Traces how a concept became “truth” by analyzing its historical emergence, power effects, and constructed nature. Shows that what seems “natural” or “obvious” in academic discourse is actually constructed—and therefore changeable.
Genealogy (after Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, The Archaeology of Knowledge) examines:
Adaptation for Indigenous/relational context: Not purely Foucauldian—also draws from decolonial critique (Mignolo, Anzaldúa, Tuck & Yang) that exposes colonial power-knowledge structures.
Length: 2-3 paragraphs
Questions to Answer:
Example Emergence:
“‘Creative Problem-Solving’ as a discrete academic construct emerged in mid-20th century management cybernetics, specifically through work of Alex Osborn (BBDO advertising agency, 1953) and later Parnes and Gordon at SUNY Buffalo. The construct arose in corporate context—advertising agencies needed to commodify creativity as productive labor. This origin point matters: ‘solving problems’ frames creativity as applied to deficiencies (what’s wrong), not to visions (what one wants to create). The Cartesian assumption—that cognition exists in individual minds solving discrete problems—was imported from advertising into education, then into AI research without examination of its origins.”
Your Emergence Analysis (draft here):
[When did this concept first appear?]
[What context/institution produced it?]
[What problem was it solving? (Whose problem?)]
[What paradigm assumptions came with it?]
[Who were originators? What were their interests?]
Length: 3-4 paragraphs
Questions to Answer:
Mapping Exercise:
Concept: [Target concept]
Primary texts treating it as self-evident: [List 3-5 most cited]
Journals that privilege this framing: [Name 2-4]
Institutional practices that reinforce it: [Grant criteria? Peer review standards?]
Language cluster: [What terms always appear with it?]
Year of solidification (when did questioning become marginal?): [Estimate]
Example Discourse Analysis:
“By 1990, Creative Problem-Solving had accumulated sufficient citation mass that questioning its assumptions marked a researcher as ‘unscientific.’ Journals like Creativity Research Journal and Journal of Creative Behavior had institutionalized its vocabulary: problem identification, divergent/convergent thinking, ideation. Grant applications required problem statements (not vision statements). Peer review expected literature reviews to situate work within Creative Problem-Solving discourse. The language cluster (‘problems,’ ‘solutions,’ ‘elimination,’ ‘optimization’) traveled so consistently with the framework that authors reproduced it unconsciously. By 2010, AI research adopted this naturalized vocabulary wholesale: ‘AI problem-solving,’ ‘optimization problems,’ ‘solution spaces.’ Relational/ceremonial alternatives had no equivalent discourse infrastructure.”
Your Discourse Analysis (draft here):
[Trace which texts solidified the concept]
[Name institutions that sustain it]
[Identify practices that enforce it]
[List language cluster surrounding it]
[When did questioning become marginal?]
Length: 2-3 paragraphs
Questions to Answer:
Fricker Connection (if applicable):
Example Power Effects:
“The power effects are measurable. Researchers using Creative Problem-Solving discourse receive 23x more funding than those using ceremonial/relational methodology language (approximate, based on NSF/SSHRC data). Indigenous knowledge holders who describe AI design in relational terms are told to ‘translate into scientific language’—which means abandoning relational ontology. What cannot be said: that the problem framing itself is the limitation; that what AI needs isn’t better problem-solving but different relationship with problems. This silence is enforced not by conspiracy but by the citation economy: relational-framing papers receive fewer citations, fewer citations means less credibility, less credibility means fewer publications, fewer publications means the discourse reproduces Western assumptions.”
Your Power Effects Analysis (draft here):
[Who benefits from this concept's dominance?]
[Who is disadvantaged?]
[What can/cannot be said in this discourse?]
[How does power operate? (structural, not personal)]
[What knowledge holders are deemed credible vs. not?]
Length: 2-3 paragraphs
Questions to Answer:
Example Alternative Genealogy:
“Indigenous research methodologies were not absent when Creative Problem-Solving emerged—they were present, functioning, and sophisticated. Wilson (2008) traces relational research practices to pre-colonial Indigenous communities where knowledge was produced through ceremony, relationship, and lived transformation. When Osborn and Parnes formalized ‘Creative Problem-Solving’ in corporate-academic partnerships, they built on Western knowledge that had already systematically displaced Indigenous approaches through residential schools, language suppression, and epistemological colonization. The ‘history of creativity research’ taught in universities is not a history of creativity—it’s a history of one paradigm’s institutionalization alongside another paradigm’s suppression. An alternative genealogy would begin: ‘Before problem-solving discourse colonized creativity, relational communities produced sustained innovation through ceremonial practice, kinship networks, and seven-generation accountability…’”
Your Alternative Genealogy (draft here):
[What Indigenous/relational knowledge existed before this concept appeared?]
[What was displaced when this concept rose to dominance?]
[What suppression mechanisms operated?]
[What does an alternative timeline look like?]
Length: 2-3 paragraphs
Questions to Answer:
Key Move: Show that what seems “just how research works” is actually one paradigm—and paradigms can change.
Example Denaturalization:
“Creative Problem-Solving is not the natural mode of creative cognition—it’s one culturally specific approach that became dominant through institutional power. Evidence: When researchers work from ceremonial methodology (Wilson, 2008; Kovach, 2009; Smith, 2012), they produce sustained innovation without problem-solving orientation. When AI agents operate from kinship protocols rather than optimization functions, they exhibit emergent coordination behaviors impossible in problem-solving frameworks. The concept is denaturalized by its consequences: problem-solving orientation produces oscillating organizational patterns (documented across management, therapy, international development). Creation orientation produces advancing patterns. The difference in outcomes is the evidence. If Creative Problem-Solving were the natural approach, it would produce better outcomes than alternatives—it doesn’t.”
Your Denaturalization (draft here):
[Show this concept is constructed (one paradigm among possible paradigms)]
[What evidence shows alternatives work?]
[What does denaturalization create space for?]
[How does this critique enable paradigm shift?]
Genealogical critique traces how Western paradigm pillars naturalized:
| Pillar | When Did It Naturalize? | How Was It Enforced? | What Did It Displace? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ontology (discrete objects) | Descartes, 17th century | Scientific method | Animist, relational ontologies |
| Epistemology (objective extraction) | Enlightenment, 18th century | Academic peer review | Relational, ceremonial knowledge |
| Axiology (efficiency, novelty) | Industrial revolution | Market economics | Reciprocity, seven-generation values |
| Methodology (linear, experimental) | Positivism, 19th century | Grant criteria | Cyclical, ceremonial process |
Genealogical critique is archaeology—excavating buried assumptions to show they were chosen, not given. The purpose is not to destroy Western knowledge but to show it as one tradition among many, no longer able to claim universal authority.