This book reexamines the interconnectedness of culture and creativity in an increasingly hybrid world. They argue that while many of the old certainties about high culture and artistic canons may now be disintegrating, culture and creativity themselves are still very much a reflection of social processes involving power and the control of resources.

Case studies include youth subcultures in Europe; experimental theatre derived from the Brazilian candomblé dance; the role of memory in mythology among the Pukapukan of Polynesia; the evolution of football and polo in Argentina; gender relations in Algerian raï music; the notion of authenticity in artistic movements in Zanzibar; traditional and modern practices of the Lio in Indonesia; and kula exchange and social movements in the Trobriand Islands in the Pacific.