creativity, habit, and the social products of creative action revising

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Creativity, Habit, and the Social Products of Creative Action: Revising

Joas, Incorporating Bourdieu

BENJAMIN DALTON*

American Institutes for Research

Hans Joas’s The Creativity of Action (1996) posits that conceiving of all action as

fundamentally creative would overcome problems inherent in rational and normative

theories of action and would provide an alternative basis for action-based theories of

macrosociological phenomena. Joas conceives of creativity as a response to the

frustration of ‘‘prereflective aspirations,’’ which necessitates innovative adjustment to

reestablish habitual intentions. This conceptualization creates an unsupportable dual-

ity between habitual action and creativity that neglects other possible sources of

creative action, including habit itself. Combining strengths from Bourdieu’s concept

of habitus, creativity can be redefined as the necessary adaption of habitual practices

to specific contexts of action. Creative action continually introduces novel possibilities

in practical action and provokes a variety of social responses to its products. This

revised concept of creativity overcomes the dichotomy presented by Joas, identifies a

microsocial source of innovation in creative action, and calls attention to patterns of

creative authority in society at large.

INTRODUCTION

Hans Joas’s The Creativity of Action received much praise and thoughtful comment-ary from English-speaking scholars after its translation from the German in 1996.Joas posited that conceiving of creativity as a fundamental characteristic of actionwould overcome the deficiencies inherent in various models of normative and rationalaction and provide the basis for an alternative action-based theory of structuralchange. The enthusiasm that greeted this argument emphasized the great promise itholds for integrating major themes of contemporary social theorizing, generating aconceptually cohesive theory of action, and detailing the microsociological bases ofmeso- and macrosociological processes. Camic (1998:283) hails The Creativity ofAction (hereafter referred to as COA) as a ‘‘masterly contribution’’ to theoreticalwork on action that ‘‘merits comparison to [Parsons’s] The Structure of SocialAction,’’ while others called it ‘‘one of the most important contributions to actiontheory in recent decades’’ (Gross 1999:341) and a ‘‘very significant work . . . one of themore exciting—and creative’’ efforts to theorize action in recent times (Campbell1998:1067).At the same time, these and other commentators argued that COA would not spawn

new avenues of sociological research directly (Burger 1998; Mouzelis 1998). Campbell(1998) notes that Joas’s book constituted not the introduction of a new theoryof action but the ‘‘prolegomenon’’ to one, meaning that ‘‘no sociologist . . . would be

*The author wishes to thank Ed Tiryakian for his time and encouragement and the anonymous reviewers fortheir helpful insights. Direct correspondence to: BenjaminDalton, American Institutes for Research, EducationStatistics Services Institute, 1990 K St. NW—Suite 500, Washington, DC 20006; email: [email protected].

Sociological Theory 22:4 December 2004# American Sociological Association. 1307 NewYork Avenue NW,Washington, DC 20005-4701

in any position to go out and apply Joas’s theory’’ (1998:1067). Although COA’sachievements in intellectual historiography, scholarship, and conceptual breadth wererightly praised, its potential for establishing a new architecture for action theoryremains under debate (Arnason 1996). The creative action theory propounded inCOA has seen some limited adoption (Beckert 2002; Swidler 2001), but questionsremain about its theoretical and empirical consequences. This article is an effort toclarify and to strengthen Joas’s contribution by analyzing some of the difficulties ofhis approach and by offering a revised conception of the role of creative action inhuman agency.This revision rests on three assertions. First, the model of creative action presented

in COA relies on a problematic duality between creativity and habit. Joas’s workreveals the importance of a relationship between creative and habitual action and notsolely the importance of creativity itself (Camic 1998:289). Indeed, any discussion ofcreativity or innovation necessarily introduces a generally opposed concept of habit;likewise, any discussion of habit or routine in regard to human agents at leastimplicitly involves a concept of creative action. That COA is written from a perspect-ive that views creativity as the most significant aspect of agency is a matter ofemphasis; large parts of the core of the book in fact could be interpreted as ademonstration of the habitual character of most human action, in which creativityplays a limited but crucial role. Joas’s conceptualization, relying on a model ofcreative problem solving from American pragmatism, ultimately describes creativityas a phase of action that emerges in response to the interruption of habitual activity.This unfortunately presents a distinction between habit and creativity that ignoressituations in which creativity is not expressed episodically.Second, the problems that result from Joas’s underlying model can be overcome

partly through comparison to another significant strand of contemporary theorizingthat takes habitual action as its starting point but, despite similarities, was neglectedalmost completely in COA. This alternative approach is exemplified in the work ofBourdieu and his conception of the habitus. Here creative action is subsumed under abroad and flexible concept of habitual and embodied action that admits the possibilityof intelligent and strategic improvisation, at least within existing cultural frameworks.However, this perspective ultimately treats creative action as a residual capacity ofagents that leaves them free to make choices only within the rubric of their restrictivesocioenvironmental fields or in reaction to abnormal crises. It fails to identifymoments of what we might consider ‘‘purer’’ creativity, where actors step out ofadopted boundaries and transcend the fields of action in which they normally areengaged. Even when this problem is recognized, it forces the reintroduction of creativeabilities as a separate category of action and leads back to the same problem found inCOA.Third, a full revision and incorporation of the concept of creative action into our

theories of agency requires recognizing the simultaneous presence of habitual andcreative elements in all moments of action. Creativity and habit cannot be viewed asseparate types of action, no matter how elegant and nuanced the model, nor can oneswallow the other such that individuals are ascribed either profoundly limited capa-cities for action or absurdly unlimited freedoms. Only by acknowledging that actors ininteraction with specific environmental conditions rely on habitual schemas andimplement contingent techniques suited to the moment can this conflict be resolved.Creativity is not simply the impulsive action of an inherently creative agent, a reactionto the interruption of previously successful routines, or a restrictive set of strategiesavailable to the habituated actor. It also rests in the perfection of routine and the

604 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

practical difficulties of action. Recognizing this allows for consideration of the socialproducts of creativity and their potential role as a microsocial source of structural andcultural change, thereby achieving by other means the promise of Joas’s convictionthat creativity is at the center of human action.

CREATIVE ACTION

COA is a sophisticated and eclectic approach to theorizing about the actor. Its coreperspective relies on contributions from social theorists and philosophers from theAmerican pragmatist school, including John Dewey, William James, Charles Peirce,and G. H. Mead, and builds on previous work by Joas (1993, 1990, 1989, 1985; seealso Joas 2000). It integrates a variety of major themes from contemporary theory,such as situational action, temporality, collective action, emotionality, and the embod-ied actor, and provides a portrait of agency that is complex, nuanced, and sensitive tothe experiences of the everyday actor in his or her situational contexts. Joas (1996)takes pains to emphasize that creativity should not be seen as a new type of action tobe arrayed alongside other, older types like ‘‘rational,’’ ‘‘normative,’’ and ‘‘impulsive’’action (pp. 4, 145) but rather that creativity is an essential element of all activity thatdeserves to be placed at the center of theorizing about human agency.Joas articulates his theory of creative action in direct opposition to the general

agreement between rational choice and normative approaches on the role of meansand ends in human action. Normative approaches emphasize social roles and socialnorms in shaping behavior but are consistent with rational choice approaches in thatthey implicitly advocate the means-end schema of action that is the historical legacy ofutilitarianism and from which pragmatism was a significant detractor. Joas (1996)makes three main assertions, each of which contradicts one of three tacit assumptionsinvolved in this means-ends conception: First, according to Joas, human action isalways embedded in a stream of action that does not permit the strict and continualdivision of thought and action: ‘‘goal-setting does not take place by an act of theintellect prior to the actual action, but is instead the result of a reflection on aspira-tions and tendencies that are pre-reflective and have already always been operative’’(1996:158; emphasis in original). This conceptualization opposes the interpretation ofaction (prevalent in rationalistic approaches) as always and inevitably intentional.Second, human action takes place in reference to a body that exists in a semiautono-mous relationship to will. Action can often be achieved only through the relaxation ofbodily control, and even when the individual asserts control, the body has an influenceon action that is often unanticipated. This tenet corrects the faulty rationalistic beliefthat the cognitive mind exerts precise control over the body’s actions and that the bodyis simply an instrument of will, and reinforces other theoretical efforts that have soughtto place embodied action at the center of understandings of human agency. Third, anddrawing from a much richer and longer tradition of sociological and philosophicalwritings, action and actors are inherently integrated within social groups; taking theautonomous human actor as the starting point for action theory, as theories of rationalaction do, ignores this reality of human existence and a long history of intellectualthought on the matter.The last third of COA applies the insights of the individually-oriented theory of

creative action to problems in macrosociology, discussing creativity in the light ofcollective action, functionalism, postmodernism, and differentiation and democratiza-tion. Joas applies the concept of creativity to this wide range of topics holistically

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rather than building from the specific model that the earlier part of COA constructs. Itis unclear whether an aversion to the common practices of rational choice and gametheorists drives this avoidance or whether he has so fully entered a dialogue withtheories of functionalism and modernity that connecting them to his previous discus-sions of creativity becomes too difficult to be done in a precise and derivative way.Regardless, the gap between the first half of the discussion and the second half can bestartling—one reviewer was somewhat astonished at this break, ‘‘a kind of hiatus’’ inwhich ‘‘we suddenly find our selves in the midst of collective action performed bycollective subjects’’ (Kilpinen 1998:177; see also Gross 1999; Mouzelis 1998). Forexample, nowhere does Joas conduct a sustained consideration of the importance ofmediating structures such as social networks, families, work organizations, or socialfoci, although all of these concepts have become increasingly important in sociologicaltheory (Fligstein 2001; Colomy 1998; Feld 1981). Nevertheless, even had Joasemployed his well-constructed model of creativity as the main foundation for theselatter discussions, his macrosociological approach would continue to suffer fromthe weakness of his initial model. Thus, this article mainly addresses the shortcomingsof the model of creative action rather than Joas’s application of this model to issuesin broader-scale theory, although some consideration of the ways in which thisrevised concept can be used to articulate meso- and macrosocial theory will be offeredlater.The concept of creative action is presented as a critique of rational choice and

normative theories of action, but the core of Joas’s approach relies on two closelyrelated assumptions, derived from pragmatism. First, Joas claims that the normal ortypical mode of action is habitual and ‘‘pre-reflective,’’ being geared to goals that, atany one time, are not specific and determinative but are vaguely defined and orient-ing. A cognizing subject does not approach the world through a set of separatecalculations and decisions regarding clearly defined ends but is ‘‘already always’’embedded in a history or stream of action that forms the bedrock of presentthought and feeling. One of the primary faults of the means-ends schema for Joas isan inaccurate rendering of decision-making in time: the means-end dichotomyassumes an implausible moment in which the actor chooses methods and goals asif he or she were outside of a continuing stream of action and lacked any cultural,social, or corporeal context. COA both disputes this and offers an alternativeperspective in which the actor, as part of a legacy of personal and social action,acts not only with reference to this context but as a person whose daily actionshave been routinized by that legacy (see also Whitford 2002 for a similar account).That is, actors exist within a history of action that gives meaning to and orientstheir behavior, and this history is present at any given moment through developedhabits. Thus, the three concepts that summarize Joas’s (1996) challenge to normativeand rationalistic assumptions—situation, corporeality, and sociality—reflect theembeddedness of actors and could be viewed as a ‘‘suitable replacement for themeans-ends schema as the primary basic category of a theory of action’’ (1996:160;though this quote applies only to ‘‘situation,’’ embodiment and social integrationalso can be characteristics or elements of the ‘‘situation’’ in which the actor inevitablyis embedded).Second, Joas argues that creativity is ‘‘called forth’’ when these habits are inter-

rupted, possibly leading to the restoration of routine or conscious deliberation anddecision-making over goals and means. Only in the face of encountered difficulties—problems that interrupt the habitual flow of action—is the actor forced to confronthis or her assumed goals and methods and consciously construct new patterns of


behavior, thought, and/or feeling. Aspirations in fact usually become ‘‘pre-reflective’’as these new patterns of action take shape and become routinized themselves. Thismodel additionally specifies how the concept of creativity incorporates the possibilityof rational and norm-oriented action: rational action and precise goal-setting can be aspecific response to the interruption of successful action in the world, while normsat least partially can provide the habits and routines one adopts. The overall model ispresented succinctly in Joas’s (1996) description of the basic pragmatist model:

All perception of the world and all action in the world is anchored in anunreflected belief in self-evident given facts and successful habits. However, thisbelief, and the routines of action based upon it, are repeatedly shattered; whathas previously been a habitual, apparently automatic procedure of action isinterrupted. . . . The only way out of this phase is a reconstruction of the inter-rupted context. . . . This reconstruction is a creative achievement on the part of theactor. If he succeeds in reorienting the action on the basis of his changedperception and thus continuing with it, then something new enters the world: anew mode of acting, which can gradually take root and thus itself become anunreflected routine. (1996:128–129)

While Joas (1996) goes on to identify the standard criticisms of this basic modeland to describe it in less temporally discrete terms (‘‘Action constantly encountersunexpected obstacles. . . . Every situation contains a horizon of possibilities which in acrisis of action has to be rediscovered’’ (1996:133)), the basic perspective retains theview that creativity and habit are separate phases of action. Although action issituated in a stream of ongoing activity and creativity clearly linked to habit—infact arises only out of habit—the underlying model of phases of habitual and creativeaction forms each as separate moments of activity. We can speak of a rapid alternationof phases, so that creative actions and habitual actions can succeed one another multipletimes in even short moments of activity, or similarly can describe creativity as a continualseries of smaller or larger adjustments to habitual schemas in specific contexts; however,no matter with what detail the sequence of these phases are specified, they remainseparable episodes, analytically and empirically, in the practical activity of agents.This duality makes it theoretically possible to specifically identify all acts as creative or

routine. Though Joas does not make the claim that his theory has or necessarily shouldemploy this property—in fact Joas (1996) intends to regard creativity as present in allmoments of action (1996:4)—this characteristic derives directly from the tacit treatmentof creativity as a distinct phase of action alternating with prereflective modes of action.Situations in which creative action does not arise from the ‘‘shattering’’ of habitualorientations can demonstrate how this duality imposes limitations on understandingthe very concept of creativity it purports to integrate into a theory of action. As a methodof investigating the validity of the theory’s claims, examining these situations reveals thatthe very possibility of making a distinction between creativity and habit becomesevidently unrealistic in the face of certain contradictions. Creativity cannot be main-tained as a unique capacity without reference to some noncreative category, which posesproblems ironically similar to the critique that Joas (1996) makes of the notion ofrationality, i.e., that rationality cannot be employed without generating one or moreresidual categories that are implicitly nonrational (1996:146; cf. p. 5). Three instanceswhere the Joasian model linking creativity and routine breaks down serve to illustratethese problems: (1) impulsive behavior; (2) ‘‘routinized creativity’’; and (3) creativity asthe perfection of routinized action.


Joas (1996:169) himself addresses the importance—and the difficulty it poses forrational and normative theories—of impulsive behavior. His discussion here iscouched in a general discussion of the importance of recognizing bodily limits onintentional action, drawing particularly on Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) Phenomenology ofPerception. One of the tacit assumptions of rational choice that COA argues against isthat ‘‘actors are able to control their bodies’’ (1996:167). A serious consideration ofcorporeality implies not only that bodily control is inherently limited but also that thebody has a general influence on action that is independent of social norms, prefer-ences, and—interestingly enough—pragmatic actions themselves. There is, as Joasnotes, a recognition that the release of bodily control accomplishes goals as much asthe active control of the body, albeit in far less predictable ways—the need and desirefor rest and sleep is achieved by a kind of letting go, for example. Much contemporaryaction theory fails to acknowledge that notions of passivity, receptiveness, and otherstances that are, in some sense, not strictly ‘‘active’’ must be incorporated into theoryif it is to avoid the teleological interpretations of action characteristic of the majorprior approaches. Impulsive action plays a role in this analysis as a type of behaviorthat, however mysteriously, emerges from the body or from an unpredictable andunstable relationship between mental effort and bodily response.1

But impulsive action is more than just an illustration of the importance of embod-ied action. Impulsivity is itself a type of creativity and can operate in a mannerdifferent from the model of creative action offered by Joas. Even if a routine issuccessful, it is possible that actors will change or will experiment with that routineout of boredom or exhaustion with it. It is not simply the case that creative action ispragmatic in the sense that the phasic model implies; rather, impulsive outbursts ornovel variation can occur for ostensibly nonpragmatic reasons, even to the extent thatthe subsequent failure of that routine is not perceived as a failure or frustration butinstead as a surprising and pleasurable disruption of normal activities. It may emerge,in fact, simply from desires to interrupt or to vary routine. Thus impulse is creative ina fundamental sense: it may be surprising, destructive, innovative, or simply irrelevantand foolish—types of action a systematizing theory based on the reasonable (notnecessarily rational) nature of actors is reluctant to include. Here the relativelyoptimistic tone of pragmatist thought contrasts with notions of subversion anddeviance that creativity also involves, notions Joas recognizes in his discussion ofMarxist ‘‘revolution’’ as a metaphor for creative action but subsequently does notincorporate in his main discussion. Impulsive action may be motivated by the desireto exert power, even brutally; it may be prompted by alcohol or other drugs thatloosen inhibitions or that alter perceptions of reality. At a broader level, it can be animpulsive reaction against social expectations or a general cultural milieu, as Joas(1996) himself touches on in one brief discussion of Nietzsche (1996:190–191). In thesesituations the ‘‘creative impulse’’ does not represent an attempt to solve a problem ordeal with an interruption of habit but may be designed or motivated by the desire tocreate problems or intentionally disrupt habitual action. Though the reasons for suchbehavior—or at least the proximate causes of it—may be more purely physiological orpsychological than most social theories typically allow, and though the intentions maybe less positive than pragmatism historically has granted, its potential clearly derives

1This contrasts with Dewey’s (1922) use of impulse, which is regarded alternately as perception oremotionally laden reactions to stimuli. Though Joas does not engage in a lengthy commentary aboutimpulse, the implication of his emphasis on embodiment is decidedly different from Dewey’s use ofimpulse and points to a certain interpretation of pragmatism that might be contested. See end of thissection for further elaboration.


from routine situations in a manner different than that provided for in the Joasianmodel. For Joas, creativity is inevitably a constructive force, not a destructive or evendisruptive one.A second type of action that does not fit neatly with the model presented in COA

occurs when creativity is itself routinized. Artistic work is perhaps the best example.Joas spends some time considering notions of creativity that are, implicitly or expli-citly, artistic or semi-artistic. His long chapter on ‘‘Metaphors of Creativity’’ dealswith numerous concepts with such ties: expression, derived from Herder, which hasstrong emotional connotations; production as a central concept for Marx; and life as aconcept in the philosophy of life of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (also compare Joas’s(1989) review of Castoriadis’s work). But in Joas’s subsequent emphasis on the advan-tages pragmatism offers for understanding creativity, he neglects to establish a place foraesthetically motivated action that was so central for these earlier thinkers. Thus, Joasmisses the possibility that the relationship between artistic orientations as creativeactivity and habitual orientations does not have to be one of alternating phases.Aesthetic practice depends on the introduction of novel techniques within a frameworkof common expectations, without the necessary ‘‘failure’’ of previously accepted forms.Artistic work also can and often does become routinized itself, in manifestations ofspecific styles or through work in certain genres, and when routinized, the concreterealization of specific forms of artistry may be creative achievements because ofsmall deviations from artistic ideals or paradigmatic works. A model of action thatargues that creativity is the product of encountered problems cannot recognize thesimultaneous presence of creative and habitual action in contexts such as these.Even the pragmatist defense to the charge that it views creativity as ‘‘instrumental’’

for the restoration of habitual modes of action—and thus that it neglects artisticexpressions of creativity—fails to articulate how creativity relates to habit in aestheticpractice. This defense depends on the assertion that it is the relationship betweenknowledge (or consciousness) and action, and not action and its results, which isinstrumental (Joas 1996:132; Joas 1993:22; Dewey 1934). Although it is true thatDewey’s (1934) concern with artistic experience and Mead’s (1934) privileging ofplay in the development of the social and subjective self reveal an awareness ofthoroughly noninstrumental capacities for experience and action, and in these casesimaginative experience is the primary mode of consciousness, creative action in thissense still remains separate from nonimaginative, habitual action. Artistic expressionin fact represents a break with habitual modes of consciousness: ‘‘Then [mind] formsthe matter of reverie, of dream; ideas are floating, not anchored to any existence as itsproperty, its possession of meanings’’ (Dewey 1934:273). Yet such creative achieve-ments can be sedimented into routines that are accessible within habitual conduct; themusician may enter, with clockwork regularity, into highly personal interpretations ofthe same piece each day, with its habitual invocation representing a creative perform-ance in specific time. Indeed, to the extent that all action involves stylistic norms andmodels (whose very breaking also may constitute their affirmation), creativitybecomes a concept applicable in varying degrees to every situation, and the imagina-tive qualities involved become possessed of a range of habitual characteristics(Huizinga 1949). But the model of creativity as habit-interruption forces a distinctionbetween habit and creativity that does not permit one to interpret highly routinizedcreative action in an appropriately sensitive way.This suggests a third set of situations that raises a perhaps more profound objec-

tion to the Joasian model of creative action. Instead of an inadequate tool for whichcreativity must intercede, habit can become an actual foundation for creative action.


If habit or routine are taken as indicative of the modern concepts of schemas androles, for example, we are faced with an interesting and perhaps paradoxical situation:the perfection of habit can lead to creative action. Creativity is not simply a reactionto the interruption of previously successful routines but can be and often is the resultof conscious attempts at improving habitual action—making routine more successfulthan it has been in the past, even if that routine generally is successful. A chefattempting to perform to the ideal expectations of his role experiments with newcombinations of seasonings or new cooking times; an athletic team learns or discoversparticular exercises and attitudes that maximize its performance in competition. Theseactors encounter no moment of frustration or ‘‘shattering,’’ as Joas might say; they arenot even necessarily faced with minor obstacles to the fulfillment of their goals.Instead, they consciously or perhaps even habitually (!) attempt to improve therealization of the roles of which they are a part, a process that might as easily resultin ‘‘creative’’ action as a clear and direct frustration of their unreflected routine. Aswith routinized creativity, creativity as the perfection of routine behavior disrupts theentire model on which Joas’s concept of creativity is based by demonstrating thatcreativity does not necessarily take place outside of habitual action—that is, inresponse to its failures—but can and often does take place within it, as an extensionof its functioning.These three situations illustrate the limitations Joas’s dualistic construction

imposes on our understanding of creative action. The phasic model of habit-interruptioncannot subsume types of creative action that do not arise from the frustration ofgeneral intentions. However, one could argue that this simply necessitates expandingthe concept of frustrations to include such sources as exhaustion or boredom, lack ofartistic innovation, or failing to reach imagined levels of habitual performance—that,in fact, ‘‘pre-reflective aspirations’’ can include a variety of intentions that do notspecifically relate to what observing individuals might perceive as successful perform-ance. Such an argument could be founded on a different interpretation of pragmatismthan found in COA; some reviewers indeed argued that Joas misinterpreted hisintellectual fount by ascribing too great a gulf between the habitual and the creative(Kilpinen 1998:177; McGowan 1998:292). Peirce (1958), for example, describes thedevelopment of a new habit as potentially projective, relying on the imaginativeconstruction of unpracticed lines of action (i.e., without frustration) (1958:5.538;see also p. 8.304). Dewey (1922) utilizes a surprisingly vigorous conception of habitthat undermines the notion that it can be frustrated only by overt failure: habit beingan ‘‘ordering or systematization of minor elements of action; which is projective,dynamic in quality, ready for overt manifestation’’ (1922:40–41). Thus, creativereconstruction could be based on a variety of frustrations—or, more generally, chal-lenges—that do not necessarily reach the level of ‘‘shattering’’ or conscious interruption.This argument, in fact, moves substantially in the direction of the revision offered

in this article. However, it is not evident that the pragmatism of COA or Joas’sintellectual predecessors provides a clear and consistent foundation for such a per-spective. Both continue to retain the notion of a separable category of ‘‘habits’’ that inmany or most situations are not frustrated: even in his relatively nuanced discussion inHuman Nature and Conduct, Dewey (1922) still refers to ‘‘a body of residual undis-turbed habits’’ (1922:182) and states (somewhat contradicting himself elsewhere) that‘‘continuous interruption is not possible in the activities of an individual’’ (1922:179).James (1890) similarly asserts that habits, despite their ‘‘plasticity,’’ are a matter ofphysics that can be changed only when ‘‘blocks’’ develop that force habits into ‘‘new-created path[s]’’ (1890:109). Given that Joas (1996) likewise relies on a certain rigid


notion of habits and frustrations (though he is aware of pragmatist flexibility on thesecounts; see 1996:129, 159, 161) and that he is the foremost interpreter of pragmatismto a sociological audience today, the lack of clarity found in COA itself is particularlyproblematic. Joas (1996) at one point says that ‘‘[a]s long as no problems of actionarise, human interaction with reality consists in a flexible interrelationship betweenglobal expectations and global perceptions’’ (1996:159)—acknowledging the flexiblenature of habits but asserting that creativity exists only as a response to specific‘‘problems of action.’’ Yet as long as one retains the notion of a separable body ofhabits that is not challenged necessarily in practice, it reinforces a dichotomy thatneglects the possibility that some action may contain creative and habitual elementssimultaneously. Fortunately, there exists an alternative basis of theorizing about actionthat would allow for this possibility yet would retain something of Joas’s originalparsimony. In the following section, I explore how the works of Bourdieu and hisconception of the habitus provide a perspective in which creative action is embeddeddirectly in habitual patterns.

HABITUAL ACTION

COA is based on the premise that creativity is an element of all human action and thatits place in a theory of agency has been neglected and indeed made invisible by theassumptions underlying rational choice and normative approaches to the actor. Yetany reintroduction of the concept of creativity as a component of the theory of agencyinherently involves introducing the complementary concept of habit. Indeed, Joas(1996) himself notes at one point that an emphasis on creativity ‘‘does not contradictthe rediscovery of the routine dimensions of action; on the contrary, these twodimensions complement each other’’ (1996:285). But one of the surprising aspectsof this work is the extent to which it neglects perspectives on agency that place acentral emphasis on habitual action. Especially instructive in this regard is the com-plex of ideas surrounding Bourdieu’s use of habitus (Kilpinen 1998:41). In fact, Joas’sapproach shares affinities with an entire line of French thinking that locates action inhabitual capacities, as is revealed in his extensive use of and commentary on Merleau-Ponty. Canguilhem’s (1978) work on the nature of the pathological and its relation-ship to categories of normality, for example, reveals similar thinking as found inJoas’s pragmatist-inspired work: ‘‘The healthy man does not flee before the problemsposed by sometimes sudden disruptions of his habits, even physiologically speaking;he measures his health in terms of his capacity to overcome organic crises in order toestablish a new order’’ (1978:117). Likewise, Joas’s discussion echoes Merleau-Ponty’s(1962) concepts of ‘‘skillful coping’’ and ‘‘maximum grip’’ in describing the adjustmentof optimal arrangements in the face of environmental disturbances (see also Merleau-Ponty 1971, 1968, 1963; Mauss [1935] 1973). Space constraints do not allow anadequate consideration of how these additional authors complement or contradictJoas’s theory of creative action, but their connections are worth noting since theyform part of the background to Bourdieu’s insights.Bourdieu’s work, and the line of thinking that it reflects, presents a perspective that

is at first glance almost entirely grounded in a habitual model of individual andcollective action. Given the emphasis placed throughout COA on prereflectivemodes of thought and action, perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this work is thatit fails to thoroughly consider Bourdieu’s work. Bourdieu in fact is referred toexplicitly only twice: once in the text (Joas 1996:233) and once in a footnote to that


same passage (1996:290). Although the present article could not possibly draw out allof the implications Bourdieu’s wide-ranging work has for a theory of creativity inaction, some basic reflections can and should be offered on the strongest alternative toJoas’s creativity-based theory of agency, especially in Bourdieu’s use of the Latin termhabitus.Bourdieu’s habitus possesses some surface similarities to the notion of habit that

Joas employs. Habitus, meaning class-based dispositions, or a system for the produc-tion of specific practices linked to a class hierarchy (Bourdieu 1984), is one-sided withrespect to the Joasian model of habit interruption: it does not reference creativityexplicitly. Bourdieu operates out of a legacy of (largely French) structuralism that isnot the primary intellectual inheritance of Joas. Within this legacy, Bourdieu was keento develop an alternative and flexible conception of agency that did not posit rules ofaction, thought, and language to which people wittingly or unwittingly conformed.Nor did Bourdieu (or his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries who also usedthe term habitus) intend to describe habitus as ‘‘mere’’ routine or the mechanicalrepetition of learned behaviors, a tendency in the heritage of Cartesian dualist thought(and that long has been absent in sociology—see Camic 1986). Rather, habitus refersto a general disposition, operating at a level below consciousness, that allows forintelligent and strategic action—at least within the field of action of which it is a part(Bourdieu 1984:466). Thus, in the very definition of habitus there is a flexibility thatprovides for at least the possibility of creative agency. This flexibility, and the creativepotential actors possess, exists on two levels.First is the generality of the habitus itself. As a disposition or as ‘‘principles’’ of

action (Bourdieu 1990:53), the habitus is necessarily plastic, permitting innovation inthe carrying forth of specific actions. The habitus and its dispositions can be trans-posed to culturally or socially unfamiliar contexts where they supply meaningfulinterpretations and suggest practical actions for the challenged actor (Bourdieu1984:172). Both the unconscious aspect of the habitus and its tendency to disposeactors to certain kinds of interpretation and action correspond quite closely withJoas’s insistence that a global background of prereflective aspirations typicallyorients action, but Bourdieu goes further by implying that even the operation ofinnovative or strategic acts is a largely unconscious and ‘‘intentionless’’ process:Bourdieu (1990) at one point refers to habitus as ‘‘the intentionless invention ofregulated improvisation’’ (1990:57). In place of the pragmatist tendency to seecreative action as at least a guided (if not necessarily cognitive and deliberative)process in the face of recognized problems, Bourdieu offers a concept in whichcreativity is persistently invoked in practical contexts through the generative powerof habituated tendencies. Here then we encounter a view of habitual action thatintegrates creative action within it by emphasizing that habit (in its flexible, ‘‘disposi-tion’’ sense) is not perfectly prescriptive for all contexts, including the familiar. Theproblematic duality between habitual and creative conduct collapses into a singledimension of action that ‘‘generate[s] and organize[s] practices and representations’’for all actions (Bourdieu 1992:53).The second source of creative agency lies in the intelligent, strategic character of

action and the flexibility individuals have within fields to act to their own or other’sadvantage. This flexibility depends on the generality of the habitus itself—its status asan orienting disposition—but is a unique source of differences among actors. ForBourdieu, action is strategic with respect to the specific cultural and social fields inwhich individuals operate and is restricted by the dispositions inherited from theactive construction of differences among social groups (Bourdieu 1984) but within


these bounds agents can choose from a variety of possibilities in achieving practicalmastery over various valued forms of capital. Implicit in this creative element of thehabitus is the assumption that agents, especially to the extent that they and theirindividual habitus represent group identities, are motivated primarily by desires forpower over status-conferring and status-confirming objects and forms of knowledgeand expertise. Thus, while the first source of creativity within the habitus—itsgenerality—inherently requires innovation because of the inevitably imprecise fitbetween general dispositions and concrete situations, the second is a specification ofvalues and goals that limits the type of creativity likely to occur and ties it to certainsocial and cultural histories that individuals and groups reproduce through theiractions and learned dispositions.The second ‘‘creative’’ property of the habitus has been the target of some of the

major criticisms directed at the concept and its supporting conceptual framework(Crossley 2001a, 2001b; King 2000; Potter 2000; Kogler 1997; Alexander 1995;Jenkins 1992, 1982; DiMaggio 1979). The creative element that exists within thehabitus is a creativity that is always tied to the specific social and cultural fields anagent engages. Thus, even when Bourdieu discusses nonhabitual action, whethercharacterized as rational or creative, the habitus places restrictions on what types ofinnovation can occur: ‘‘We can always say that individuals make choices, as long aswe do not forget that they do not choose the principles of these choices’’ (Wacquant1989:45). While this may be true of the typical actor in normal or usual circumstances,Bourdieu does not seem to allow here for the type of thoroughgoing reconstruction ofprinciples, goals, or methods that a fully rational or creative actor hypotheticallycould produce. For Bourdieu, creativity is always a restricted set of strategiesembedded in bodily hexis and the logic of a particular social milieu (Bourdieu andPasseron 1977). Even in later work in which Bourdieu (2000b) is keen to answer hiscritics by emphasizing the flexible nature of habitus, he maintains these restrictions:‘‘there is no rule . . . that can provide for all the possible conditions of its execution andwhich does not . . . leave some degree of play or scope for interpretation, which ishanded over to the strategies of the habitus’’ (2000b:162, emphasis added). Habitus isflexible and open-ended but continues to place significant bounds on the ‘‘horizon ofpossibilities’’ that Joas describes.This restricted realm of creativity within the habitus, despite possessing an advantage

over Joas’s model in its ability to conceive of creativity as the interaction betweenhabitual action and specific environmental conditions, fails in its ability to incorporate arobust conception of creative agency. Strategic action that is intelligible in reference tocurrent fields is possible, but rational action that is consistently self-conscious andreinventing across time is not. Innovative acts and perspectives that arise from crisisevents are possible (Bourdieu 1986, 1990, 2000a, 2000b) but occur irregularly and eventhen may not question the principles of judgment or action on which they are based.This unidirectional model of agency ultimately cannot account for any but the mostlimited types of creative acts. Even the use of Bourdieu’s (1977) ‘‘practical theory,’’ inthat it makes constant reference to rules (of the anthropological structuralist kind) thatmay be seen as habitual or routinized, has little to say about creativity outside of thebounds of particular cultural logics that individuals follow (see King 2000 for a contrastbetween habitus and Bourdieu’s concept of praxis).To attempt to expand the universe of creativity within Bourdieu’s scheme neces-

sitates the explicit introduction of creativity as a separate dimension of action. This isseen, for example, in Crossley’s (2001a) examination of Bourdieu’s importance forconceptualizing embodiment. Having noted some of the criticisms of habitus as a


possibly deterministic concept (Crossley 2001a:ch. 6), Crossley subsequently arguesfor a separate, creative capacity for action:

The capacity for habituation is twinned with the capacity. . . for innovative andcreative praxes which give rise to modes of acting worthy of conserving throughhabit. Many of our habits are acquired from the collective pool in our society, whichwe see being performed around us and are able to copy. . . Indeed, one mode of theintelligence of the human organism is its tendency to replicate solutions to actionproblems which it perceives others performing. But aside from this, or runningparallel to it, there is a dual tendency in human behavior; toward innovation andcreation on the one hand, and towards habituation on the other (2001a:129).

This ascription of an innovative capacity to actors treats creativity as an abilitydistinct from habituation, a dimension of action that exists alongside of habit but thatremains separate and whose origins lie in a realm decidedly remote from the habitual,practical engagement of the body that Crossley and others describe so expertly(Crossley 2001a, 2001b, 1995; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1999; Hoy 1999; Shilling 1999;Mauss [1935] 1973). Furthermore, creativity is seen here as a kind of undifferentiated‘‘tendency’’ that exists naturally within human agents, suggesting that it is a type ofgeneral impulse or drive that simply exists within the body and that is not affected, likehabitus itself, by sociohistorical conditions. Creativity becomes a residual category forthose elements of action that cannot be accounted for by the problematically over-socialized view of the actor that the habitual and embodied perspectives on action tendtoward and for which Joas’s work attempts to compensate.Ultimately, from the perspective of a Joasian theory, Bourdieu’s theories are still

theories of habitual action, and while they may do an admirable job of allowing forcreative action within a habitual dimension and may ingeniously link social conditionsand social change over time to individual action, the restricted model of action at itscore limits possible theorizing about when and why creative action occurs—and withwhat consequences. The central characteristics of Bourdieu’s conception of habitus—unconscious, transposable, a sediment of historical distinctions between groups, andglobally predisposing—are extremely useful for deepening Joas’s conceptualization ofthe typically ‘‘prereflective’’ orientations of actors. But the primary lesson Bourdieu’sperspective holds lies in the possibility of uniting habitual and creative elements in atheory of action that neither depends on ascribing a separate origin and operation to acreative ‘‘tendency’’ nor on toggling between habitual and creative moments in theunfolding course of practical challenges. By combining the insights of Bourdieu’sapproach with Joas’s intention to place creativity at the center of theorizing aboutthe actor, a possible solution to the problematic relationship between habit andcreativity emerges that treats creative action as a necessary facet of all practicalagency, even as it remains grounded in habit.

CREATIVITY IN ACTION

From Joas, we see how habit predominates in action and how creativity can operate withrespect to habitual action in moments of reconstructive agency. From Bourdieu, we seehow creativity can arise directly from the interaction between (general) habit and specific,concrete situations. If we are willing momentarily to sever the connection emphasized inBourdieu between habit and received cultural and social patterns, then we can unite the


more robust concept of creativity found in COA with Bourdieu’s recognition that allaction is creative to the degree that it involves moving from a set of general, habitualschemas to the specific realization of action in actual contexts. Creativity then can bedefined as the necessary innovative adaptation to generally defined tasks, which, in thecourse of action, must be carried forth in specific form. No schema can provide all thedetails of every situation, and no habit can anticipate the contours of each moment inwhich it may be invoked: all action requires the innovative adjustment to particularcircumstances that can neither be precisely foreseen nor completely routinized. Creativityis an inherent feature of action that exists within both highly routinized activities andwithin more self-evidently creative conduct, but the problem is not necessarily one gearedtoward reestablishing habit or unreflective goals, as the problem is a general difficulty inall moments of action. Such creative adjustments can rework principles and strategies ofaction, even in contexts that do not provoke actors by crisis. Thus, the concept ofcreativity that emerges from these themes draws on two models whose strengths comple-ment the weaknesses of the other. Joas’s approach addresses the limited capacity forcreativity that Bourdieu ascribes to individuals by allowing for the possibility thatobstacles to unreflected intentions may challenge common principles and abilities forjudgment that otherwise are habituated as dispositions. Bourdieu’s approach dissolvesthe problematic phasic model presented in COA by recognizing that all actors facethe difficulty of transforming general intentions informed by habitual knowledge andpractice to concrete achievements in particular circumstances.This provides an alternative reading on the traditional pragmatist argument that

‘‘consciousness’’ is invoked in its fullest form when agents are faced with difficulties intheir environment.2 Here, individuals are always aware of the creative necessity for thecontextual adaptation of their habits. It is, in fact, a habitual awareness, a practical,embodied, and typically subconscious knowledge that any real achievement requiresvarious forms of adjustment to circumstances that face the actor. This is anothersignificant contribution Bourdieu and the concept of habitus provides to this differentconceptualization of creativity: the creative adaption to circumstance is itself a habi-tual condition of the agent in encountering a world that always imperfectly matchesits schema. This conceptualization differs from Bourdieu’s account in that it does notclaim that this creative element arises only from the imperfections of the habitus—i.e.,its generality—but rather incorporates the Joasian understanding that any sociocul-tural and natural environment poses difficulties to the actor that often preciselycontradict elements of these schemas. Action is ‘‘difficult,’’ not simply due to theintelligent activity required to translate a general disposition into specific forms ofaction, but because it is a situated and contingent achievement that is sometimesfrustrated by obstacles to its fulfillment and thereby necessitates questioning thepractices and principles individuals typically follow. Creative action is not alwaysrestricted to the methods available within a specific cultural environment or field, nordoes ‘‘radical’’ creativity only occur during collective action in which group awarenessof the differences between subjective expectations and objective conditions producedemands for change. Rather, given the problematic of action itself, its achievementcan and often does entail the reworking of common assumptions and techniques atboth individual and group levels so that, as Merleau-Ponty (1963:153) observes, anyshared history, however embodied in practice, is a ‘‘moving equilibrium.’’ Collective

2Joas notes in COA that this argument comes under unfair criticism because pragmatism has a moresophisticated understanding of active, conscious thought, as revealed by Thomas and Mead in particular(the former addressing moments of definition, the latter addressing the relationship between identity, self-aware consciousness, and social embeddedness).


action based on crisis events remains a significant source of social change, butarticulating creativity as a dimension of routine behavior specifies microsocial sourcesof change that Bourdieu’s approach otherwise neglects.This approach dissolves another dilemma apparent in Joas: COA implies not merely

that action must be divisible between creative and habitual phases but also that socialscientists can make judgments about the boundary between the two from a theoreticalposition outside immediate contexts of action. This epistemological stance does not playa large or overt role in Joas’s thought, but its assumption is a theme running through-out the course of his descriptions of actors and their typical behavior. Stressing insteadthat creativity is a component of all action allows the lay distinction between creativityand habit, which continues to be a real and socially significant difference, to be ajudgment properly made by individuals and groups who are witnesses to the peculiar-ities of achieved ‘‘performances’’ in concrete social contexts (Camic 1986:1075). Thus,the social definition of creativity, as distinct from mere routine, is not conflated with atheoretical evaluation of this difference, and the general model that identifies all actionas creative can be developed into more specific hypotheses about when and with whatconsequences innovative behavior is distinguished from typical, routine behavior.Ascribing to actors the ability to make this distinction also provides a stronger founda-tion for a macrotheoretical approach based on creative action by allowing for social(not merely individual) consequences of creative activity—consequences that affectother agents and groups and that can serve as a source of change in social structures.Indeed, one of the criticisms of COA not addressed here yet is the extent to which

Joas’s model is heavily individualistic—that, as one reviewer argued, Joas failed tooffer a compelling model of creative interaction (Layder 1997). Indeed, the previousdiscussion momentarily suspended the integral connection Bourdieu’s concept ofhabitus has with broader issues of social change and reproduction in order to meetJoas’s conceptualizations on its mostly individual-oriented grounds. Within the maindiscussion, Joas relies on language, metaphors, and examples that typically describean actor alone in interaction with his or her ‘‘environment’’ (even though thatenvironment is often implicitly social). Yet creative action can be conceived of as asmall group or institutionally arranged activity in which creative solutions are pro-duced through interaction centered on socially acknowledged problems or sociallypracticed habits—e.g., a family reworking its schedule on the basis of an emergency or abusiness team acting together in serving a client or customer. Symbolic interactionismcertainly draws a set of concerns from Mead that stresses this interactive component—rather than the creative element Joas stresses in regard to Mead—and often provides aconceptualization of action that approaches the reconceptualization offered in thepresent article on the basis of a comparison to Bourdieu (Shibutani 1986, 1961; Turner1968; Goffman 1967, 1959). Creativity is not only contextualized socially, which Joasmakes clear, but also is often socially interactive, involving routines that can be onlyaccomplished jointly.3

3The interactionists, however, occasionally repeat some of the same problems objected to in Joas andBourdieu here: e.g., Shibutani (1961) talks about interruptions and frustrations of an equilibrium in actionand about crisis as a goad to change, though he also includes discussion of less disruptive innovations andprocesses of diffusion (1986:366–372). Goffman (1967) offers nuanced descriptions of how individuals wereresponsible for the successful accomplishment of ritualized interaction, but emphasized the ritualcomponent more than the creative. Nor have they typically had access to the refined conceptualdevelopments that Bourdieu offers or relied on in the French intellectual tradition represented inCanguilhem, Merleau-Ponty, and Mauss as a way of thinking about routine in interaction. Mostsignificantly, however, they did not place creativity at the center of their theorizing and thus miss boththe specific formulation offered here and the implications this formulation has for theorizing aboutmacrosociological change.


Viewing the consequences of action from this perspective reveals that workingthrough the habits implied by situation and received routine is not successful simplyaccording to some internal capacity of judgment: as Goffman (1959) notes, ‘‘perform-ance’’ requires an audience, and successful performance requires the approval or atleast complicity of that audience. The unstated assumption of Joas and the pragma-tists is that individual (though socially affected) decisions determine the process ofresponse and interaction that produces a successful or workable outcome—an inap-propriate isolation of the actor. Given that all action occurs in an explicit or implicitsocial environment or is directly or indirectly shaped by social forces, this view shouldbe corrected to one from which creativity is seen not as an interaction between theindividual and environmental constraints related only to his or her routine concernsbut instead as an interaction between the individual’s attempts to operate successfullyin the world and the social judgments that permeate any such attempts. This perspect-ive differs significantly from what Joas (1996) calls the ‘‘primary sociality’’ of theactor, which is mainly an acknowledgment that no individual decision about goals ormeans is separate from the social context in which the actor operates (1996:184–195).The image presented by Joas is, in fact, precisely contextual; the actor engages a worldwhose meanings and boundaries are provided by the social environment but inthe creative process itself only operates with a consideration of those prereflectiveaspirations that he or she maintains. Yet creative performances and outcomes them-selves are judged, directly or indirectly, by other actors; one element of what it meansfor actions to be creatively interactive is that there is a process of social response thatshapes their outcomes. Though absent from the central discussion in COA, this is inline with Joas’s emphasis on social acts of creativity in the last part of the book—theworking through of alternative possibilities of action in groups and society at large asevidenced in ‘‘creative democracy,’’ for example. Here, the individual’s creativeactions, arising from applying general schemas to specific situations, operates in asocial environment that both prompts innovative adjustments and reacts in varyingways to its accomplishments. But this also points to an additional element of thesocial character of creative action that goes beyond intersubjective judgment andaccomplishment: that creativity involves the production of practices that can assumeindependence from the original creative intent.

THE SOCIAL PRODUCTS OF CREATIVITY

To create means to produce—a product, something that exists in a social and physicalenvironment—and not simply to solve (intellectually or internally) a problem or tonegotiate the disjuncture between general intentions and specific contexts. This pro-cess occurs in relationship to past experiences embodied in habits, as both Bourdieuand Joas make clear, but it also occurs in a social environment and a physicalenvironment and therefore has significant consequences for those environments.Because creative products enter a social environment at the same time they are formedby it and therefore are constituted as practices that can be observed and can bereacted to independently of their practical significance to the original agents, othergroups or individuals may treat innovative acts based on their own set of interests anddesires. These observers may be participants, of course, and from Goffman’s (1959) orMead’s (1934) perspective there need be no distinction: judging action means becominga performer oneself. But actors also may decide to adopt or to modify creative actions


for other circumstances, to condemn the creative acts as subversive or dangerous forsocial stability, or to engage in a variety of contradictory responses that revealambivalence linked to conflicting social pressures or positions. Creativity generatessocial products not only by virtue of the fact that it may involve interactive accom-plishments but also because these products can assume a level of autonomy from theirprimary contexts by themselves being employed as part of the background for sub-sequent creative acts.This is additionally important if we view the products and process of creativity as

not only social but material and embodied as well: all action, whether definedcreatively, rationally, normatively, or in another or an eclectic fashion, involvesphysical and symbolic relationships to objects in the environment. To Merleau-Ponty and his intellectual tradition, and the pragmatist tradition upon which Joasdraws, these material or symbolic objects are subjects of the agent’s actions; they areinvolved both in creating and in solving the problems actors face in real situations.But these traditions perhaps do not emphasize enough that these objects may possess,for the experiencing agent, a substance or reality that opposes them and that requiresor provokes certain specific responses (although see Bourdieu 2001). According to thisperspective, every object implies a way of relating to that object that is conditioned bysocially influenced perceptions—i.e., objects imply certain behavioral, affectual, orcognitive stances the actor generally takes in relationship to them. A chair involves abodily relationship to its physical structure that is different from the relationship aperson has to sitting on flat ground, and this relationship involves a variety ofconsequences for individual behavior and attitude—demureness, propriety, candor,for example—and that themselves may vary by the specific associations that differ-ences in setting, materials, construction, and even specific shape of the object involve.Purely symbolic objects or objects of knowledge—for example, the idea of a personalGod—likewise imply stances linked to their acceptance and that dispose individualstoward adopting certain attitudes or perspectives that other ideas would not—as apagan pantheon implies alternative patterns of religious activity from monotheism.Granting that nothing in the purely physical constitution of objects or in the nature ofan attitude or idea forces individuals into certain postures (literal or figurative), butthat material and symbolic objects are invested with social significance that, as it were,provoke responses, it is true nonetheless that agents exist as much in a material worldas in their own bodies and that relationships to the material of existence can and dohave significant consequences for the possibilities of action. Thus, creativity impliesnot simply the overcoming of practical or strategic problems or the reestablishment ofthe capacity for practical activity through the refinement of habit and is not onlysocial in the direct judgments and environments in which creative action isembedded, but it also involves creating material and symbolic objects that exist ina social space and that have implications for the embodied existence and practice ofother agents.This concept of the social products of creative action identifies an important source

of innovation for social change. Creative agents, relying on habitual and embodiedschemas, continually produce practical innovations in interaction with a social andphysical environment that systematically limits, judges, and incorporates those crea-tive acts into the ongoing stream of social life. These creative achievements are‘‘products’’ in a variety of senses: they may be new physical objects, new techniquesof embodied action (Mauss [1935] 1973 and his ‘‘techniques of the body’’), novel waysof relating the body to the physical and built environments, different judgments orperceptions of the social or socially constructed ‘‘natural’’ world, or new ways of


organizing social life itself. They may involve small adjustments of comportment inhighly specific situations or may require the reworking of principles of power andinfluence in large social bodies (which, as Foucault (1978, 1977) has artfully demon-strated, also involves physical objects and corporeal techniques). Since all action is bydefinition creative by virtue of unique conditions that can never be anticipated fully orroutinized, the production of innovations that results from the negotiation betweenhabitual accomplishment of general intentions and the specificity of precise context isa central component of action in which all situated agents participate and serves as anever-present source of creative production for social change.This is not to say that all action is necessarily recognized as creative, is treated in

the same way if some element of novelty is identified, or has the same consequencesfor the sociocultural and material environment. Rather, as a constant source ofdeviance inherently embedded in established practices, creative elements withinhabitual behavior are subject to the same array of social influences that all actionis subject to—interests attached to structural positions, institutional bonds, culturalperceptions, the power of authority, and threat of force. What is or is not recog-nized as creative; how the social products of creativity are adopted, modified, orrejected; the pace of technological and social reconfiguration over time—thesevariables must continue to rely on developments in macrosociological theory thatarticulate the overarching forces and their relations. But by placing creativity andits social products at the center of human action, the reconceptualization offeredhere does suggest that broad-scale social theorizing be attentive to patterns ofcreativity in society at large. It conjures a vision in which the surrounding socialforces form in conjunction with creative agency a kind of architecture that governsthe recognition and movement of creative products in social space. This architecturedefines the relationship between agentic creativity and social response at any giventime, highlighting certain viewpoints and privileging certain positions for theirability to shape and to direct creative energies—even as the structure itself is subjectto the innovative, strategic manipulations of individual and corporate actors. Thus,the image of creativity permeating action that Joas offers expands to generate animage of society as defined by relations of creative achievement and production. Incontrast to the arguably reproductive model of Bourdieu, which limits the possibil-ities of change to crisis events (collective or individual), and in contrast to thephasic model provided by Joas, which focuses attention on moments of creativeproduction, this conceptualization directs us to the connections between continuousintroduction of novel possibilities in practical action and the patterns of creativeauthority that influence social response.By identifying the importance of social products of creative action as a source of

possibilities for future change and by linking such innovation to broader cultural andinstitutional structures that govern their recognition and the reaction to them, thisconsequence of the earlier reconceptualization strengthens Joas’s attempts to placecreativity at the center of human agency and makes a more direct link with themacrosociological concerns addressed there. At this point, this link is mostly sugges-tive, but if creativity is viewed as central to human action and as a source ofinnovations affecting large-scale change cumulatively or directly, then it identifies asignificant set of concerns that macrotheoretical approaches must take into accountwhen considering social change. Further work in this direction, then, might considerhow social and cultural structures systematically manage the constant introduction ofcreative accomplishments produced in action and thereby influence the direction ofhistorical change.


CONCLUSION

This article has been concerned chiefly with achieving clarity on the concept ofcreativity and with identifying its potential in bridging issues of agency and structure.Joas’s work represents the most significant attempt to date to actively integrate aconcept of creativity into modern social theories of human agency and action. How-ever, introducing such a concept into sociological theory necessitates dealing with anopposed concept of habit or routine. Joas’s approach, utilizing a model of creativeproblem solving from American pragmatism, describes habit and creativity as com-plementary phases of action but unfortunately maintains an unsupportable dualismbetween the two. The alternative approach provided by Bourdieu subsumes creativeaction or creative capacities within a broad concept of habitual and embodied action,but in doing so it leaves creativity as a kind of residual capacity or ability linked torestricted strategies of action. To overcome this dichotomy, we must recognize thesimultaneous presence in all action of habitual and creative elements. Creativityemerges from the nature of routine activity itself (whether individually habitual orprescribed in roles or schemas), which can never be specified with absolute precisionand demands ‘‘interpretation’’ or ‘‘performance’’ in the concrete realization of action.Recognizing further that action takes place in a social and physical environment inwhich creativity is both judged by and has consequences for other actors establishesthe potential for bringing the concept of creative action, so carefully and insightfullyexplored by Joas, into broader theorizing about the relationship between agents andthe social structures in which they are embedded.

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