concepts’ is developed empirically by engaging with Mead’s ‘sociality’, which he defined as the simultaneous experience of being several things at once. Three interweaving strands of sociality – relational, spatial, and temporal – are elaborated in the context of travelling with and through four artisan food production sites, each of which sought to engage differently with the aesthetics and functionality of the food we consume

Culture Creates Bonds

The Culture Creates Bonds study defines key drivers, scenarios, and conditions that create natural human bonds, those of cultural activities and practices, in a residential or immediate neighbourhood. Historical and contemporary research indicates that cultural contexts, content, and activities act as mechanisms and factors that create a sense of identity, engagement, and relationships within and between communities. Research explores constraints as well as conditions that lead to successful bonding. The study applies a mixed methods approach that includes a literature review; interviews with stakeholders; an analysis of the data and results from the 2017 Culture Track Canada report, and a series of case studies

Exploring the creativity of informal workers during crisis

This short animation gives a summary of part of my PhD research. In my research I explored the creativity of informal workers during socio-economic crisis in Zimbabwe. The animation tells a story about where my inspiration came from, how I carried out the research. In particular it highlights the work of Dexter an artist who builds sculptures out of used materials. I currently run workshops to share stories such as Dexters. My aim is to generate an empathic awareness of the challenges faced by those in crisis, while highlighting how creativity and sustainability can start in the humblest of places

Focused narrative ethnography : researching the other in Zimbabwe

This abstract discusses researching the other in Zimbabwe