In this lecture we explore the
concept of ‘creata’ and ask what happened to it. We write ‘we’ because the story
of the lecture will be told by several different voices, who seek to jar rather
than harmonize. The concept of creata was on offer in the late 1990s as a
substitute for and a challenge to the concept of ‘data’. Some argued that we
needed a different concept for materials formerly known as data to highlight
that these materials were created by someone(s) from somewhere(s), and that
they never again could be referred to, used, engaged with or sensed into in an
ahistorical way. However, the concept did not gain much traction and the lecture
investigates why that might be. The lecture also addresses the particular forms
of forgetfulness around these issues under the contemporary material and
ontological turns in social research. We advance the argument that it may be
particularly timely to un-forget the concept.
